Before settling on the subject of his groundbreaking Neoclassical icon, The Oath of the Horatii (1784, Musée du Louvre, Paris), David made several exploratory drawings of related episodes of the same story, including this Death of Camilla, which may have been his first idea for the composition. As recounted in Livy's Roman History, to spare lives the ancient tribes of the Romans and the Albans each delegated three warriors to engage in a battle that would settle a larger dispute. When the Roman Horatius, the lone survivor, returned victorious, he found his sister Camilla, who had been engaged to one of his opponents, mourning her slain fiancé. Angered by her unpatriotic response, Horatius killed her.

Although David ultimately chose an earlier and less unsavory moment of the story, he carried over into the final painted version the idea of the female expression of grief as a counterpoint to male acts of bravery and patriotism. Themes of love and duty opposed held a strong attraction for David in the 1780s, seemingly anticipating the impending political turmoil of the French Revolution and its aftermath.