By Janet Pearce
Over fall break, I had a top-ten life experience. My visit to Parco Archeologico di Cuma (Cuma Archaeological Park), located in the ancient city outside of Naples, Italy, transported me back to the eight years I spent studying Latin. With newfound knowledge from Dr. Tartaron’s Introduction to Mediterranean Archaeology course, I explored the secluded yet rich remains of the first Greek colony and its ties to Rome’s founding. This archaeological site displays lines from Virgil’s Aeneid book VI and recalls the scene in which Aeneas visits the Sibyl of Cumae and initiates his passage to the underworld.1
Janet Pearce returns to her love for Latin, the Aeneid, and Roman history with a visit to Parco Archeologico di Cuma. She is photographed with one of the site’s displays of Vergil’s epic poem.
In Cumae, Aeneas finds Sibyl in the Temple of Apollo, from which they descend to her cave. Calling on Apollo and hopeful that his people will settle in Latium, Aeneas promises to honor Apollo with a temple in his future kingdom and begs him to deliver his prophecy. Possessed by the god, Sibyl shares Aeneas’s fate, saying that the Trojans will make it to Italy but only after another war. In response, Aeneas requests to see his father in the underworld. Ultimately, Sibyl travels with Aeneas, who is still a live soul, only after he puts Misenus to rest and finds the golden bough at Avernus.2, 3 There, they cross into the underworld.
The ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Parco Archeologico di Cuma, where Aeneas meets Sibyl in Book VI.
In the underworld, Aeneas meets Charon, the ferryman of the underworld. Aeneas presents Charon with the golden bough, who then helps living Aeneas cross the River Styx. Soon, he encounters many monsters as well as known souls, including Cerberus, Dido, Greek war heroes, and his father Anchises. From his father, Aeneas learns about the future prosperity and power of his descendants: the Romans. At this moment, readers see an Aeneas, who is both conflicted by his own piety — “Troius Aeneas, pietate insignis” — as he confronts the pressure of fulfilling the fate of the Romans and comforted by the crowd of souls, now in sight and described by his father. With Anchises’s encouragement, Aeneas passes through an ivory gate, departing the underworld and rejoining his fleet. The following excerpt from Virgil’s Aeneid Book VI (VI.847-899) illuminates Aeneas and Anchises’ conversation.4
Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera,
credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus,
orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
850 describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent:
tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos.”
Sic pater Anchises, atque haec mirantibus addit:
855 “Aspice, ut insignis spoliis Marcellus opimis
ingreditur, victorque viros supereminet omnes!
Hic rem Romanam, magno turbante tumultu,
sistet, eques sternet Poenos Gallumque rebellem,
tertiaque arma patri suspendet capta Quirino.”
860 Atque hic Aeneas (una namque ire videbat
egregium forma iuvenem et fulgentibus armis,
sed frons laeta parum, et deiecto lumina vultu)
“Quis, pater, ille, virum qui sic comitatur euntem?
Filius, anne aliquis magna de stirpe nepotum?
865 Quis strepitus circa comitum! Quantum instar in ipso!
Sed nox atra caput tristi circumvolat umbra.”
Tum pater Anchises, lacrimis ingressus obortis:
“O gnate, ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum;
ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra
870 esse sinent. Nimium vobis Romana propago
visa potens, Superi, propria haec si dona fuissent.
Quantos ille virum magnam Mavortis ad urbem
campus aget gemitus, vel quae, Tiberine, videbis
funera, cum tumulum praeterlabere recentem!
875 Nec puer Iliaca quisquam de gente Latinos
in tantum spe tollet avos, nec Romula quondam
ullo se tantum tellus iactabit alumno.
Heu pietas, heu prisca fides, invictaque bello
dextera! Non illi se quisquam impune tulisset
880 obvius armato, seu cum pedes iret in hostem,
seu spumantis equi foderet calcaribus armos.
Heu, miserande puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas,
tu Marcellus eris. Manibus date lilia plenis,
purpureos spargam flores, animamque nepotis
885 his saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani
munere” Sic tota passim regione vagantur
aëris in campis latis, atque omnia lustrant.
Quae postquam Anchises natum per singula duxit,
incenditque animum famae venientis amore,
890 exin bella viro memorat quae deinde gerenda,
Laurentisque docet populos urbemque Latini,
et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem.
Sunt geminae Somni portae, quarum altera fertur
cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris;
895 altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes.
His ubi tum natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam
prosequitur dictis, portaque emittit eburna,
ille viam secat ad naves sociosque revisit.
The others will more gently hammer out the breathing bronzes, but in fact I believe they will draw out living faces from marble, they will plead cases better, and they will map the courses of the sky with a compass-rod, and they will declare the stars as rising: you, Roman, remember to rule the peoples with your power; these will be your arts, to impose the custom of peace, to spare those who were subjugated, and to completely subdue the proud.”5
Thus Father Anchises adds on, as they are marveling: “Look how Marcellus steps in, distinguished with rich spoils, and as a victor he towers over all men! When there is a great commotion, this man will support the Roman state, as a cavalrymen, he will lay low the Phoenicians and the rebellious Gaul, and he will hang up the thrice-captured arms for father Quirinus.”6
And in the present circumstances Aeneas (for at the same time he was seeing that a youth, extraordinary in form and with shining armor, was beside him, but his brow was not happy enough and his eyes were downcast) says, “Father, who is that youth who thus is accompanying the (other) one passing by? His son or someone from the great lineage of his descendants? What an uproar of comrades is around him, how great a dignity in himself! But a dark night flies around his head with a sad shadow.”
Then, with tears having arisen, Father Anchises began to say, “O son, do not seek the vast grief of your people; the Fates will hardly show this one to the lands, and they will not allow him to continue further. The Roman progeny would have seemed too powerful for you all, Gods, if these gifts had been our own. How many groans of men that field of Mars will lead at the great city, or what funerals, Tiber, you will see when you slip past the fresh tomb! Neither will any boy from the Trojan race raise so greatly his Latin ancestors in hope, nor will the Romulan earth ever boast about itself so greatly by any nursling. Alas the piety, alas the ancient faith, and his right hand unconquerable in war! No one meeting that armed man would have carried himself unharmed, whether when he was going against the enemy as a footsoldier or (when) he was piercing the foaming sides of the horse with spurs. Alas, boy who ought to be pitied, if in any way you should break the harsh fates, you will be Marcellus. Give me lilies by the handfuls, let me sprinkle these purple flowers, and at least let me heap up the soul of our descendant with these gifts, and let me fulfill empty duty.”
Thus, they wander everywhere in the whole region in the broad fields of mist, and survey all things. After Anchises has led his son through these things one at a time and he inflamed his soul with the love of his coming fame, he then recalls to the hero what wars must be waged next and teaches him about the Laurentian peoples and the city of Latinus and in what way and which labor he should both escape and bear.
There are twin gates of Sleep, of which one is said to be of horn, by which an easy exit is given to true shades; the other, shining, finished with polished ivory, but the shades of the dead send false visions to the sky. Once these things were spoken, Anchises follows his son and Sybil at once altogether, and he sends them from the ivory gate, that man cuts a path to the ships and rejoins his comrades.
Janet Pearce (she/her) is a junior majoring in Health and Societies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Endnotes:
- All Photo Credits: Janet Pearce (Featured Photo Caption – Sibyl’s cave where she delivers Aeneas’ fate.)
- The Sibyl of Cumae is perhaps the most well known of all the sibyls, so she is simply referred to as Sibyl.
- Misenus was Aeneas’s trumpeter who was drowned by Triton. His body must be put to rest so he can enter the underworld.
- Avernus is a volcanic crater near Sibyl’s cave.
- Clyde Pharr, Vergil’s Aeneid (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1998).
- The “others” whom Anchises is referring to are the Greeks.
- Anchises continues his historical monologue about the Greco-Roman world by presenting consul and hero Marcellus, who was the third and last Roman to win the spolia opima (rich spoils).
Works Cited:
Pharr, Clyde. Vergil’s Aeneid. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1998.