Roman Myths

writes for children and adults. Her most recent novel for adults, Eravamo bambini abbastanza, was published in 2012 by Minimum fax; for children she has written Il licantropo (Feltrinelli, 2002), Cola Pesce (Feltrinelli, 2004), Susan la piratessa (Laterza, 2014), Eneide (laNuovafrontiera Junior, 2015). She teaches writing to adults and children and has two children of her own, Clara, 14 and Nina, 7.

Rita Petruccioli studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Her works have been exhibited in Italy, France, Germany, Korea.

She has worked for publishers in Italy and abroad: Mondadori, ELI, Bao Publishing, Tunué, Il Castoro, Laterza, White Star, Ladybird, Auzou. For laNuovafrontiera Junior she has illustrated Orlando furioso e innamorato (2014) and Eneide (2015). She lives in Rome.

“Juno knew how it would end. She knew Rome would grow big and strong...”

From Janus to the founding of Rome, interpretation of signs and omens that marked the origins of the city, and heroic tales that celebrate the freedom and virtus of the citizens of Rome. These myths and legends still produce an echo as we wander through the Eternal City.

ISBN 978-88-98519-31-6

€ 18,00

p.

15

Aeneas p.

47

Romulus and Remus p.

Roman Myths

Carola Susani

Roman Myths

Janus

61

Numa p.

79

ISBN 978-88-98519-31-6

9 788898 519316 www.lanuovafrontierajunior.it

Told by

Carola Susani Illustrated by

Rita Petruccioli

The Cumaean Sibyl p.

57

4

CLASSICI

Š 2016 laNuovafrontiera ISBN: 978-88-98519-31-6 Printed in Slovenia in March 2016

by Svet Print D.O.O. www.lanuovafrontierajunior.it

Roman Myths Told by Carola

Susani Translated by Isobel Butters Illustrated by Rita

Petruccioli

laNuovafrontiera junior

Roman Myths / CONTENTS Foreword

11

I. The origins • Janus

15

• Saturn and the Golden Age

21

• The virtue of Picus

27

• Hercules and Cacus

33

• Tages

39

II. The founding of Rome • Aeneas

47

• The Cumaean Sibyl

57

• Romulus and Remus

61

• The rape of the Sabines

71

• Numa and Egeria

79

III. Virtus romana • Horatius Cocles

91

• Mucius Scaevola

99

• Clelia

107

• The geese of the Capitoline Hill

115

Map of the myths

121

Foreword

The Roman stories of the origins of the world and of Rome and its citizens are complex, mysterious and vary greatly. I have been helped along by the excellent book, Roman Myths by Licia Ferro and Maria Monteleone. I leapt at the opportunity to reread Ovid, Virgil and a few pages of Ab Urbe condita (meaning: Since the founding of Rome) by Livy. These three Latin authors lived in the Augustan age.

Emperor Augustus was much loved and he made the Romans want to tell everyone the story of their city and its myths. I read a few pages of Dionysius of Halicarnassus.

I had a good look through Plutarch’s Life of Romulus and the Life of Numa from Parallel Lives. Dionysius and Plutarch are Greek. Dionysius lived in the Augustan age but Plutarch came much later and in a way he wraps up what the others said. Then I put the books down and let my memory take over. I took what seemed like the most important stories and chose the versions I liked best and told them.

Carola Susani

11

I. the origins

Janus

efore the beginning. Before the beginning? That’s odd. Can you imagine anything before the beginning? The Romans say that before the beginning there was Chaos. Now, you know what chaos is.

It’s like your bedroom after ten hours of playing non-stop, when sheets and old coats, trading cards, broken Barbies, mattresses, pillows, paintings and paintbrushes are so mixed up together it seems impossible for everything to find its proper place again. Well, that’s what Chaos was like. And to top it all the forces were fighting against each other. What forces?

We can call them Wham, Bang, Zing and Rumble; or you can call them whatever you like because at the time (What time?

There wasn’t any time) there was no one to give them a name.

Smoke, colours, sounds: you couldn’t tell them apart. The din was bad enough to break your eardrums. Luckily no one had

B

15

Janus

eardrums. There wasn’t even a dog, or a little spider or even the smallest bit of person. Chaos must have been a real bore, if you think about it. On the other hand there was such a contrast between light and shade it would have blinded a hawk.

Luckily no one had eyes and there wasn’t one single hawk in the whole of Chaos. There was a god though. And he had ears.

Four of them, so it seems, and four eyes, two for each face. He had one face at the front and one at the back, where his nape should have been: a face for before and a face for after. People only said he had two faces later though so we don’t know what he really looked like. We can imagine it was chaotic though, like everything else. He was called Janus.

Janus, the god of doors, beginnings and passages: a gatekeeper or goalkeeper of a god, who defended well but let the odd ball through. He set himself in the middle of Chaos like a sieve, or rather like a plasticine mould, and the world began as it passed through him: everything became tidy and found its proper place. The light air soared up high and the heavy elements plummeted down, thickened and attracted one another. The waters began to slide over the surface of this new being that was Earth. Fish started swimming in the new water, birds sped across a sky that wasn’t there before, the gods settled somewhere high above and the animals romped in the fields and woods. And as all this went on, people started to appear. And the minute there was a bit

16

Janus

of movement in the world, Janus found his place on a leafy hill down in Latium, which didn’t have a name yet. And that’s where he was when the original inhabitants learned to respect the gods and look after the dead. These original inhabitants, the Aborigines, were the same as us even though they are said to have sprouted by themselves, like buds from oak trees. A bit wooden perhaps, like Pinocchio would be a few thousand years later. Janus watched them astride the entrance gate of the beginnings: still blockheads on one side and on the other people who were smart, wise and worldly.

Orderly life started under the slyness of his four-eyed gaze.

The hill where Janus pitched his tent, and where you might

18

Roman Myths

still find him, was called the Janiculum by the Romans.

Now it’s a carefully kept garden from where you can see the whole of Rome. An old wind blows there, the same wind that blew even then. At the time though the hill was wild and all around it were woods. And in the woods, along with the wild boar, the hares and the jay birds, lived special creatures.

Some were young girls, minor goddesses protecting nature and water sources. Around them were some pretty unsavoury characters: humans from the waist up and goats from the waist down, fauns. Some people say they, half man and half beast, were the original inhabitants at the beginning. If we think of the beginning, we imagine we were like that, a bit human and a bit not, neither fish nor fowl. They say life down there in the oak forests was a continuous race. Noisy, drooling fauns chased young girls who sometimes laughed but often were not a bit interested. Sometimes they let them-

19

Janus

selves be caught though and if they did, soon afterwards a small creature would be wailing.

Janus watched on with a smile at this lifestyle. He knew it wouldn’t last forever but he wasn’t a grump. He liked to enjoy the spirit of the times so he started chasing young girls himself. He must have been a fun guy because the girls laughed, and they hid with him in the gentle shade of the hellebore and the downy oak. He had children on the Janiculum. With Camese the most famous was Tiberinus, god of the big blondy-green river running beneath the hill.

With Venilia he had Canens, a divine young maiden with a magnificent singing voice. With Juturna came Fontus, god of wells and springs. The Romans had a thing about water: waterfalls, lakes, wells, spas. They seem to do nothing but bathe. They knew that without water there was nothing, no human life, no animals and no plants. Wells, springs and even puddles, every stream and pond had its own divine nanny.

20

writes for children and adults. Her most recent novel for adults, Eravamo bambini abbastanza, was published in 2012 by Minimum fax; for children she has written Il licantropo (Feltrinelli, 2002), Cola Pesce (Feltrinelli, 2004), Susan la piratessa (Laterza, 2014), Eneide (laNuovafrontiera Junior, 2015). She teaches writing to adults and children and has two children of her own, Clara, 14 and Nina, 7.

Rita Petruccioli studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome and the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Her works have been exhibited in Italy, France, Germany, Korea.

She has worked for publishers in Italy and abroad: Mondadori, ELI, Bao Publishing, Tunué, Il Castoro, Laterza, White Star, Ladybird, Auzou. For laNuovafrontiera Junior she has illustrated Orlando furioso e innamorato (2014) and Eneide (2015). She lives in Rome.

“Juno knew how it would end. She knew Rome would grow big and strong...”

From Janus to the founding of Rome, interpretation of signs and omens that marked the origins of the city, and heroic tales that celebrate the freedom and virtus of the citizens of Rome. These myths and legends still produce an echo as we wander through the Eternal City.

ISBN 978-88-98519-31-6

€ 18,00

p.

15

Aeneas p.

47

Romulus and Remus p.

Roman Myths

Carola Susani

Roman Myths

Janus

61

Numa p.

79

ISBN 978-88-98519-31-6

9 788898 519316 www.lanuovafrontierajunior.it

Told by

Carola Susani Illustrated by

Rita Petruccioli

The Cumaean Sibyl p.

57