This artwork, by the Dutch artist Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719), was inspired by the story of the Trojan hero, Aeneas, being led through the underworld by a mystic woman known as the Cumaean Sibyl. Aeneas was a survivor of the Trojan war who moved to Italy and founded a lineage that would eventually produce Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. The Cumaean Sibyl, one of several sibyls from ancient Italian myth and legend, was a kind of prophetess who could receive and express heavenly messages, similar in nature to the famous mystic women who operated at Delphi. Prophecies and oracular messages attributed to the ancient Italian sibyls were preserved in Rome’s mysterious Sibylline Books. Like the priestesses in Delphi, sibyls were often particularly erratic and flamboyant in their behavior, sure to shock visitors with exaggerated body gestures and barrages of cryptic messages from the beyond—the Cumaean Sibyl was no different. Aeneas was willing to put up with her strange behavior in order to employ her as a guide to the underworld so that he could speak one last time to his recently deceased father, Anchises.
Although meeting with his father was the ultimate goal, the trip turned into a general tour of the Roman underworld. This curious expedition was masterfully described in book six of the Aeneid, an epic poem by the Roman poet, Virgil (70-19 BCE). Virgil’s description of Aeneas’ journey with the Cumaean Sibyl produced some of the most vivid and elaborately-written illustrations of the ancient Greco-Roman underworld, and undoubtedly served as an inspiration for Dante Alighieri’s much later conception of Hell in his famous work, The Divine Comedy. As Virgil told the tale, Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl prepared for their underworld journey by first traveling to a Stygian marsh, where they obtained a special golden bough that would be a key to the realm of the dead. With the bough obtained, the sibyl led Aeneas to a cave that served as an access point to the underworld. The cave was guarded by illusory monsters, meant to keep curious wanderers away from the nearby ferryman of the dead, Charon. It is this scene that Arnold Houbraken re-creates in his illustration, showing Aeneas—bough in hand—at the monster-guarded cave that leads to Charon’s ferry.
The ferryman, intrigued by the golden bough, was convinced to carry Aeneas and the Cumean Sibyl across the river Styx. After this success, the Trojan hero and the prophetess soon encountered the famous three-headed hound, Cerberus, which was easily neutralized with a drugged treat. From there, they witnessed Minos judging the dead. Next, they came across a swamp holding the souls of people who had taken their own lives, and they also wandered into the Fields of Mourning, the residence of souls that tragically suffered because of love. Later, Aeneas and the Sibyl finally found a forked road. One path led to Tartarus, a place where (according to Virgil) souls received punishment for their crimes committed during life. The other road led to Elysium, a place that Vigil described as being a land of lush greenery, where valiant and noble souls lived. It was there, in the paradise of Elysium, that Aeneas finally found the spirit of his father.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Sources:
- The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Classics, 2006.
- https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/372029
