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The Great Antrum at Baiae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

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Dr. R. F. Paget discovered the Antrum in 1962, and has now published it, first in his In the Footsteps of Orpheus, Robert Hale, London (1967) and in PBSR, xxxv (1967), 102–112: The ‘Great Antrum’ at Baiae: A Preliminary Report; see also Vergilius, xiii (1967), 42–50: ‘The Great Antrum at Baiae.’ I made my first ’descent’ with him into his Underworld in September 1965, but I had been discussing it with him and working on it before that, and these discussions have continued since with him and various scholars in Oxford, to whom I am much indebted. I am not an archaeologist nor a specialist in the Greek and Roman mystery religions, but I hope that the suggestions of an amateur of literary underworlds, Homeric, Virgilian, Dantesque, may help towards the critical interpretation of this important discovery, and that my preliminary collection of what seems to me possibly relevant evidence may help others to test my hypotheses and improve on them.

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Research Article
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Copyright © British School at Rome 1969

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References

1 I am indebted to Mr. J. B. Ward-Perkins, Director of the British School at Rome, for introducing me to Dr. Paget and for some important observations. I would also thank particularly Mr. Martin Frederiksen, Professor C. M. Robertson and Dr. Stefan Weinstock for their help.

2 Heinrich Nissen, Orientation Studien zur Geschichte der Religion (1906–7–10), is now out of date.

3 First in Ergon (1958). His fullest account is in Antike Kunst, Beiheft I (1963), 3355Google Scholar: ‘Das Tauben orakel von Dodona und das Totenorakel bei Ephyra.’

4 Varied and conflicting localisations were made by the Greeks and excited the derision of Eratosthenes. Strabo believed passionately in the accuracy of Homer's geography, but he drew the line at Avernus and was delighted to infer from Agrippa's use of Lake Avernus as a naval base in 37–6 B.C. and what it brought to light, that the oracle of the dead was mere fable. Modern identifications continue merrily and divergently, mostly by yachtsmen and photographers. I cannot take even Victor Bérard seriously.

5 The foundation of Circeii as a Roman colony by Tarquinius Superbus (534–510 B.C.) on the promontory half-way between Rome and Cumae was presumably intended to safeguard their communications, and testifies to a shared acceptance of Aeaea in the Odyssey as localised there. The name is either propaganda for the localisation or acceptance of a popular tradition. Cf. Livy, 1, 56, 2 with Ogilvie's note; Polybius, 3, 22, 11 with Walbank's note. Odysseus' cup preserved there as a relic, Strabo, 232–5, 3, 6. West, M. L., Hesiod Theogony, Oxford (1966), pp. 435–6Google Scholar, dates lines 1015–8, where Agrius and Latinus, sons of Odysseus and Circe, rule among the Tyrrhenians, to about 550–510 B.C., after the beginning of hostilities between Etruscans and Greeks and before the Latins were distinguishable from Etruscans, i.e. before the expulsion of the Tarquins and of Lars Porsena (see note 16).

6 Whether there was at any time at Avernus either an oracle of the dead or the setting for a rite of descending into Hades, is discussed below in an Appendix (p. 32).

7 On this dating Homer was born about the same time as Cumae was founded (traditionally, 754 B.C.) and began his career when Syracuse was founded (734). He must have known of this colonisation of the West, and the Odyssey is a curious tribute to that interest by ignoring it. He turns, not the unknown, but the known into fairyland and adheres deliberately to the traditional picture of the Ionian islands and sea as near the ends of the world.

8 The clamps at Baiae are 22 cm. long by 7 cm. wide at the ends and 4·5 cm. wide at the centre, where the blocks of stone meet. They were 10 cm. deep, reaching 5 cm. into each of the upper and lower blocks. See Dinsmoor, W. B., The Architecture of Ancient Greece3, London (1950), p. 175Google Scholar, fig. 64, and Plommer, Hugh, Ancient and Classical Architecture, Longmans, London (1956), p. 154Google Scholar.

9 Lugli, Giuseppe, La Tecnica edilizia romana, Bardi, Rome (1957), p. 235 ff.Google Scholar, imperniamento.

10 The Tomba Regolini Galassi at Tarquinia, Pinza, Röm. Mitt. (1907), 35 f.; Pareti, L., La Tomba R–G del Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, Città del Vaticano (1947)Google Scholar; A. Maiuri, Campi Flegrei, Poligrafico dello Stato, Rome, assigns the Cave of the Sibyl to the fifth century. For Kyme, , Dunbabin, T. J., The Western Greeks, Oxford (1948), 211Google Scholar.

11 Napoli, Mario, Napoli Greco-Romana, Naples (1959)Google Scholar. Parola del Passato, 25–7 (1952)Google Scholar is wholly devoted to the history of Naples.

12 Dicaearchia—the name is probably a protest aginst Polycrates' tyranny. Steph. Byz: Puteoli: a city of Etruria, founded by the Samians, also called Dikaiarkhaia. The idea that Heracles built the causeway across the Lucrine lake in order to drive Geryon's cattle over it is not likely to have arisen until the foundation of Dicaearchia, when the causeway became useful as a shorter and easier route between Dicaearchia and Cumae, and was probably built up as a regular road. Before Geryon's location in Spain probably by Stesichorus earlier in the sixth century, he had been placed more plausibly in Ambracia by Hecataeus, cf. Jacoby, FGH, 1F26 (= Arrian, Anabasis, II, 16, 5). Dr. Paget is now working on the Via Herculea. On Polycrates, cf. John P. Barrow, CQ (1964), 210–29: ‘The Sixth-century Tyranny at Samos.’

13 For Aristodemus our chief source is Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom., 7, 2–12; cf. Plut, de Mul. virt., 21; Livy, 2, 21; 34 (439 B.C.). Cf. Pallottino, Massimo, Parola del Passato, 11 (1956), 61–8Google Scholar: ‘Il filoetruscismo di Aristodemo e la data della fondazione di Capua’; Farnoux, B. Combet, Mél. d'arch et d'hist., 69 (1957), 744Google Scholar: ‘Aristodemus: Cumes, L'Etrurie, et Rome à la fin du VIe siècle etc.’; Cozzoli, V., Miscellanea Greca et Romana, Rome (1965), 529Google Scholar: ‘Aristodemos Malaco.’

14 Bloch, R., The Origins of Rome, Thames and Hudson, London (1960), 92100Google Scholar. Criticism of Bloch in Ogilvie, R. M., A commentary on Livy, 15, Oxford (1955), 233–4Google Scholar (no need to postdate the expulsion of the Tarquins, even if Etruscan influence in Rome lasted until c. 450 B.C.) Scullard, H. H., The Etruscan Cities and Rome, London (1967)Google Scholar. Alföldi, Andreas, Early Rome and the Latins, Ann Arbor (1965)Google Scholar, offers novel ideas: but see on them Momigliano, A., JRS, 57 (1957), 211–6Google Scholar.

15 Sambon, Arthur, Les Monnaies antiques de l'Italie, Paris (1903), 139–48Google Scholar, Cumes. Mussels are to be seen on his nos. 249, 252, 263, 273, 277, 279, 290, 295. 290 shows a three-headed Cerberus (an allusion to a Descent?) on a mussel. Kraay, Colin M., Greek Coins, London (1966)Google Scholar, fig. 320R, shows a mussel shell and a grain of barley (or a mussel end-on ?) on a coin of c. 440–421 B.C. Lacroix, Léon, Monnaies et colonisation dans l'occident, Acc. Roy. Beige. Mém. 58, 2. Brussels (1965)Google Scholar; for the shell fish, Horace, Epod., 2, 49Google Scholar; Sat., 2, 4, 30–3; Val. Max., IX, i, l; Pliny, , NH, 9, 168Google Scholar.

16 Tacitus, , Hist. 3, 72Google Scholar; Pliny, , NH, 34, 139Google Scholar; the rescue by the Romans of the defeated and wounded Etruscans after the battle of Aricia implies the same, Hal., Dion., A.R., 5, 36Google Scholar.

17 Ceres Liber and Libera at Rome. Hal., Dion., A.R., 6, 17Google Scholar; 94, 3; Livy, 3, 55, 7; Cic., , de Nat Deor, 2, 62Google Scholar; Tacitus, , Ann., 2, 49Google Scholar. Cf. Adrien Bruhl, Liber Pater (Bibliothèque des éc. fr. à Athènes et Rome 175), 1953; Henri Le Bonniec, Le Culte de Cérès (des origines à la fin de la République), Paris (1958). Alföldi, op. cit., p. 92, dates the temple to 399 B.C., not 496.

18 Velleius Paterculus, 1, 4, 1.

19 Parke, H. W. and Wormell, D. E. W., The Delphic Oracle, Oxford (1956), I, ch. 8, 378 f.Google Scholar: ‘The Oracle and moral questions.’

20 Pythagoras has been the subject of much critical attention recently: Philip, J. A., Pythagoras and early Pythagoreanism, Phoenix, Toronto (1966)Google Scholar; Sakellariou, G. T., Pythagoras—Didaskalos ton Aionion, Athens (1963)Google Scholar; Bindel, Ernst, Pythagoras, Stuttgart (1962)Google Scholar; Burkert, Walter, Pythagoras, Erlangen (1962)Google Scholar; Detienne, Marcel, Homère Hésiode et Pythagore, Latomus 57, Brussels (1962)Google Scholar; Rev. Hist. religions (1906), 2–32: ‘Héraclès, héros pythagorien’; ibid. (1957), 129–52: ‘La légende pythagorienne d'Heléne?’; C. J. de Vogel, Pythagoras and Early Pythagoreanism (1966); J. S. Morrison, ‘Pythagoras of Samos,’ CQ. (1956), 135–56.

21 Kern, O., Orphicorum Fragmenta, Berlin (1922)Google Scholar provides the essential texts. Guthrie, W. K. C., Orpheus and Greek Religion, London (1935)Google Scholar and Nilsson, M. P., Harv. Theol. Rev., 28 (1935), 181230CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘Early Orphism and kindred religious movements,’ give moderate and critical versions of the traditional view. But it was attacked by Thomas, H. W., Epekeina, Munich (1938)Google Scholar and Linforth, Ivan, The Arts of Orpheus, Berkeley (1941)Google Scholar. Ziegler in P–W (1942), s.v. ‘Orphische Dichtung,’ replied. Wilamowitz, , Der Glaube der Hellenen (1932), II, 193Google Scholar, had pointed the way to the sceptics with his famous ‘man spricht so entsetzlich viel von Orphikern.’ Cf. Dodds, E. R., The Greek and the Irrational, Berkeley (1951), 147–8Google Scholar, giving an amusing list of things that he once knew about Orphism and now no longer knows; Boyancé, P., Le Culte des Muses, Paris (1937)Google Scholar; von Fritz, Kurt, PWRE, 24 (1963)Google Scholar s.v. Pythagoras; H. Dorrie, ibid., Pythagoreer; Moulinier, L., Orphée et l'orphisime à l'epoque classique: Paris (1955)Google Scholar; A. Boulanger, Mémorial Lagrange (1940), 69–79: ‘Le salut selon l'orphisme.’

22 von Fritz, K., Pythagorean Politics in Southern Italy, New York (1940)Google Scholar; Minar, Edwin L., Early Pythagorean Politics in practice and theory, Baltimore (1942)Google Scholar; see also Walbank, F. W., A historical Commentary on Polybius, Oxford, I (1957), 222–4Google Scholar on the important passage 2, 39, 1.

23 Ion of Chios, a good fifth-century authority (Dodds 149) in two elegiac couplets on Pherecydes (D-K,6 fr. 4), Diog. Laert., 1, 119 (to be emended, with Sandbach, P. H., Proc. Cambr. Philol. Soc., 5 (19581959), 36Google Scholar, a reference to Odysseus, Od., 1, 3) and an answer to Heraclitus' accusation of useless polymathy. Alex., Clem., Strom, 1, 21, 131Google Scholar, quotes an Alexandrian Scholar, Epigenes (Dodds, 171) for the attribution of four ‘Orphic’ poems to individual Pythagoreans, including a Descent into Hades and a Sacred Text of Cercops, cf. Suda, s.v. Orpheus; Onomacritus, Kinkel, Epicorum Gr. Fr. (1877), 238–41, fr. 1; fr. 2 (=Paus. 8, 37, 5).

24 Dodds, E. R., Plato: Gorgias, Oxford (1959), 297–8Google Scholar.

25 For the Greeks the ‘discoverer’ of allegory was Theagenes of Rhegium, c. 525 B.C., see D-K6Vors. and F. Wehrli, Zur Geschichte der allegorischen Deutung Homers in Altertum (1928).

26 Hermippus (third century peripatetic, a biographer given to sensationalism) in Diog. Laert., 8, 41, who also, 8, 21, says that Pythagoras saw the souls of Hesiod and Homer in Hades, punished for what they had said about the gods. Later writers, Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth., 146, speak of Pythagoras' initiation in Pieria (Thrace), and Augustine, CD, 735, of his necromancy (i.e. he consulted an oracle of the dead, like Odysseus). Aristotle speaks of the Pythagoreans' belief in Tartarus, , Anal. Post., II, 94b 27Google Scholar. For Pythagoras' caves, see n. 36, Iamblichus, VP, 27.

27 Porphyry, Vit. Pyth., 4; Iamblichus, VP, 170, Justin, 20, 4.

28 M. P. Nilsson, The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age (1957), 120: ‘In Southern Italy Dionysus was a god of the dead in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.,’ cf. Franz Cumont, Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme romain 4 (1929), 303, n. 1: ‘je n'ai guère parlé de l'orphisme …. Or, l'orphisme est un mouvement mystique qui s'est propagé en Grece au VIe siècle avant notre ère’. H. Jeanmaire, Dionysos (1951).

29 Trendall, A. D., The Red-figured Vases of Lucania Campania and Sicily, Oxford (1967)Google Scholar. I, Part 4; 447–572: Gumaean Group A, c. 330 B.C. numerous Dionysiac scenes; Campanian, p. 262, no. 237: Heracles, Pluto and Persephone. Herbert Hoffmann, Tarentine Rhyta, von Zabern, Mainz (1966): These fourth century vessels seem to have been used only in the cult of the dead, and are to be understood ‘in the context of Dionysiac Orphism and related mystery cults such as flourished in South Italy’ at this period. Cf. Holger Thesleff, An Introduction to the Pythagorean writings of the Hellenistic Period, Acta. Acad. Abo (1961); id., Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, Abo (1965); Matz, F., Dionysiake Telete, Archäolog. Untersuchungen zum Dionysoskult in Hellenistischer u. römischer Zeit; Mainz (1964)Google Scholar. Turcan, R., Latomus, 24 (1965), 101–19Google Scholar: ‘Du nouveau sur l'initiation dionysiaque,’ with numerous references to recent work on the Villa Item at Pompeii, the Farnesina stuccoes, sarcophagi etc.

30 Lamellae Aureae Orphicae, ed. Olivieri, Alexander, Bonn (1915)Google Scholar, Kleine Texte Series 133. Full discussion in Guthrie, Orpheus. The plate from Pharsalus in N. Verdelis, Ephem. Arch. 1950–1; REG, 65 (1952), 152–3Google Scholar, of fourth century B.C.

31 Peterson, R. M., The Cults of Campania (Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome) Rome (1919), 4598Google Scholar (Cumae, Baiae, Misenum); Giannelli, , Culti e miti nella storia della Magna Grecia, Florence (1924)Google Scholar.

32 Montuoro, Paola Zancani, Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania, 23 (1954), 165–85Google Scholar; Buren, Van, AJA, 59 (1955), 305–6Google Scholar; Sestieri, P. C., Archaeology, 9 (1956), 2333Google Scholar: ‘An underground shrine at Paestum.’

33 Colonna, G., Pallottino, M., Garbini, G., Archeologia Classica, 16 (1964), 49117Google Scholar: ‘Scavi nel Santuario etrusco di Pyrgi, Scoperta di tre lamine d'oro’; Pallottino, M., Studi Romani, 13 (1965), 113Google Scholar; Carratelli, G. Pugliese, Studi Etruschi, 33 (1965), 221–35Google Scholar: ‘Intorno alle lamine di Pyrgi’; Pfiffig, A. J., Uni Hera Astarte, Öst. Akad. Wiss. (1964), pp. 53ffGoogle Scholar.

34 Bakkhoi: Sogliano, Not. Scavi (1905); Jeffrey, L. H., The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, Oxford (1961)Google Scholar: the western Colonies, no. 12, Plate 48.

35 Gaurus, often in Statius, Silvae, 3, 1, 147 f.; 3, 5, 99; 4, 3, 24. Its position, Lucan, 2, 677–8; its wines, Pliny, NH, 14, 64.

36 Dionysiac Caves. Boyancé, P., Rendic. Pont.Acc. rom. Arch., 33 (1961), 107–27Google Scholar: ‘L'Antre dans les mystères de Dionysos’. Early examples in Hom. Hymn, 26, 6; chest of Cypselus Paus, 5, 19, 6; Charles-Picard, G., Karthago, 8 (1957)Google Scholar: ‘Civitas Mactaritana,’ in temple of Liber Pater, associated with Astarte, a (natural) grotto of ancient sanctity filled up and replaced by a new vaulted construction. For a first-century B.C. ‘cave’ at Callatis on the west coast of the Black Sea, Pippidi, , Bull. Corr. Hell., 88 (1964), 151–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Natural and Artificial caves: Porphyry, de Ant. Nymph, 6; Walter Burkert, Weisheit und Wissenschaft (1962), 139 f.: Unterirdische Kulträume; Iamblichus, VP, 27; Proclus, VP, 9; Hippolytus, Refut. omn. haer., 1, 2, 18. The myth of Thespesios in Plutarch, de ser. num. vind., 563–8, is of particular interest because it is based on the Campi Phlegraei: the souls are like birds and go round the chasm because they dare not fly across it (the word Aornos is not however mentioned). A Sibyl utters a verse prophecy about the eru ption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Dicaearchia (sic: for Pompeii or Herculaneum ?). In Latin, cf. Pacuvius, Periboea, frags. 310–11 Warmington: Scrupea saxea Bacchi templa prope aggreditur, cf. Philargyrius on Virgil, E.3, 104 caeli spatium: aliter apud antiquos fuit altissimus puteus in quo descendebat ad sacra celebranda. For Livy, 39, 13: in abditos specus, see later.

37 Harrison, Jane, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, Cambridge (1903), p. 595Google Scholar, quotes Hesychius: Eriphos (kid) = Dionysus. Steph. Byz.: Dionysus, called Eriphios at Metapontum. Clem. Alex., Protrept., xii, 119. For Dionysus as the initiated mystes, Boyancé, P., Rend. Pont. Ace. rom. Arch., 33 (1961)Google Scholar: ‘I have sunk beneath the bosom of the Mistress,’ cf. Dionysus ‘at the breast’, in Orphic hymns. Heracles is made immortal by a ritual rebirth from Hera's womb, Diod. Sic., 4, 39, 2.

38 Cf. n. 17.

39 Etruscan origin of Sibylline books: Raymond Bloch, Mélanges Ernout (1940): ‘Origines étrusques des livres sibyllins,’ and Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte der alten Welt; II, Römisches Reich, Berlin (1965)Google Scholar: ‘L'origine des livres sibyllins à Rome’ (Etruscan in origin and attributed to the Sibyl only after the Second Punic War). But see Ogilvie, R. M., Livy, I–V, Oxford (1965), 654–5Google Scholar, on 5.13.5. On early Rome, Pallottino, M., Studi Etruschi, 32 (1965), 337Google Scholar: ‘Fatti e leggende (moderne) nella più antica storia di Roma.’

40 Bloch argues that the triad is Etruscan, but cf. Wilamowitz, , Glaube der Hellenen (1932), II, 333, n. 1Google Scholar: Benutzt werden sie (die Sprüche der Sibylle) erst für die Aufnahme der Trias Ceres Liber Libera, die aus Kyme stammt. (But he argues for the prior existence of a typically Roman pair, Liber and Libera.) Le Bonniec, Henri, Le Culte de Cérès, Paris (1958)Google Scholar, c. 5: Cérès, déesse de la plèbe; p. 238: si la Déméter cumaine a exercé une incontestable influence sur Cérès, c'est au plus tard de la fin du VIe siècle qu'il faut la dater; p. 246: Cumes est la seule ville grecque, qui d'après nos sources, a pu exporter à Rome assez tot sa Déméter en même temps que son blé; p. 288: (the triad not Eleusinian) parmi toutes les solutions proposées, la seule vraisemblable à notre avis si la triade avait été importée toute faite, serait celle qui lui attribue une origine Campanienne, et, plus précisément, Cumaine; p. 311: au IIIe s. le culte mystique, et non plus politique de Cérès-Proserpine éclipsera celui de Cérès Liber et Libera.

41 Metzger, H., BCH, 68–9 (19441945), 296339CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘Dionysos Chthonien,’ part III : divinité éleusinienne; G. Mylonas, Ephem. Arch (1965), 68–118: ‘Eleusis kai Dionysos,’ his privileged position as worshipped and not worshipper, at Eleusis only in the fourth century.

42 Boyancé, P., REG, 75 (1962), 460–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reviewing G. Mylonas, Eleusis.

43 His nickname Malakos, ‘soft’ is very inappropriate, and may be the Punic Malik, king, the word used of the ruler of Caere. Cf. Cozzoli, V., in Miscellanea Greca e Romana, Rome (1965), 529Google Scholar: ‘Aristodemo Malaco.’

44 A. Maiuri, who had begun to excavate at Cumae in 1925 and announced his discovery of the Cave of the Sibyl (actually a Roman tunnel), Not. Scavi, 55 (1926), 85Google Scholar, Nuova Antologia, 255 (1927), 489–99Google Scholar, cf. Herbig, R., Gnomon, 2 (1926) 747Google Scholar; and Leopold, in Mnemosyne, 55 (1927) 370Google Scholar; Kaschnitz-Weinberg, , Arch. Anz., 42 (1927), 122Google Scholar, later in May–June 1932, found another, and much more plausible, cave which is now shown as, and I think is, ‘the cave of the Sibyl,’ see Boll. Assoc. Intern. Studi. Mediterran., III, 3 (1932)Google Scholar, reprinted in Saggi di varia antichità, Venice (1954), 149–59Google Scholar. But there is no adequate publication with a plan or section of the Cave. I Campi Flegrei, Istituto Poligrafico della Stato, in the series ‘Itinerari de musei e monumenti,’ 1st edition (1934), 2nd (1949), 3rd edition (1958), pp. 123–32, has six photographs, but no plan, and no argument for the dating to the fifth century B.C. Maiuri draws attention to the ‘dromos’ which is a feature of Mycenaean and Etruscan architecture. But see also M. Napoli, Atti IV Convegno de Studi sulla Magna Grecia (1968). On the other hand, there is a large literature on Virgil's treatment of the Sibyl at Cumae: Latimer, J. F., Vergilius, 5 (1940), 2835Google Scholar: ‘Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl, a study in topography’; Eitrem, S., Symbolae Osloenses, 24 (1945), 88, 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘La Sibylle de Cumes et Virgile’; Waszink, J. H., Mnemosyne, 4 (1948), 4358CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘Virgil and the Sibyl of Cumae’; Kurfess, Alfons, Zeitschrift f. Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, 3 (1951), 253–7Google Scholar: ‘Virgil und die Sibyllen’; Taylor, J. H., Classical Bulletin, 29 (1953), 3740Google Scholar: ‘With Virgil at Cumae’; Schoder, R. V., Virgil Society Lecture Summary, 40 (1957)Google Scholar; ‘Virgil's use of the Cumae area’; Merkelbach, R., Mus. Hebr., 18 (1961); 8399Google Scholar: ‘Aeneas in Cumae.’ Two texts describe what they call ‘the Cave of the Sibyl’: (i) Anonymi, Cohortatio ad Gentiles (attributed to Justin Martyr), P.G. vi, c. 37, p. 35A (fourth century A.D.). (ii) Agathias, , His. Byz- Scrip, III, ed. Niebuhr, , Bonn (1828), I, 10, p. 33Google Scholar, 13 (A.D. 552). Procopius, , History of the Wars, VGoogle Scholar (Gothic War I), XIV, 3 (A.D. 536): ‘the natives point out a cave at Cumae, where they say her oracle was.’ He had probably seen it for himself.

45 Maiuri, A., Ausonia 6 (1911), 1 ff.Google Scholar; Guarducci, M., Bull. Comm. Arch. Roma, 72 (19461968), 129–41Google Scholar; Archeol. Classica, 16 (1964), 136–8Google Scholar: Il dischetto oracolare di Cuma’; Epigr. Gr., I (1967), no. 8Google Scholar; L. H. Jeffery, Local Scripts (1961), Western Colonies, no. 5 (early sixth century). The sentence seems to mean that she does not allow supplementary questions, for which see Parke, and Wormell, , Delphic Oracle, I, 169, 381, 397Google Scholar. For Hera as an oracular goddess, Dunbabin, T. J., PBSA, 46 (1951), 6171Google Scholar: ‘The Oracle of Hera Akraia at Perachora’; Hera Akraia came from Argos, and Hera Argeia is found at Paestum. At Lanuvium (or Lavinium) Hera appears as Iuno Sospita, Propertius 4, 8, 6; Aelian, NA, 11, 16Google Scholar.

46 According to Servius ad Verg., A. 6, 9, there was a wooden statue of Apollo in the temple, not less than fifteen feet high. Statius, Silvae, 3, 5, 79 and 4, 8, 48, attributes the foundation of Cumae to Apollo's guidance.

47 Cicero, , de Nat. Dear., II, 62Google Scholar distinguishes two forms of Liber: ‘Liber Semela natus’ suggests the Bacchic extravagances of 186 B.C., while the triad is that of the temple of 496–3 B.C.

48 The ludi saeculares have been amply discussed, but the problems are by no means solved: M. P. Nilsson in P–W (1920), s.v. Saeculares Ludi, 1696–1720; H. Wagenvoort, Meded. Kon. Ak. Wet. afd. Lett. (1951): ‘De Oorsprong der Ludi Saeculares’; = Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and Religion, Leiden (1956), 193232Google Scholar: ‘The Origin of the Ludi Saeculares’; Grimal, P., REA, 56 (1954), 4060CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘Le Livre VI de l'Enéide et son actualité en 23 av. J–C’; Merkelbach, R., Mus. Helv., 18 (1961), 8399Google Scholar: ‘Aeneas in Cumae.’ Valerius Publicola's colleague in the first consulship was Junius Brutus whose family is described as Cumean in origin, Plutarch, Caes., 61, cf. Sulla from Sibylla, Livy, 25, 12, 3.

49 By Valerius Maximus, 2, 4, 5 and Zosimus, 2, 1–3.

50 Festus, 478L.

51 Sir James Frazer's Golden Bough made it famous. Franz Altheim, Griechische Götter im alten Rom (1930) and Terra Mater (1930), gave it a new look, but his theory was rejected by Gordon, A. E., TAPA, 63 (1932), 177–92Google Scholar, and in The Cults of Aricia, Berkeley (1934)Google Scholar: e.g. p. 8, J. Heurgon, Capoue pré-romaine (1942), 305–7: Orestes at Nemi by 500 B.C. and buried near the temple of Saturn, before the Forum ceased to be cemetery, cf. also Alföldi, A., AJA, 64 (1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, rejecting Altheim and endorsing Gordon.

52 Alföldi, , Gymnasium, 67 (1960), 163–6Google Scholar.

53 Livy, 40, 29; Pliny, , NH, 13, 84–6Google Scholar. Cf. Prowse, K. R., ‘Numa and the Pythagoreans: a curious incident,’ Greece and Rome, 9 (1964), 3642CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Plato, Phaedo, 108a, 5: many bifurcations, contrasted with the ‘single track’ found in Aeschylus' Telephos. Virgil, A., 6, 540. The similar door where the South and North 120s meet must have had the function of directing the current of air into the North 120 and so into the roof of ‘270’ where the tiles are, not along the South 120 on a level with the 270. The North 120 is a cul-de-sac except for air. Dr. Paget's ‘Room of Memory,’ hollowed out in the tufa just west of the Temple, is due to a confusion with the procedure at the oracle of Trophonius at Lebadea in Boeotia. This was not initiatory at all. The suppliant was questioned afterwards about his dream-experience so that an answer to his specific problem could be elicited. ‘The lake of Memory’ in the plate from Pharsalus probably refers to the memory of divine origin and of previous reincarnations that the initiate must claim when questioned by the guardians in the course of the ritual.

55 This is the genitive singular. Conway, R. S., The Italic Dialects, Cambridge (1897)Google Scholar, no. 163; Buck, C. D., A Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian, Boston (1902)Google Scholar, no. 54; Vetter, Emil, Handbuch der italischen Dialekten, Heidelberg (1953)Google Scholar, no. 175.

56 CIL, IV (1871), Zangemeister, pp. 272 f. If this was the joint signature of the three Greek judges of the Underworld, Minos Aeacus and Rhadamanthys, they were signing in Latin!

57 CIL, IV, 3347—CIL, I2, 1656 has MAR in ligature, followed by I separated, short for Marius. 1655 has the three letters MAE and AED in ligature, and examples of two letters are frequent.

58 I am indebted for this information to Mr. Anthony Thompson of the Heberden Coin Room in the Ashmolean Museum. E. A. Sydenham, The Coinage of the Roman Republic 2 (1952) provides the following examples: Period IV, 155–120 B.C. nos. 395–6 Q. Marcius Libo, with ligature of M and A but R and C follow separately. Period V, 119–91 B.C. no. 541 Q.. M R. CF LR is read as Quintus Marcius ? C Fabius L Roscius ?, but MAR can stand for Marius, as in no. 367 wher e Q. MAR alternates with Q, MARI.

59 CIL, I, 581 from the Ager Teuranus in Bruttium, found in 1640, now in Vienna. Livy's sensational account (39, 8–19) emphasises the activity of the consul Postumius, perhaps because it was given prominence in the history of A. Postumius Albinus (Peter FHR, 37–9), consul in 151 B.C. The S.C. was famous in antiquity: Cicero, , de Leg., 2, 15Google Scholar; Tertullian, Apol., 6; Augustine CD, 6, 9; modern discussion is formidable, see McDonald, A. H., JRS, 34 (1944), 1133Google Scholar: ‘Rome and the Italian Confederation,’ p. 26, n. 116; and add Tierney, J. J., Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., 51 (1947), 89117Google Scholar; Festugière, A. P., Mél. Ec. fr. de Rome, 66 (1954)Google Scholar; Tarditi, G., La Parola del Passato, 10 (1954), 265 f.Google Scholar; K. Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte (1960), 270–2.

60 As is argued by Accame, Silvio, Bull. Comm. Arch. Gov. Roma., 70 (1942), 1348Google Scholar; ‘La legislazione romana intorno ai Collegi nel I secolo A.C.’ Cf. Shuckburgh, E. S., C. Suetonii Tranquilli Divus Augustus, Cambridge (1896), c. 32, p. 74Google Scholar: ‘But the rule does not seem to have applied to other towns in Italy or the provinces,’ except when extended by provincial governors, Josephus, , Antiq., 14, 108Google Scholar; Tacitus, , Ann., 14, 17Google Scholar. Julius Caesar (Suet., , Div. Jul., 42, 3Google Scholar) passed a law regulating collegia, making an exception for Jewish Synagogues, and in 22 B.C. Augustus passed a second lex Iulia (Suet., Aug., 32: Dio Cass., 54, 2).

61 Dr. Paget reminds me that the ashlar blocks of the Temple are imprinted in the Roman concrete of its South Wall, and argues that this looks like an attempt to preserve the temple, perhaps after the explosion had damaged it, and before the final abandonment of the Antrum, and, with it, of the Temple.

62 R. E. H. Westendorp Boerma, Vergili Catalepton (1949), 95–105, (espc. 102 for the date) on Cat. 5.

63 The fullest account is in Dio Cassius, 48, 50–1; for other passages see PW (1896): Avernus (deus) (Wissowa): (lacus) (Hülsen).

64 Servius (auctus) on Virgil, Georgics, 2, 162; Dio Cassius, 48, 50, 4, adds that the statue above the lake was ‘either that of Calypso to whom the place is dedicated—for they say that Odysseus too sailed into the lake—or of some other heroine.’ Cf. note 6. Nothing, then, about any oracle of the dead, but, surprisingly, Calypso, usually localised elsewhere, in Cephallenia or Malta, see Lamer in RE (1919), 1772–99, s.v. Kalypso. Latinus is made the son of Calypso (in place of the Hesiodic Circe) by Apollodorus, , Epitome, VII, 24Google Scholar.

65 CIL, X, 3792.

66 Liber Coloniarum, I, Campania, p. 232, 10 (ed. Blume Lachmann Rudorff, Berlin, 1848). ‘Iussu Claudi Caesaris’ cannot be right and Thomsen, p. 274, reads ‘C. Iuli Caesaris,’ i.e. Augustus, but it may belong to the plantation of veterans by the triumvirs, Octavian, Antony and Lepidus, after the battle of Philippi (Oct. 42 B.C.) in the year 41. The date is uncertain: see Pais, E., Storia delta colonizzazione di Roma antica, Rome (1923)Google Scholar. It is called ‘Colonia Iulia’ in the Feriale Cumanum, CIL, X, 3682.