by Daisy Dunn
Now warlike Hannibal clothed himself with all the wrath of the goddess; his single arm she dared to match against destiny. Then, rejoicing in that man of blood, and aware of the fierce storm of disasters in store for the realm of Latinus, she spoke thus: “In defiance of me, the exile from Troy brought Dardania to Latium, together with his household gods—deities that were twice taken prisoners; and he gained a victory and founded a kingdom for the Teucrians at Lavinium. That may pass—provided that the banks of the Ticinus cannot contain the Roman dead, and that the Trebia, obedient to me, shall flow backwards through the fields of Gaul, blocked by the blood of Romans and their weapons and the corpses of men; provided that Lake Trasimene shall be terrified by its own pools darkened with streams of gore, and that I shall see from heaven Cannae, the grave of Italy, and the Iapygian plain inundated with Roman blood, while the Aufidus, doubtful of its course as its banks close in, can hardly force a passage to the Adriatic shore through shields and helmets and severed limbs of men.” With these words she fired the youthful warrior for deeds of battle.
By nature he was eager for action and faithless to his plighted word, a past master in cunning but a strayer from justice. Once armed, he had no respect for Heaven; he was brave for evil and despised the glory of peace; and a thirst for human blood burned in his inmost heart. Besides all this, his youthful vigour longed to blot out the Aegates, the shame of the last generation, and to drown the treaty of peace in the Sicilian sea. Juno inspired him and tormented his spirit with ambition. Already, in visions of the night, he either stormed the Capitol or marched at speed over the summits of the Alps. Often too the servants who slept at his door were roused and terrified by a fierce cry that broke the desolate silence, and found their master dripping with sweat, while he fought battles still to come and waged imaginary warfare.
When he was a mere child, his father’s passion had kindled in Hannibal this frenzy against Italy and the realm of Saturn, and started him on his glorious career. Hamilcar, sprung from the Tyrian house of ancient Barcas, reckoned his long descent from Belus. For, when Dido lost her husband and fled from a Tyre reduced to slavery, the young scion of Belus had escaped the unrighteous sword of the dread tyrant, and had joined his fortunes with hers for weal or woe. Thus nobly born and a proved warrior, Hamilcar, as soon as Hannibal could speak and utter his first distinct words, sowed war with Rome in the boy’s heart; and well he knew how to feed angry passions.
In the centre of Carthage stood a temple, sacred to the spirit of Elissa, the foundress, and regarded with hereditary awe by the people. Round it stood yew-trees and pines with their melancholy shade, which hid it and kept away the light of heaven. Here, as it was reported, the queen had cast off long ago the ills that flesh is heir to. Statues of mournful marble stood there—Belus, the founder of the race, and all the line descended from Belus; Agenor also, the nation’s boast, and Phoenix who gave a lasting name to his country. There Dido herself was seated, at last united for ever to Sychaeus; and at her feet lay the Trojan sword. A hundred altars stood here in order, sacred to the gods of heaven and the lord of Erebus. Here the priestess with streaming hair and Stygian garb calls up Acheron and the divinity of Henna’s goddess. The earth rumbles in the gloom and breaks forth into awesome hissings; and fire blazes unkindled upon the altars. The dead also are called up by magic spells and flit through empty space; and the marble face of Elissa sweats. To this shrine Hannibal was brought by his father’s command; and, when he had entered, Hamilcar examined the boy’s face and bearing. No terrors for him had the Massylian priestess, raving in her frenzy, or the horrid rites of the temple, the blood-bespattered doors, and the flames that mounted at the sound of incantation. His father stroked the boy’s head and kissed him; then he raised his courage by exhortation and thus inspired him:
“The restored race of Phrygians is oppressing with unjust treaties the people of Cadmean stock. If fate does not permit my right hand to avert this dishonour from our land, you, my son, must choose this as your field of fame. Be quick to swear a war that shall bring destruction to the Laurentines; let the Tuscan people already dread your birth; and when you, my son, arise, let Latian mothers refuse to rear their offspring.”
With these incentives he spurred on the boy and then dictated a vow not easy to utter: “When I come to age, I shall pursue the Romans with fire and sword and enact again the doom of Troy. The gods shall not stop my career, nor the treaty that bars the sword, neither the lofty Alps nor the Tarpeian rock. I swear to this purpose by the divinity of our native god of war, and by the shade of Elissa.” Then a black victim was sacrificed to the goddess of triple shape; and the priestess, seeking an oracle, quickly opened the still breathing body and questioned the spirit, as it fled from the inward parts that she had laid bare in haste.
The Carthaginians lost the First and Second Punic Wars. Years later they were defeated in a third and final war with Rome.
ATTIS AND THE MOTHER GODDESS
‘Poem 63’
Catullus
Translated by Daisy Dunn, 2016
The Romans were ailing in the Second Punic War (218–201 BC) against Carthage when they received an oracle advising them to carry their ‘mother’ to Rome. As was their habit, the oracle was enigmatic, but the Romans worked out that, if they were to defeat Hannibal and his forces, then they needed to establish worship of the Great Mother goddess Cybele in their city. Cybele had been worshipped as an earth goddess across Asia Minor since ancient times. Her priests traditionally castrated themselves in her honour, a custom thoroughly at odds with the Roman way of life. Nonetheless, in 204 BC, the Romans welcomed the goddess, and proceeded to win the war. A century and a half later, Catullus wrote this story about Attis, a man who castrated himself to become a priestess of Cybele (‘he’ becomes ‘she’) only to regret it. The strange metre (‘galliambics’) of Catullus’ poem brought out the foreignness and frenzy the Romans continued to associate with the goddess’ cult.
Driven over high seas in a fast ship Attis
Touched down in the Phrygian grove on quick keen foot
And in woodland approached the goddess’ haunts
Veiled by shadow, summoned there in heightened frenzy,
Drifting from his senses,
He freed with sharp flint the weight from his groin.
And when he felt his remaining limbs were male-free,
Still soaking ground below with fresh blood,
She took quickly in her pale hands a light drum –
Your drum – Cybele, for your rites, mother,
And tapping hollow bull hide with slender fingers
Commenced with trembling voice her song to her companions:
‘To the heights, Gallae, come together to Cybele’s groves,
Together come, Mistress of Dindymus’ vagrant flock,
Who like exiles sought places unknown
As friends of mine and followers of my way
And endured savage salt and wild sea
And unmanned your bodies in deep hatred of Venus.
Hearten the mind of your mistress by meandering quickly,
Let the thought of dallying delay fade from your mind, together come
Let us lead the way to the Phrygian home of Cybele,
The goddess’ Phrygian groves,
Where cymbals cry and drums call back,
Where Phrygian flautist plays profoundly on curved reed,
Where ivy-bearing Maenads shake their heads wilfully
And add encouragement to sacred rites with shrill ululations,
Where that nomad troop of the goddess likes to flutter
And where we should hasten with furious dancing.’
As soon as the counterfeit female Attis sang so to her friends
Her throng suddenly cried with tongues that danced,
The light drum groaned back, the hollow cymbals called back,
The quick chorus approached green Ida on feet that could not wait.
Raging and gasping and drawin
g breath all at once Attis led the way
To the accompaniment of drums in wandering the shadowy groves
Like an untamed heifer avoiding the weight of the yoke,
The quick Gallae followed their fleet-footed leader.
And so when, quite exhausted, they reached Cybele’s home
After much exertion they fell asleep without dinner,
Slow sleep, slipping languidly, covered their eyes.
Fervent fury abandons the mind in soft sleep.
But when the golden-faced Sun with eyes of rays
Surveyed the white sky, hard ground, wild sea,
And drove off night’s shadows with lively loud feet
Sleep woke Attis there and fled quickly.
The goddess Pasithea welcomed Sleep in her trembling bosom.
In the wake of quiet sleep and free from frenzied madness,
The moment Attis replayed in her mind what she had done
And clocked, clear-headed
Where she was
What she lacked
She made her way back to the shore again.
Her heart was rippling.
Watching, there, a desert of sea with tears in her eyes
She spoke to her country in a voice that was sad, miserable, like this:
‘Oh my country, my maker, my mother, my country oh
How rueful when I left you, as runaway slaves escape their masters
So my feet took me to Mount Ida’s groves,
To be mid-snow and ice-riven beast lairs
And to approach, quite witless, their dens in the shadows.
Where do I believe you lie, my country? Or on which plots?
My very pupils burn to turn their gaze to you
While for sharp season my mind is free of rabidity.
Am I to be uprooted from my home to these backwoods?
Am I to retire from my country, possessions, friends, parents?
Am I to retire from the forum, palaestra, racecourse, gym?
Helpless, helpless, heart, more, more, must you weep.
For what shape or form have I not been at one with?
A woman, now, pubescent, young man, boy
I blossomed at the gym; I was the fat in the olive oil;
My doorways were busy, my porch was warm,
My house was decked with plaits of flowers
When it was time to leave my bed at dawn.
Must I wait today on the gods and suffer in Cybele’s service?
A priestess, me, a part of myself, a seedless man, shall I be?
Am I to garden the frozen snow-cuddled soils of green Ida?
Live my life beneath the tall pillars of Phrygia
Where deer farm forest, where boar gad grove?
Now, now, I regret what I did. Now, now, and I grieve.’
When this sound rushed from her rosy lips
Relaying unprecedented news to the twin ears of the gods
Cybele at once released the yoke from her lions
And goading the enemy of the flock to her left, says this:
‘Onwards,’ she said, ‘Go Fierce One, see that fury drives him on,
Let him be struck by the blow of madness and return to the groves,
Since he so obviously desires to elude my authority,
Come whip your back with your tail, suffer your own lashes,
See everywhere resound with bellow and roar,
Toss the ruddy mane on your taut neck.’
So spoke fearsome Cybele and loosed the yoke with her hand.
Roused, the beast incites himself to speed,
Roams, roars, tramples the vegetation with ranging paw.
And when he approaches the damp ground on the whitening shore
And sees delicate Attis near the marble sea
He makes his attack. She, out of her wits, flees into the wild grove;
There she spent all the rest of her life as a servant to the goddess.
Goddess, great goddess, Cybele, goddess mistress of Dindymus,
May all your madness be far from my home, Mistress,
Urge, incite others, drive others to madness.
A COUNTRY VILLA
De Re Rustica, III
Varro
Translated by W. D. Hooper, 1934
Varro (116–27 BC), a veteran of the Roman civil wars, wrote prolifically on themes as diverse as historical chronology, architecture and agriculture. In De Re Rustica, his only complete work to survive, a group of Romans gather to discuss the particulars of country life and villa husbandry while waiting for the results of an election of ‘aediles’ – junior politicians. Voting in Rome traditionally took place on the Campus Martius. Their conversation centres on luxuries and ways to make profit. Although Varro’s dialogue is rather meandering – a sequence of extracts is provided here for ease of reading – it reveals some of the more surprising preoccupations of Romans in the first century BC.
During the election of aediles, Quintus Axius, the senator, a member of my tribe, and I, after casting our ballots, wished, though the sun was hot, to be on hand to escort the candidate whom we were supporting when he returned home. Axius remarked to me: “While the votes are being sorted, shall we enjoy the shade of the Villa Publica, instead of building us one out of the half-plank of our own candidate?”
“Well,” I replied, “I think that the proverb is correct, ‘bad advice is worst for the adviser,’ and also that good advice should be considered good both for the adviser and the advised.” So we go our way and come to the Villa. There we find Appius Claudius, the augur, sitting on a bench so that he might be on hand for consultation, if need should arise. There were sitting at his left Cornelius Merula (“Blackbird”), member of a consular family, and Fircellius Pavo (“Peacock”), of Reate; and on his right Minucius Pica (“Magpie”) and Marcus Petronius Passer (“Sparrow”). When we came up to him, Axius said to Appius, with a smile:
“Will you let us come into your aviary, where you are sitting among the birds?”
“With pleasure,” he replied, “and especially you; I still ‘bring up’ those hospitable birds which you set before me a few days ago in your villa at Reate, when I was on my way to lake Velinus in the matter of the dispute between the people of Interamna and those of Reate. But,” he added, “isn’t this villa, which our ancestors built, simpler and better than that elaborate villa of yours at Reate? Do you see anywhere here citrus wood or gold, or vermilion or azure, or any coloured or mosaic work? At your place everything is just the opposite. Also, while this villa is the common property of the whole population, that one belongs to you alone; this one is for citizens and other people to come to from the Campus, and that one is for mares and asses; and furthermore, this one is serviceable for the transaction of public business—for the cohorts to assemble when summoned by the consul for a levy, for the inspection of arms, for the censors to convoke the people for the census.”
“Do you really mean,” replied Axius, “that this villa of yours on the edge of the Campus Martius is merely serviceable, and isn’t more lavish in luxuries than all the villas owned by everybody in the whole of Reate? Why, your villa is plastered with paintings, not to speak of statues; while mine, though there is no trace of Lysippus or Antiphilus, has many a trace of the hoer and the shepherd. Further, while that villa is not without its large farm, and one which has been kept clean by tillage, this one of yours has never a field or ox or mare. In short, what has your villa that is like that villa which your grandfather and great-grandfather had? For it has never, as that one did, seen a cured hay harvest in the loft, or a vintage in the cellar, or a grain-harvest in the bins. For the fact that a building is outside the city no more makes it a villa than the same fact makes villas of the houses of those who live outside the Porta Flumentana or in the Aemiliana.”
To which Appius replied, with a smile: “As I don’t know what a villa is, I should like you to enlighten me, so that I shall not go wrong from lack of foresight; since I want to buy a villa from Marcus Se
ius near Ostia. For if buildings are not villas unless they contain the ass which you showed me at your place, for which you paid 40,000 sesterces, I’m afraid I shall be buying a ‘Seian’ house instead of a seaside villa. My friend here, Lucius Merula, made me eager to own this house when he told me, after spending several days with Seius, that he had never been entertained in a villa which he liked more; and this in spite of the fact that he saw there no picture or statue of bronze or marble, nor, on the other hand, apparatus for pressing wine, jars for olive oil, or mills.”
Axius turned to Merula and asked: “How can that be a villa, if it has neither the furnishings of the city nor the appurtenances of the country?”
“Why,” he replied, “you don’t think that place of yours on the bend of the Velinus, which never a painter or fresco-worker has seen, is less a villa than the one in the Rosea which is adorned with all the art of the stucco-worker, and of which you and your ass are joint owners?” When Axius had indicated by a nod that a building which was for farm use only was as much a villa as one that served both purposes, that of farm-house and city residence, and asked what inference he drew from that admission;
“Why,” he replied, “if your place in the Rosea is to be commended for its pasturage, and is rightly called a villa because cattle are fed and stabled there, for a like reason that also should have the name in which a large revenue is derived from pasturing. For if you get a revenue from flocks, what does it matter whether they are flocks of sheep or of birds? Why, is the revenue sweeter on your place from oxen which give birth to bees than it is from the bees which are busy at their task in the hives of Seius’s villa? And do you get more from the butcher for the boars born on your place there than Seius does from the market-man for the wild boars from his place?”
