Evander and the Invention of the Prehistory of Latium in Virgil’s Aeneid

Evander’s account of the past of Latium in Aeneid 8.813-36 contradicts from multiple points of view the versions of both King Latinus and the narrator as exposed in book 7. Also Aeneas’ kinship diplomacy in book 8 stands in contradiction with what he had said to King Latinus in the previous book. By representing his characters as manipulators and mythmakers, Virgil reflects on his own manipulations and his own politically interested mythmaking.