Roman mythology Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representa ...

, Pallas (/ˈpæləs/;

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

: Πάλλας) was the son of King

Evander Evander is a masculine given name. It is an anglicization of the Greek name Εὔανδρος (lit. "good man", Latinized ''Evandrus''). It has also been adopted as an anglicization of the Gaelic name Iomhar (the Gaelic variant of the name Ivor ...

. In

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

's ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of th ...

'', Evander allows Pallas to fight against the

Rutuli The Rutuli or Rutulians were an ancient people in Italy. The Rutuli were located in a territory whose capital was the ancient town of Ardea, located about 35 km southeast of Rome. Thought to have been descended from the Umbri and the Pelas ...

with

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

, who takes him and treats him like his own son Ascanius. In battle, Pallas proves he is a warrior, killing many Rutulians. Pallas is often compared to the Rutulian Lausus, son of

Mezentius In Roman mythology, Mezentius was an Etruscan king, and father of Lausus. Sent into exile because of his cruelty, he moved to Latium. He reveled in bloodshed and was overwhelmingly savage on the battlefield, but more significantly to a Roman aud ...

, who also dies young in battle. Tragically, however, Pallas is eventually killed by

Turnus Turnus ( grc, Τυρρηνός, Tyrrhênós) was the legendary King of the Rutuli in Roman history, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas in Virgil's ''Aeneid''. According to the ''Aeneid'', Turnus is the son of Daunus and the nymph V ...

, who takes his sword-belt, which is decorated with the scene of the fifty slaughtered bridegrooms, as a spoil. Throughout the rest of Book X, Aeneas is filled with rage (''furor'') at the death of the youth, and he rushes through the Latin lines and mercilessly kills his way to Turnus. Turnus, however, is lured away by Juno so that he might be spared, and Aeneas kills

Lausus Lausus was the son of the ousted Etruscan king Mezentius, and fought with him against Aeneas and the Trojans in Italy. He appears in Virgil's Aeneid in Books VII and X. When his father is wounded by Aeneas, Lausus steps in between them, and Aeneas ...

, instead, which he instantly regrets. Pallas' body is carried on his shield back to Evander, who grieves at his loss. However, Pallas' story does not stop there – at the end of Book XII, as Turnus is finally defeated and begs for his life, Aeneas almost spares him, but catches sight of Pallas' baldric, Turnus' fateful spoils. This drives Aeneas into another murderous rage, and the epic ends as he kills Turnus in revenge for Pallas' death. There is an obvious similarity between the latter killing and

Achilles In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's '' Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Pele ...

killing

Hector In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...

in revenge for the death of Patroclus in the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

''. A variant of the myth by Dionysius of Halicarnassus says that Pallas was the son of

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the ...

by Lavinia, daughter of Evander, rather than the son of the latter, although, according to Silius Italicus, Evander's grandson born to Hercules was called

Fabius In Roman mythology, Fabius was the son of Hercules and an unnamed mother. In "The Life of Fabius Maximus" from the '' Parallel Lives'' by Plutarch, Fabius, the first of his name, was the son of Hercules by a nymph or a woman native to the coun ...

.Silius Italicus, "Quintus Fabius Maximus", 6. 634.

References

{{reflist, 2 Children of Heracles Characters in the Aeneid