Camilla and Tomoe: female warriors in Virgil and in medieval Japan
By Naoko Yamagata
Abstract: This paper examines the character of Camilla in the Aeneid. She is a heavily studied subject, and here Yamagata asks what Camilla’s models are and what functions she fulfils within the Aeneid, arguing that she is unknown outside of the poem, and it is almost certain that Virgil created her out of many elements. Using both evidence from the text and a comparative approach that looks to female warriors in Homer (and other Greek sources) and Tomoe, a female warrior in the Heike, from medieval Japan. By looking at both probable influences and completely unrelated sources, Yamagata exams common ideas in world literature stemming from human universals to gain a perspective that can provide new insight into the function of female warriors in the male-dominated epic world of war.