Aetna
place · 6 works · 6 mentions · 6 anchored passages
Catana · Sicilian hills · shadow of Aetna
in the texts
Birds
The Sicilian town of Aetna, mistakenly invoked by the opportunistic Poet in verses originally composed for a different city's founding, exposing his flattery as recycled and insincere.
thou noble founder of the town of Aetna thou, whose name recalls the holy sacrifices, make us such gift as thy generous heart shall suggest.
The Trojan Women
Volcanic mountain in Sicily, named by the chorus as the legendary home of Hephaestus and a possible land of exile.
They tell me too Hephaestus’ home, beneath the shadow of Aetna, fronting Phoenicia, the mother of Sicilian hills, is famous for the crowns it gives to valor.
De Rerum Natura
Mount Aetna, the active volcano in Sicily, described as threatening to gather new furies and vomit fires in the geographical ekphrasis of Empedocles's homeland.
and here Aetna rumbles threats
To gather anew such furies of its flames
As with its force anew to vomit fires,
Ichneutae
Aetna is mentioned as the place associated with horned beetles in the chorus's guesses about the tortoise.
Is it like one of the horned beetles that live on Aetna?
Apologeticum
The volcano near Catana into which Empedocles is said to have thrown himself.
Empedocles gave his whole self to the fires of Aetna at Catana:
De Anima
Volcano into which Empedocles reportedly leapt to his death.
Plainly, as a fish, that he might not rot in some more decent burial, he chose rather to be roasted by hurling himself into Aetna.