66(r THE HADES OF HOMEK. 



or bayck-flowing, is applied to Oceanus. It is to the land of the 

 Cimmeiiaiis that Ulysses came — a land " covered with shadows and 

 vapoiir." Yarions theories have been advanced with the view of 

 determining who the Cimmerians, to whom Homer refers, were, and 

 where their residence in all probability was. It was sought, among 

 other places, to assign to them a habitation in Italy, near Lake 

 Avemns. 



In all likelihood this is the theory which Virgil accepted, inasmuch 

 as, imitating Homer very closely as he does in other respects, he 

 affirms that at or near Lake Avemns, ^neas descended into Hades. 

 Ulysses then, alone, with his companions, sailed from ^sea in a 

 southerly direction, and came to the extreme boundaries of ocean ; 

 where, according to the ideas which Homer had, Hades was. 



-^neas, following the instructions of his father, proceeded, when- 

 ever he arrived in Italy, to find o\it the Sibyl who was to guide him 

 to Hades. The derivation which is commonly assigned to the word 

 SI^uVm, is seemingly correct : Atoq ISooXv], Dor, 2cd<; [ibXla, i.e., She 

 that teEs the will of Jove, There is a legend that, in the early days 

 of Home, one of the kings purchased what was subsequently desig- 

 nated Sihyllini Libri, from a Sibyl, or prophetic woman, who offered 

 them for sale, Hegurding the Sibyls, Grote thus writes: " From the 

 Teutrian region of Gergis, and from the Gergithites, near Kyme, 

 sprang the original Sibylline prophecies, and the legendary Sibyl, who 

 plays so important a part in the tale of -^neas. The mythe of the 

 Sibyl whose prophecies are supposed to be heard in the hollow blast, 

 bursting out from obscure caverns and apertures in the rocks, was 

 indigenous among the Gergitbian Teukrians, and passed from the 

 Kymeeans in ^olis aloiig with the other circumstances of the tale 

 of -^neas, to their brethren, the inhabitants of Cumse, in Italy. The 

 date of the Gorgithian Sibyl, or rather of the circulation of her sup- 

 posed prophecies, is placed during the reign of Croesus — a period 

 when Gergis- was thoroughly Teukrian. Her prophecies, though em- 

 bodied in Greek voices, had their root in a Teukrian soil and feel- 

 ings 3 and the promises of future empire which they so liberally made 

 to the fugitive hero escaping from the flames of Troy into Italy, 

 become inter^ting from the remarkable way in which they were 

 realized by Eome." * ^neas was directed by the Sibyl to make very 

 elaborate preparations for his descent to Hades. He was to search 



* History of Greece. Vol. I., p. S28. 



