The myth of the Cimmerian land
Introduction Stories, legends and myths from historical sources of antiquity have been handed down from this people: according to the myth, the Cimmerians are the inhabitants of the land of Cimmeria, a place not well defined by Homer that places them overseas, thick with fog Odyssey XI, 10 ff. "The sun went down, all the streets were covered in shadow. And the ship went to the edge of the ocean from the deep current. There was the people of the Cimmerians, always covered by a dark cloud of fog. And the sun, when shining, never looks up at them with its rays, neither when it rises into the sky, nor when it turns again towards the earth, but above it extends a fatal night among those miserable mortals "
The journey of Ulysses in the land of the Cimmerians: where?
When Odysseus was hosted by the Phaeacians, during a banquet he revealed his identity by recounting his adventures after his departure from Troy. One of these adventures was the journey to the land of the Cimmerians.
THE GREEK HISTORIAN STRABO, WHILE HE WAS SPEAKING ABOUT THE HOMERIC NEKYIA, THROUGH AN INDIRECT WITNESS HE COLLOCATES THE LAND OF CIMMERIANS NEAR THE LAKE AVERNUS AND CONNECTS IT TO THE ORACLE OF THE DEAD LOCATED UNDERGROUND NEAR THE ENTRANCE OF THE HADES.
The journey of Ulysses in the land of the Cimmerians: who are they?
For Homer the Cimmerians were the inhabitants of a mythical land beyond the Ocean, perhaps located in the far north, shrouded in mists, where the sun never comes (which is also the opinion of the historian Herodotus). We follow the suggestive text of Strabo, supported by the latin tradition that located the entrance of the underworld in the same place (Virgil’s Aeneid).
THE IMAGE SHOWS A FUMAROLE IN THE PHLEGRAEAN FIELDS; HERE IT STILL SEEMS TO BE ON THE THRESHOLD OF HELL.
The journey of Ulysses in the land of the Cimmerians: the story. On the advice of Circe, Ulysses in his wandering by sea, goes there with his
companions, for the nékyia (evocation of the dead). In fact, having arrived in that inhospitable land, after having celebrated a sacrifice in their honor, Ulysses meets the souls of the deads who have risen from the Erebus attracted by the blood of the sacrifices performed and, interrogating the specter of the ancient soothsayer Tiresias, he will reveal his future; he will then meet the ghost of her mother, who had died of a broken heart during her long absence (thus receiving for the first time news of what was happening in her house, seriously endangered by the greed of the Suitors). Finally, he will still meet many other spirits of illustrious men and women, including the ghost of Agamemnon who will inform him of his murder.
Hades the kingdom of the dead All the dead, whether they were good or evil, come to Hades through any open chasm in the ground. So, Hades communicates with the outside through all those places on the earth's surface that love sulphurous vapors, boil with lava or open up in gloomy chasms. In rare cases, even the living can enter the Kingdom of the Dead, whose entrance varies according to legends and traditions. To have visited the kingdom of the dead alive are Ulysses, Aeneas, Hercules, Orpheus, Theseus. The entrance can be located: in the most remote western part, where the sun's rays did not reach, in Sicily, on Mount Etna, Capo Tenaro, at the tip of the Peloponnese, Colonus caves near Athens, on the Ionian coast of Greece. In the bay of Ammoudia. Now the place has changed by man, but once, near the Acherusia swamp, there was the Oracle of the Dead (Necromànteion). The oracle remained in business until the Roman conquest, in 176 BC. According to the ancients, the surrounding region, which stretches between the gulf, the right bank of the Acheron and the mountains, was populated by the legendary Cimmerians, gloomy inhabitants of darkness, used to live underground without ever going out into the light of day. This place could physically correspond to that described by Homer.
The descent of Odysseus in the underworld through the Greek Pottery
The modern site:Phlegraean fields and Averno lake
Literary sources: HOMER, ODYSSEY, XI, 10 FF. HERODOTUS, HISTORIAE, I, 6, 15-16. STRABO, GEOGRAPHY, V 4,5, C244-245 PLINIUS, N.H., 3,6 1
By Erika Badenas, Izarbe Biel, Irune Pirón, Carmelo Pirri, Giovanni Andolina