Single Combat and the Aeneid

This paper explores the significance of key martial scenes depicted in the latter books of the Aeneid by examining connections between the republican tradition of monomachy, the impact of Augustus’s sweeping reforms, and the probable meaning of Vergil’s single-combat depictions. In concentrating upon the sacral dimension of these connections, it is argued that Vergil sought to convey a sense of the religious (and socio-political) chaos of his era through an enigmatic treatment of the spolia opima tradition.