#mezentius

evander wasn’t really hated by a lot of people in italy for the entirety of pallas’ life up until he allied himself with aeneas, meaning that nobody really gaf about pallas for most of his life. nisus and euryalus provoked the rutulians into killing them by killing a bunch of sleeping rutulians at night. lausus didn’t even need to do anything for people to want to kill him his entire life because the name of his father would already be enough.

to me he’s a symbol of redemption in the aeneid which i find pretty interesting!! Here’s how:

- Mezentius was known for his cruelty but then you get his son which Virgil portrays as quite likable (e.g. by stating that he deserves a better father which implies that he’s at the very least not that bad of a person) which shows that there was some hope for the royal family of Etruria to be less oppressive and get a redemption arc if Lausus lived

- Aeneas didn’t manage to save Pallas despite treating him as his own son and wasn’t able to prevent Turnus from looting shit off his body which Aeneas obviously opposed and I’m sure felt guilty about. So when he comes across another pious son that died for his father he probably felt pity for him because Lausus reminded him of a son he couldn’t save!! He knows there’s nothing he could change about the whole Pallas thing but he knows that he can at least give Lausus, who he may have seen as a foil to him, the respect Pallas’ body didn’t get by not stripping any of his armor off him. To Aeneas Lausus is a second chance Pallas gave him.

- When Lausus dies Mezentius actually feels regret for his actions because he realized that they’ve affected his son by putting him in danger as well as tarnishing his name. He goes on a suicidal rampage as a redemption arc for Lausus