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PER LOCA SENTA SITU IRE:
AN EXPLORATIONOFTHE CHTHONJANLANDSCAPE*
Non ego Tartareas penetrabo tristis ad undas,
non Acheronteistransveharumbravadis,
non ego caeruleamremo pulsabocarinam
nee te terribilem fronte timebo, Charon,
nee Minos mihi iuradabit grandaevuset atris
non errabolocis nee cohibeboraquis.
Carm. epigr. 1109, 19-24
J
ust as terrestrial space, where the living move and act, so too the
chthonian has its own features and a specific topography: the dead
too, therefore,areplaced in a peculiar,andsinister,scenery.The goal
of this article is to draw a kind ofconceptual map of the infernal space and
landscape: a mental map, rather than areal topography of the Underworld.
Of course, such a wide andcomplex subjecthas to be given a limit, so the
analysis will be focused on Latin literary evidence and will be
concentrated mostly on a specific component of the chthonian landscape:
the waters of rivers and marshes (Acheron, Cocytus, Styx). It will be
shown that, according to the descriptions at our disposal, the outline of
these infernal waters includes all the elements which characterize the
otherworldly space as a whole. Moving from the marks attributed to
swamps and streams (darkness, depth, ugliness), it is therefore possible
to reconstruct a complete picture of the Underworld as the Romans
conceived it: a scenery dominated by murkiness and silence (a pa/Iida
regio not visible by the living and inhabited by umbrae silentes); a
formless and unpleasing reality (an informis plaga); a chaotic and
unorganizedspace where one cannot move in a nonnal way and whose
distinguishing traits are inactivity and stillness. Cloudy and horrid, the
infernalwatersare quitethe contraryof those pure waters_whichflow on
the earth and are necessary to human life; likewise, the gloomy realm of
the dead is definable e contrario, i.e. by antithesis of the world of the
living: lower vs. upper location; void and chaos vs. orderedand filled
space; deformitas vs. forma; obscurity vs. light; silence vs. sound and
speech; inertness vs. movement and action; umbrae vs. real corpora.
This work, however, has no pretensions to completeness, but merely aims
rn
to be the first step of a major and exhaustive research work on the
transaction perception of the chthonian landscape in Roman culture.
The very essence of the infernal landscape is deeply connected with
PERIODICALS CONSORTIUM
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52 FEDERICO BORCA
worldly and the otherworldly realities: the point, in short, is the tension
between present actuality and past otherness. The dead are those "who
are not alive any longer," who left this (our) world and entered an
'"elsewhere,"a different--definitely other--dimension. As their ontological
status, so too their placing in space is defined by contrast and in
opposition to the condition of "real" men: the space and time axes
between which the living move are respectively "here, above" and "now,''
while the dead are irremediably confined "elsewhere, below" and
'"before."
On the one hand, since the defuncts left time, space and society, they
became "other" from the living: as a matter offact, they went out of cultu-
re. Yet on the other hand they continue to be bound to this world, due
both to their past condition (they too were alive, before, "real" men and
well integrated in the social network) and to an insuppressable truth: the
dead are the very source and core of the living. No living would there be
without the dead, no present without past: this ("our") society and culture
would lack its own identity. For identity-we all know-pushes its roots
into the past and those who came before. The presence of the dead, of
course, must not encumber too much; it cannot invade actuality nor crush
the earthly dimension: identity is at stake, and the living must also
differentiate from their dead.
It may be expected that such tension should somehow reflect on the
space organization provided to the chthonian landscape. Defuncts are
relegated into a region other from that of the upper world. These two
realms do not have a normal and continuous contact: communication and
exchange between them are circumscribed in both space and time;
entryways to the Underworld are few and placed in particular sites;
moreover, the chance to pass through seems to be limited to exceptional
circumstances and extraordinary individuals: only special heroes are
allowed to run the triste iter leading to the world below (Sen. Herc. F.
1135-36), to reach the regions precluded to the living and, most of all,
come back therefrom.'
1
Cf. Verg. Aen. 6.126----31: facilis descensus Averno; I noctes atqu.: dies patet atri
ianua Ditis; I sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras, I hoc opus, hie
labor est. Pauci... II ...potuere. Aeneas will see what no man alive has ever seen (Verg.
Aen. 6.154-55: sic demum lucos Stygis et regna invia vivis I aspicies) and will go
twice along the path connecting the upper with the under world (133-35: quod si
tantus amor menti, si tanta cupido I bis Stygios fnnare lacus, bis nigra videre I
Tartara...); cf. E. Norden, P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneis Buch VJ (Leipzig-Berlin, 19162),
163. So, too, Hercules is the audax who has run viae inremeabiles (Sen. Herc. F. 548),
who has seen obscura spatia, inaccessa omnibus and ignota Phoebo: noctis aeternae
Chaos I et nocte quiddam gravius et tristes deos I et fata vici. Morie contempta redi:
I quid restat aliud? vidi et ostendi inferos - Ida si quid ultra est (Sen. Herc. F. 604-
14); cf. the excursus ·'De Hercutis ad inferos itinere" in G. Ettig, LSKPh 13 (1891),
391-98. Audax is Orpheus too, according to Cu/ex 270-76: audax ilie quidem, qui
mitem Cerberon umquam I credidit aut ul/i Ditis p/acabile numen. I nee timuit
Phiegethonta .furentem ardentibus undis I nee maesta obtenta Ditis ferrugine regna I
defossasque domos ac Tartciranocte cruenta I obsita nee faciles Ditis sine iudice
sedes ...
PER LocA SENTA Snv IRE 53
Hidden in an elsewhere that can hardly be reached, the infernal
landscape has an ambiguous outlook. Indeed it is made up of natural
features shared by the terrestrial landscape: atmosphere, soil, water,
vegetation; from this aspect, it seems in some way a reflection of our
world. Yet these elements correspond to those on the earth's surface:
down there air is misty and murky, soil is barren and squalid, waters are
stagnant and muddy, trees are fruitless. It is just a weak reflection, then, a
pale doublet of the human milieu (non seges est infra, non vinea cu/ta, sed
audax I Cerberus et Stygiae navita turpis aquae ...). 2 From this point of
view, the answer given by Theseus to a question asked by Amphitryon in
Seneca's Hercules Furens (v. 697: estne aliqua tellus Cereris aut Bacchi
ferax?) may be considered paradigmatic:
non prata viridi laeta facie germinant
nee adulta leni jluctuat Zephyro seges;
non ulla ramos silva pomiferos habet:
sterilis profundi vastitas squalet soli
et foeda tellus torpet aeterno situ
rerumque maestus finis et mundi ultima.
!mmotus aer haeret et pigro sedet
nox atra mundo: cuncta maerore horrida
ipsaque morte peior est mortis locus (Sen. Herc. F. 698-706).
The abode of the dead is itself dead: missing the beauty and fertility of the
cultivated and inhabited human (Roman) landscape, the Underworld is
depicted as a desolate waste not dissimilar from the wilds of Germany and
Scythia. 3 We are not facing, then, an unreal scenery: its components are
not fantastic, but quite familiar, and make this space-at least in its broad
outline-recognizable to human sight. What makes the difference is that
every feature appears to be otherwise shaped, or even shapeless: just like
the frozen environment where northern barbarians live. Ugliness and
2
Tib. 1.10.35-36. The navita turpis is Charon, who is often portrayed as
squalidus, horrendus, cu/tu et aspectu horridus: cf., e.g., Prop. 3.18.24; Verg. Aen.
6.298-99; Sen. Herc. F 764-65; Stat. Si!v. 2. I.l 86. In general, see 0. Waser,
Charon, Charun, Charos. Mythologisch-archiiologische Monographie (Berlin,
1898).
:;Cf. J.-A. Shelton, Seneca's Hercules Furens. Theme, Strocture and Style
(G6ttingen, 1978), 50-57: J. G. Fitch, Seneca's 'Hercules Furens' (!thaca~London,
1987), 302-04. Failor hiemsque tenent late loca senta in Ovid's description of the
Underworld, Met. 4.432-42: E. J. Bernbeck, Beobachtungen zur Darsteliungsart in
Ovids Metamorphosen (Munich, 1967), 14-15, 91-94; F. B6mer, P Ovidius Naso,
Metamorphosen. Buch IV-V (Heidelberg, 1976), 148. Cf. Verg. Georg. 3.352-57:
... neque uilae I aut herbae campo apparent aut arbore frondes; I sed iacet aggeribus
niveis informis et alto I terra gelu late septemque adsurgit in ulnas. I Semper hiems,
semper spirantes frigora Cauri; I tum Sol pailentis haud umquam discutit umbras;
see R. F. Thomas, Lands and Peoples in Roman Poetry: The Ethnographical
Tradition (Cambridge, 1982), 36----38,51-53; on Scythia "like" the Underworld: M.
Hebette, Virgile peintre, Les couleurs dans !es Georgiques {Liege, 1939-1940), 42.
 54 FEDERICO 80RCA
deformity connote the northern wastes as well as the infernal landscape:
both Scythia and Germany are informes, because their natural environment
appears desolate, wild and chaotic, but also because their wide lands seem
to extend with no limit.' In a similar way, the Underworld is conceived as
i,iformes plagae (Claudian. Rapt. Pros. 1.101); inform is also qualifies the
mud in the Stygian marsh (Verg.Aen. 6.416 and Serv. ad loc.: i,iformi limo
magno, sineforma) and deformisthe Stygian wave.' As they lack the order
which man's cultural intervention gives to the natural milieu by
transfonning it into an aesthetically pleasing and culturally meaningful
space, the infernal regions are bound to be ugly, fonnless and chaotic: loca
taetra, inculta, foeda atque formidulosa. 6
In the Underworld, where neither culture nor the forms it imposes can
exist, one will never find man's water, the water that can be used for
cultural purposes: clear, pure, running water, which can be drunk,
employed in land irrigation or ploughed by ships. Down there, for
instance, waves are not swollen by the wind, Castor and Pollux neither
assist nor rescue timidae naves, but
stat nigro pelagus gurgite languidum,
et cum Mars avidis pallida dentibus
gentes innumeras manibus intulit,
uno tot populi remige transeunt (Sen. Herc. F 548-57).
~verg. Georg. 3.354 with Serv. ad foe.: nivis supe,fusione carens varietate formarum
nullisque agnoscenda limitibus, inlimitata. Tac. Germ. 2.1; Ann. 1.61.1: cf. H.-0.
Kroner, EtClass 50 (I 982), 107-1O; A A Lund, P. Cornelius Tacitus, Germania
(Heidelberg, 1988), 112-13; D. Timpe, Die Landesnatur der Germania nach Tacitus in
G. Neumann MH. Seemann (Hrsg.), Beitrdge zum Verstdndnisder Germania des Taci~us
II (GOttingen, 1992), 270; S. Scharna, Landscape and Memory (London, 1995), 81; f.
Borca, Aufidus 32 (1997), 41-59.
5 (Paris. I 949), 44.
Sen. Thy. 665-67:fons stat sub umbra tristis et nigra piger I haeret palude: talis est
dirae Stygis I deformis unda, quae facU caelo jidem); the schol. ad Hor. Carm.
2.14.17-18 (visendus ater jlumine languido I Cocytos errans) explains the adjective
languidus as tristis sive deformis aut pigrus. On the motif of swearing on Styx see
Hom. I!. 15.36-38 = Od. 5.184-86: fo1:ro VOv 1:60c rcdcx 1s:al 01.lpavOc;cl.lpUc;
U1tcp8c/ 1s:al1:61s:mcil36µcvovLmyOc;UOrop,Oc;1:cµ£-ytcr1:oc; Onv61:a1:6c;u
/ Op1s:~c;
1tf:A.nµa1s:&.pccrcrt 8£0i:cr1;cf Verg. Aen. 9.104-06 = Verg. Aen. 10.113-15 {with the
explanation given by Serv. Aen. 6.134: Styx pa/us quaedam apud inferos dicitur, de
qua legimus [324] 'di cuius iurare timent etfallere numen': quod secundumfabulas
ideo est, quia dicitur Victoria, Stygis }ilia, hello Gigantum Jovi favisse: pro cuius rei
remuneratione luppiter tribuit ut dii iurantes per rius matrem non audeant Jal/ere.
Ratio autem haec est: Styx maerorem significat, unde (mb -roU muycpoU, id est a
tristitia Styx dicta est. Dii autem laeti sunt semper: unde etiam immorta/es [...] Hi
ergo quia maerorem non sentiunt, iurant per rem suae naturae contrariam, id est
tristitiam, quae est aeternitati contraria. ldeo iusiurandum per execrationem
habent); Ov. Met. 1.188-89, 737_:2.45-46, 101-02-and F. Bomer, P Ovidius Naso,
Metamorphosen, Buch 1-ll! (Heidelberg, 1969), 253-; 3.290--91; Fast. 3.322: 5.250;
Sen. Tr. 390--92; Ag. 755 (deleted by Tarrant); Herc. F. 712-13: Sil. 13.569-70·
Claudian. Rapt. Pros. l.l l l-16.
6 From a single source two unlike streams flow: alter quieto similis (hunc iurant def}
Sail. Cati!. 52.13; cf. K. Vretska, C. Sallustius Crispus, De Catilinae coniuratione,
II (Heidelberg, 1976), 581-82.
PER LocA SENTA Snv !RIC 55
Here waters take on the shape ofa standing (stat, /anguidum) and murky
(nigro gurgite) pelagus: blackness and stillness, distinguishing and
recurring traits both of the Underworld and of its anomalous
hydrography, are interwoven. We all-Horace writes-will have to see
the black Cocytus winding with its sluggish flow: visendus ater jlumine
languido I Cocytos errans. 7
Not all the infernal streams, of course, appear stagnant and
motionless: they are sometimes portrayed as eddying or whirling, 8 but
sluggishness seems to be the prominent feature (even when excessive
and confused motion takes the place of the absence of movement,
however, those waters keep their strange nature: turbulent or torpid, they
are always far different from the water familiar to man). In the realm of
inertia, where the dead lie passively in the slimy fen, rivers flow slowly: the
wave is ignava (Tib. 3.3.38 [-Lygd. 3.38]) and tarda (Verg. Georg. 4.479),
stupet (Sen. Herc. F 763); the vada are /enta (Prop. 4.11.15), thejluentum
is pigrum (Apul. Met. 6.18) andfretum torpescit (Sen. Herc. F 763);
Acheron is languidus (Sen. Herc. 0. 1951) Cocytus and Styx are inert es,
just like the mist they exhale and the sunless Stygian groves (Ov. Met.
4.434; Sen. Herc. F 686; 869-70; Sil. 6.146).9
A more careful examination of the texts at our disposal reveals that
the lack of motion is expressed in a twofold way: in a passive sense, these
waters are slow-moving, stagnant, inert; and in an active sense they block,
impede movement and imprison. Behind this forbidden mobility-maybe
reflecting the constraint of the grave---.one could perceive not only the
7
Hor. Carm. 2.14.17-18; cf. R. G. M. NisbetMM. Hubbard, A Commentary on
Horace: Odes. Book I! (Oxford, 1978), 232. Niger means "brilliant black," while ater
means "dull black" and combines lack of colour and Jack of luminance; on the
semantics of ater see J. Andre, Etude sur /es termes de couleur dans la langue latine
8
See, e.g., Vcrg. Aen. 6.295-97, 548-51; Sen. Herc. F. 714-16; Sil. 13.562-73 and
F. Spaltenstein, Commentaire des Punica de Silius !talicus (livres 9 a 17) (Geneve,
1990), 252-54; Stat. Theb. 4.522-23; Claudian. Rapt. Pros. 1.22-24.
9
Jgnava {Tib. 3.3.38 [= Lygd. 3.38]) "quia stagnans aut certe languide labens": Chr.
G. HeyneME.C. F. Wunderlich, Albius Tibullus, Carmina (Leipzig, 1817-1819; repr.
Hildesheim-New York, 1975), 201; see H. Trankle, Appendix Tibulliana (BerlinMNew
York, 1990), 102-04. Cf. also Si!. 13.562,-63: tum iacet in spatium sine corpore
pigra vorago I limosique lacus; Sen. Herc. F 679-86:
intus immenso sinu
placido quieta labitur Lethe vado
demitque curas, neve remeandi amplius
pateai facultas, jlexibus muftis gravem
involvit amnem: qua/is incerta vagus
Meander unda ludit et cedit sibi
instatque dubius litus an fontem petal.
Pa/us inertis Joeda Cocyti iacet ..
'
I tacente sacram devehens jluvio Styga; I at hie tumultu rapitur ingenti ferox I et saxa
fl-uctu volvit Acheron invius I renavigari (712-16). According to Virgil, the Stygian
56 FEDERICO 80RCA
absence of nonna1, orderly movement which in general connotes the
Underworld and its dwellers, but also the tie of fate forever imprisoning
man into death: hie ego nunc cogor Stygias transire paludes, I sedibus
aeternis me mea fat a tenent. 10 Death, the grave and the n:arsh c0nfine
respectively man, his corpse and his soul. Horace writes that Pluto
restrains (conpescit) Geryon and Tityos by the gloomy wave that
everyone must cross (tristis unda, ornnibus...enaviganda: carm. 2.14.6-12),
but elsewhere he claims he will never perish nor be confined by the Styx
because of the immortality of his poems: non ego... obibo I nee Stygia
cohibebor unda (carm. 2.20.6-8; cf. Carm. epigr. 1109, 23-24: atris I non
errabo locis nee cohibebor aquis). 11
It has been suggested that Horace could have derived this motif of
the constricting chthonian rivers from Virgil.12 In the fourth book of
Georgics, in fact, within the account of the descent of Orpheus into Hades
there is a short description of the dead surrounded and held fast by the
Cocytus and the Styx; black mud and unsightly reeds are all around, and
the souls are entangled in the viscous eddies of the marsh: quos circum
limus niger et deformis harundo I Cocyti tardaque pa/us inarnabilis
unda I alligat, et noviens Styx interfusa coercet. 13 Likewise, in the elegy
of Propertius where Cornelia regrets her premature death and tries to con-
sole her husband left alone with their sons, a violent apostrophe is
addressed to infernal darkness and constraining waters: damnatae noctes
unda is inremeabilis (Aen. 6.425; cf. 5.591: inremeabilis error of the Labyrinth!) and
Phlegethon is rapidus amnis with jlammae torrentes, which torquet sonantia saxa
(Aen. 6.550-5 I). An echo of Virgil is in Claudian. Rapt. Pros. 1.22-24: quos [i.e. the
infernal gods] Styx liventibus ambit I interfusa vadis et quos fumantia torquens I
aequora gurgitibus Phlegethon perlustrat anhelis; "but as always Claudian opts for
the concrete visual description, while Virgil contents himself with a more subtle and
abstract portrayal resulting in a grander and more mysterious atmosphere": C.
Gruzelier, Claudian, De raptu Proserpinae (Oxford, 1993), 88--89. In general, on the
infernal hydrography according to Virgil see the Excursus IX (De jluminibus
inferorum) in Chr. G. Heyne, P Virgili Maronis Opera, II (Leipzig-London, 18324 ;
repr. Hildesheim, 1968), 1020-22; A. Setaioli, s.v. inferi loci, in Enciclopedia
Virgdiana, II (Roma, 1985), 960b.
wcarm. epigr. 1005, 9-10 Buecheler; cf. A. Brelich, Aspetti delia morte nelle
iscrizioni sepo/crali dell'lmpero romano (Budapest, 1937), 15-2 I.
11Cf. C. Dahl, CPh 48 (1953), 240; P. J. Connor, latomus 29 (1970), 757-58.
12R. G. M. Nisbet-M. Hubbard (n. 8), 230: "compescere usually refers to physical
constraints,and there may be a consciousparadox (derivedfrom Virgil)in ·bonds of water.'"
LlVerg.Georg. 4.478-80 = Verg. Aen. 6.438-39: tristisque pa/us inamabilis undae
I alligat et noviens Styx interfusa coercet; perhaps the verses of Georgics precede and
inspire those of Aeneid: see A. Setaioli, A&R 14 (1969), 9-21. Cf. also Verg. Aen.
6.132: Cocytusque sinu labens circumvenit atro, where sinu "expresses the winding
of the stream that surrounds the shades'': J. Conington, P Vergili Maronis Opera, II
(London, 18763), 441. On later attempts to connect the nine windings of Styx with
the celestial spheres cf. Serv. Aen. 6.439: quia qui altius de mundi ratione
quaesiverunt, dicunt inrra novem hos mundi circulos inclusas esse virtutes. in quibus
et iracundiae sunt et cupiditates, de quibus tristitia nascitur, id est Styx. Unde dicit
novem esse circulos Stygis, quae inferos cingit, id est terram...: nam dicunt alias esse
purgatiores extra hos circulos potestates (cf also Serv. Aen. 6.127); E. Norden, P.
p ER LOCA SENTA SITU IRF 57
et vos, vada lenta, paludes'. I et quaecumque meos implicat unda pedes. 14
Among the squalid muddy expanses of the chthonian swamps, the dead
are silent people further marginalised by their lack of articulated speech: a
perfect "incarnation" of linguistical otherness, they can no longer
communicate nor exchange, but are confined to a soundless space.'5 The
nymph of the infernal marsh, Tacita-Muta, is a goddess deprived of
speech:
luppiter intumuit quaque est non usa modeste
eripit huic linguam Mercuriumque vocat:
'Due hanc ad Manes-locus ille si/entibus aptus-;
nympha, sed infernae nympha paludis erit '.
lussa Jovisfiunt... (Ov. Fast. 2.607-11).
The inactivity and the closure which mark the otherworldly reality as a
whole (it is a regnum inerte: Lucan. 6, 799) are mirrored in the stillness of
infernal marshes. 16 It is the nature itself of such waters that brings about
both their immobility and their power of immobilizing. As literary
descriptions of swamps and bogs on the earth's surface testify, the
Romans knew well the distinctive qualities of muddy water:" undrinkable,
unhealthy and useless because stagnant, dense, dirty and impure, it is
gravis at the highest degree; motionless and unpassable at the same time,
it hampers and paralyzes. Running water is ''normal" and means life;
unmoving water is "abnonnal," dead and putrid, and is therefore logically
Vergilius Maro, Aeneis Buch VJ (Leipzig-Berlin, 19161), 26--28, 247: see W. Richter,
Vergil, Georgica (Mlinchen, 1957), 397 and R. A B. Mynors, Virgil, Georgics
(Oxford, 1990), 317. In general, cf. also B. Otis, Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry
(Oxford, 1964), 412; P. V. Cova, BStudlat 3 (1973), 284--90; L. Castiglioni, lezioni
intorno a/le georgiche di Virgilio e a/tri studi (Brescia, 1983), 224; J. Farrell, Vergi!S
Georgics and the Traditions of Ancienr Epic. The Art of Allusion in Literary History
(New York-Oxford, 1991), 320--21. On the Stygian harundo cf. Prop. 2.27.13-14.
14
Prop. 4.11.15-16; W. A Camps, Propertius, Elegies. Book JV (Cambridge,
1965), 156, quotes Catull. 65.5-6: namque mei nuper_ lethaeo gurgite fratris I
pallidulum manans alluit unda pedem.
15
The Underworld is a pallida regio where tenebrosa silentia, squalor and aeterna
nox dominate (Claudian. Rapt. Pros. 2.326, 329-3 I). The dead are umbrae silentes
(Verg. Aen. 6.264) dwelling loca nocte tacentia late (Verg. Aen. 6.265), surdi loci,
loca muta, campi silentes (Sen. Herc. F. 576, 794, 848). See B. Zannini Quirini,
L 'Aldilil nelle religioni de! mondo classico, in P. Xella (ed.), Archeologia dell'inferno.
l 'Aldilil nel mondo antico vicino-orientale e classico (Verona, 1987), 292; and now F.
Borca, JdentitCJ e suono: modalitii espressive dei morti nelia cultura romana,
forthcoming in Latomus.
16
S!at Chaos densum tenebraeque turpes I et color noctis rnalus ac silentis I otium
mundi vacuaeque nubes (Sen. Herc. F. 861-63). In the recessus obscurus of Tartarus
there is a place, which a spissa caligo enshroud (alligat) with graves umbrae (Sen.
Herc. F 709-10: cf. Thy. 993).
17
See F. Borca, CB 73 (1997), 3-12; Id., Towns and Marshes in the Ancient World,
forthcoming in E. Marshall-V. Hope (eds.), Death and Disease in the Ancient City.
 58 FEDERICO BORCA
connected with the dead. Filled with mire, 18 the chthonian marsh
oversteps the parameters of order set out by the cultural code and revives
that idea of decay and putrefaction, which in the upper world is peculiar to
the chaotic jumble of water, earth and vegetable matter exp'.)sedto air. At
the same time, the repulsive squalor of the Stygian horrenda pa/us is
linked to the rotting of corpses and the filth spreading over the horrible
landscape of the Underworld, loca senta situ (Verg. Aen. 6.462). The
marginality of the marsh biotope-a liminal area, irretrievably "other" than
the space shaped by man and culture-entwines with the otherness of
death; the negation of movement and change, the ugliness of a landscape
far from humanity and culture,join with the insoluble clutches of the mud
that keep the d_ead and their past in the space where the living have
relegated them: mto a motionless, static milieu far from the dynamic world
of the living.
Human space-that of life and culture-is open, luminous, oriented;
it is full and meaningful. The Underworld, conversely, is characterized by
closure, darkness and denied ( or chaotic) movement; crowded by
countless incorporeal spirits and still empty enough to absorb many
more, 19 it is a Chaos inane (Sen. Thy. 1009; cf. Lucan. 6,731: Erebi per
inane), an immense vacuum without direction, shape and order. The
potestas of Pluto, maximus noctis arbiter umbrarumque potens, extends
over the inert and immense void, inmensum tendit per inane (Claudian.
Rapt. Pros. 1, 55-56; 2,281). In some way, it is a "non-space" where the
sensation of something enormous (and therefore obscure, not fully
comprehensible) joins the idea of emptiness and that of darkness. Souls
without material body gather together in an unlimited space, where the
lack oflight extinguishes all form: a symbol of the absence oflife, the atra
18
Cf. Yerg. Aen. 6.296-97; turbidus hie caeno vastaque voragine gurges I aestuat
atque, omnem Cocyto eructat harenam-R. G. Austin, P Vergili Maron is Aeneidos
liber sextus (Oxford, 1977), 125, saw an echo of Luer. 3.1012: Tartarus horriferos
eructans Jaucibus aestus. Sen. Oed. 166-67: turbida jlumina; Iuv. 3.266: caenosus
?J-1.rges,:WithJ. E. B. Mayor, Thirteen Satires of Juvenal, I (London, 1901; repr.
H1ldeshe1m, 1966), 211; E Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal
(London, 1980), 189; S. Morton Braund, Juvenal, Satires. Book J (Cambridge-New
YorkwMe!boume,1996), 220. On the meanings of gurges see now A. Marchetta, s.v.
gurges, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, If (Roma, 1985), 821. Stillness and filth combine
in a pallida silva not far from Ditis caecae cavernae: marcentes intus tenebrae
pallentes sub antris I longa nocte situs numquam nisi carmine factum I lumen habet.
Non Taenariis sic Jaucibus aer I sedit iners. maestum mundi confine latentis I ac
nostri... (Lucan. 6.64&-50).
19
Cf. Sen. Herc. F. 673-74: hinc amp/a vacuis spatia laxantur locis, I in quae omne
mersum pergat humanum genus; Sil. 13.524-30: hie tenebras habitant volitantque per
umbras I innumeri quondam populi. domus omnibus una. I In media vastum late se
tendi! inane; I hue, quicquid terrae, quicquidfreta et igneus aer J nutrivit primo mundi
genitalis ab aevo, I mors communis agit: descendunt cuncta, capitque I campus iners,
quantum interiit restatque futurum; Claudian. Rapt. Pros. 1.20-21: the vacuus Avernus
is occupied by a vulgus innumerum and iners (cf. Mani!. 5.737; for the inertes infernal
rivers see n. 9 above).
PERLoe A SENTASnu Im; 59
nox takes shape and colour away from everything. 20 Infernal rivers and
marshes 1 too, show a similar outline: vasti amnes (Tib. 3.3.37; vastus
Phlegethon: Cu/ex 376), vasti lacus (£leg. in Maec. 1.6) immensus sinus
(Sen. Herc. F. 679); and vastitas, once again, implicates magnitudo,
solitudo, vacuum and formido. 21 Likewise, absence of light and
murkiness are a regular feature both of the Underworld in general, and of
its waters in particular; within this regnum opacum obscured by a nox
profunda, 21 pools are shadowy, rivers are nigra, the Stygian marsh is
tenebrosa, atra, nigra, and the blackness of waters sometimes contrasts
with the paleness of the dead: errat ad obscuros pa//ida turba lacus.23
Dark pools in a murky, gloomy space; slow-flowing streams and filthy
marshes in a lethargic environment; enclosing, restraining and confining
rivers into a closed, hidden dimension. Dead waters in a dead world: such
seems to be the principle according to which the infernal hydrography
reflects and reproduces the most important features of the Underworld
and marks its ideal distance from living men and their culture.
FEDERICO BoRCA
University of Siena, Italy
1
°Cf. Verg. Aen. 6.272 and 6.268---69:ibant obscuri sofa sub nacre per umbram I
perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna; G. Funaioli, L 'o/tretomba nell'Eneide di
Virgilio (Pa!enno-Roma, 1924), 30; P. Pinotti, s.v. vacuus, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, V
(Roma, 1990), 414b. On the lux (life) II nox (death) antithesis see Th. Price, AJPh 4
(1883), 1-3; S. Schulbaum, Eos 33 (1932), 117-23; l Thomas, Strnctures de
l'imaginaire dans l'Eneide (Paris, 1981), 114-19, 297-316; E. Zaffagno, s.v. ater I
atrox, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, l (Roma, 1984), 387b-388b.
1
~ Cf. Aristoph. Ran. 137: in Hades there is an immense marsh: A.i.µvTJv
µEy<iATJV ...1tCt.vulil3ucrcrov;cf. A. Dieterich, Nekyia. Beitrti.ge zur Erkldrung der
neuentdeckten Petrusapokalypse (Leipzig~Berlin, 191V). 71; Lucian. luct. 3 on the
'Axepoucria A.iµVTJ,which is l3a8e'ta yctp 1tepacrm 'toti:; 11:acrl1eal. 0w.vfil;a<Jem
1toAA.T]. On marshes (Ai.µvm) and mud (11:EMi:;) in the Underworld see, of course, Plato
Phaedo l 12e-l 14c.
2
i verg. Aen. 6.462--on the semantics of profundus see P. Mantovanelli, Profundus.
Studio di un campo semantico dal latino arcaico al latino cristiano (Roma, 1981}--
; viduata lumine regna, opaca loca, obscura spatia: Sen. Herc. F 608, 707-08, 809;
Sil. 3.601; cf. Claudian. Rapt. Pros. 1.121; when coming back from Hades, Theseus
has to get accustomed again to light and air: vix adhuc certa est jides I vitalis aurae-,
torpet acies luminum I hebetesque visus v1Xdiem insuetumferunt (Sen. Herc. F 651-
53). For blindness on emerging into bright daylight see also Plato Rep. 5 l 5e.
21
• Tib. 1.10.38; 3.3.37; Hor. Carm. 2.14.17; Verg. Georg. 1.243; Aen. 6.107, 132;
Sen. Ag. 607; Phaedr. 477; Herc. 0. 1920. Cf. Stat. Theb. 4.521-22: nigra patescunt
I jlumina; 7.782: arra Ditisjlumina; Sil. 3.484: atrae stagna paludis; Culex 372-73:
ego Ditis opacos I cogor adire lacus viduos ...lumine Phoebi-cf. Sil. 3.601: Stygis
ille /acus vidua1aque lumine regna with F. Spaltenstein, Commentaire des Punica de
Silius Jtalicus (livres 1 a 8) (Geneve, 1986), 250. On pallor as a characteristic trait of
both the dead and the Underworld cf. Enn. Scaen. 109; Luer. 1.123; Hor. Carm.
l.4.13 (with schol. ad foe.); Tib. 3.521; Verg. Georg. 1.277, 477; Aen. 4.25-26,
242-44; 8.244-45; Aetna 78; Lucan. 1.455-56; Sen. Oed. 584; Sil. 6.146; 13.408;
Stat. Theb. 8.18; Claudian. Rapt. Pros. 2.326; A S. Pease, P Vergili Maronis Aeneidos
fiber quartus (Cambridge Mass., 1935), 109-10; M. Tartari Chersoni, s.v. pallidus I
palleo I pallor, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, ll1 (Roma, 1987), 946a.
 THE CLASSICAL
BULLETIN A Journal of International Scholarship and Special Topics Since 1925
ISSN: 0009-8337. Reference Abbreviation C~-~~tI
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Scholanh.lp ~EE~~!Ei!Ei!EiEE~EEf:iEEs!:iE'iEgl~Jb}™lE ·11,:~

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CONTENTS \:1;;~. . ;$,,"
Martin C. J. Miller
14273 W, pt Drive Euripidean Aetiologies '"-•·,J'/Ji:~!}!:.~_,.
Goldea,CO,UM
FRANCIS M. DUNN···············--····--·····--········------·--········--···············--·············--···--····--············ 3
MANAGINGEDITOR
Alexander-P. MaeGregor;:-Jr. The Ritual ofHuman Sacrifice in Euripides
Departmentof Classics'{MC/1,2:9} SHAWN O'BRYHIM .............................................................................................................. 29
Universityof lltinois at Chicago
601 S. MorganSt.
Chicago~IL ,60607-7116 Euripides' Ion: The Gold and the Darkness
773-996-3281 JOHN E. THORBURN, JR ........................................................................................................ 39
BOOKREVIEWEDITOR
Steven M. Cerutti Per Loca Senta Situ Ire: An Exploration of the Chthonian Landscape
Collegeof Arts and_Sciences
FEDERICO BORCA ................................................................................................................ 5]
Departmentof ForeignLanguages
East CarolinaUniversity
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Laurie Uai'ght Keenan
1000Brown St., Unit 10-J Narcissism and Tyranny
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&47-526-4'344 WILLIAM E. WYCISLO ......................................................................................................... 7]

ACQUlSITtONS
EDITOR The Mediterranean Before Modernity
Art--L~Spisllk
Modem&-Classica:I_Langua~_: JAMES G. KEENAN···································································--········································· 81
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ASSOC!A'l'll:EDltdR$ James H. Dee, A Lexicon of Latin Derivatives in Italian, Spanish, French,
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