Editing Troilus (section)

====Virgil and other Latin sources====
This version of the story appears in [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'',<ref>Virgil, ''Aeneid'': I, 474-8. The Latin text with links to English translations can be seen at [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0055&layout=&loc=1.474]. Link verified 08/08/2007.</ref> in a passage describing a series of paintings decorating the walls of a temple of [[Juno (mythology)|Juno]]. The painting immediately next to the one depicting Troilus shows the death of [[Rhesus of Thrace|Rhesus]], another character killed because of prophecies linked to the fall of Troy. Other pictures are similarly calamitous.

[[Image:Achilles seizing Troilus.jpg|thumb|left|350px|alt=a piture beaten out on the bronze of the breastplate. A man with a shield drags a naked youth by the hair from his horse.|A [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] illustration still showing Achilles having run down a mounted Troilus. Detail of bronze breastplate of a statue of [[Germanicus]]. 2nd century. From Perugia.]] In a description whose pathos is heightened by the fact that it is seen through a compatriot's eyes,<ref>Boitani (1989: p.2).</ref> Troilus is ''infelix puer'' ("unlucky boy") who has met Achilles in "unequal" combat. Troilus' horses flee while he, still holding their reins, hangs from the chariot, his head and hair trailing behind while the backward-pointing spear scribbles in the dust. (The First Vatican Mythographer<ref name=VM /> elaborates on this story, explaining that Troilus's body is dragged right to the walls of Troy.<ref>Sommerstein (2007: p.200) takes the mythographer's version to imply that Achilles tied Troilus to his horses reins.</ref>)

In his commentary on the ''Aeneid'', Servius<ref name=Servius/> considers this story as a deliberate departure from the "true" story, bowdlerized to make it more suitable for an epic poem. He interprets it as showing Troilus overpowered in a straight fight. Gantz,<ref>Gantz (1993: note 39, p.838).</ref> however, argues that this might be a variation of the ambush story. For him, Troilus is unarmed because he went out not expecting combat and the backward pointing spear was what Troilus was using as a goad in a manner similar to characters elsewhere in the ''Aeneid''. Sommerstein, on the other hand believes that the spear is Achilles' that has struck Troilus in the back. The youth is alive but mortally wounded as he is being dragged towards Troy.<ref>Sommerstein (2007: p.200).</ref>

An issue here is the ambiguity of the word ''congressus'' ("met"). It often refers to meeting in a conventional combat but can have reference to other types of meetings too. A similar ambiguity appears in [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]]<ref>Seneca ''[[Agamemnon (Seneca)|Agamemnon]]'' 748. The text in Latin, in which Cassandra grieves that Troilus met Achilles too soon, is available at [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sen/sen.agamemnon.shtml]. Link verified 10/15/07.</ref>  and in  [[Ausonius]]' 19th epitaph,<ref>Ausonius, ''Epitapia'', 19. Latin Text available at {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20030625200255/http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/epitaphia.html]}}. Link verified 8/8/2007.</ref> narrated by Troilus himself. The dead prince tells how he has been dragged by his horses after falling in unequal battle with Achilles. A reference in the epitaph comparing Troilus' death to Hector's suggests that Troilus dies later than in the traditional narrative, something that, according to Boitani,<ref>Boitani (1989: p.10).</ref> also happens in Virgil.