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King Latinus receives ambassadors

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King Latinus, informed that strangers have arrived in the kingdom and that ambassadors have come to wait on him, goes to the heart of his court to receive them, a resplendent building with a hundred columns at the top of the city. It stands in a dense, sacred wood and serves as a temple as well as a throne-room, containing the spoils of war along with carvings of Latinus’s predecessors. One of these is of King Picus, whom the sorceress Circe turned into a woodpecker when he rejected her advances. He is not visible in this picture of Circe and her shape-shifted pets: perhaps he is staying out of reach of her lions and foxes.

Hear the Latin and follow in English here.

The tragedy of Marcellus

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In today’s extract, Aeneas learns in his journey to the underworld of Marcellus, the Emperor Augustus’s nephew. Augustus adopted him as his son and prospective successor and heir in 25 BCE, when he was still only a teenager. It was not to be: Marcellus would die only two years later with his potential unfulfilled. The illustration shows what might have been: the general making a triumphant entry to Rome may be the Marcellus with whose shade Aeneas sees the young man walking, an illustrious war leader of the third century BCE.

Hear the extract in Latin and follow in English here.

Sailing to Byzantium

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Yeats shows classical and Byzantine influences in a poem that expresses sadness at growing old but asserts the power of mysticism and intellect. He may have had this 6th century portrait of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in mind when making his references to golden mosaics and drowsy Emperors. Read the poem here.

Lucretius’s outlook on the world

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Today’s poem consist of extracts from De Rerum Natura (on the nature of things) by Lucretius. He was a follower of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who taught that humanity should free itself from fear of the Gods, death and the tomb. See Lucretius’s poet page here, and hear the poetry in Latin and follow in English here.

In the illustration by Boulanger, the people bustling along the Appian Way do not seem to be taking much notice of the tombs which line the road, according to Roman custom.