Camilla

ka-mil'a, in Roman fable, a virgin huntress, daughter of Metabus, king of the Volscians in Italy. Camilla was a favorite of Diana. She had learned to endure the toils of war, to use the bow, and throw the javelin. When an infant her father had been driven from his city by civil discord. With his daughter in his arms he had fled through the woods to the river Amazenus. His enemies were in hot pursuit. Metabus hesitated only a moment, then he tied the child to his lance, protecting her as much as possible with pieces of bark. He poised the weapon in his hand and exclaiming, "Goddess of the woods! I consecrate this maid to you," hurled it toward the opposite bank of the stream. He then plunged into the water and swam across, where he found his daughter uninjured. In the seventh book of the Aeneid, Virgil represents Camilla as leading a band of mounted followers, some of them of her own sex. In the war which Aeneas carries on with Turnus, king of the Rutuli, Camilla arrays herself with Turnus against Aeneas. Aeneas is successful, Camilla is slain. In describing Camilla Virgil says she was so swift a runner that she could make her way over the sea without wetting her feet, over a field of corn without bending a single blade. Pope alludes to this lightness of foot in the lines he employs to illustrate the rule that "the sound should be an echo to the sense."