The Roman epic poet Vergil, in the sixth book of the Aeneid, placed these words in the mouth of the Cumaean Sibyl, an aged prophetess who guides the Trojan hero Aeneas into the Underworld: facilis descensus Averno: noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras,hoc opus, hic labor est. Which may […]
Classical reception by Italian bands most often takes the form of recreating the glory of imperial Rome before it fell to the malignant forces, as they see it, of the modern world. Yet some artists, such as the folk/black metal band Selvans, look even further back in the past, to a time before the Romans […]
In the early history of Rome there is no clear boundary between myth and historical fact. What we have left from the ravages of time are legends of heroism that serve to inspire later Romans to remember what values made them glorious. One such legend is about a Roman named Gaius Mucius Scaevola. In the […]
Common to many epic poems and other tales of heroes’ journeys in Greco-Roman and other mythologies is the katabasis, i.e. a descent into the Underworld where the hero receives special knowledge and/or undergoes a form of rebirth necessary to fulfill their quest. In the Roman epic poem by Vergil, the ‘Aeneid’, the Trojan prince Aeneas […]
Heavy Metal Classicist 