Enea e Turno; il paesaggio del mito tra geologia ed archeologia
Author(s)
Date Issued
2022
Type
article
Volume
109/2022
Start Page
123
End Page
136
Abstract
The territory of the Roman coast that develops between the mouth of the Tiber, the Fosso dell’Incastro river and the Colli Albani volcanic complex, is rich in archaeological evidence associated more or less directly with the myth of Aeneas and his opponent Turno, demigods whose deeds are celebrated in the classics and in particular by the Virgilian narration wanted by Ottaviano Augusto. This landscape, at the dawn of the archaic history of Rome, was very different from the present, and was characterized by a wide system of coastal lagoons in communication with the open sea, into converged waterways that, from the slopes of the Colli Albani Hills, come directly to the Tyrrhenian Sea. An ideal places to represent the landing point of “heroes from
the sea”, who from Greece and Asia Minor, went up the coast in search of the precious metals of Etruria and Elba Island. The recognition of a Trojan geography at Lavinium, in full agreement with ancient sources, is outlined by the identification of a large coastal sanctuary, the Locus Solis
Indigetis recalled by historical sources at the river Numicus (corresponding to the current Fosso di Practica river). The myth of Turno instead develops around the ancient city of Ardea and around the archaic sanctuary, near the Fosso dell’Incastro river, (later fortified), attributed to the Castrum
Inui of the sources, in parallel with that of Lavinium. The myths of Aeneas, Turnus and the various others characters narrated by Virgil are indissolubly associated with the geological landscape of this extraordinary territory, proposed as a qualified context for the establishment of a Virgilian Park.
Subjects