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102-748: The plain is a geographical depression of tectonic origin formed during the Apennine orogeny between the Pliocene and Quaternary . To the west, Fucino borders the Palentini plains , while the Giovenco, Vallelonga, and Roveto valleys converge towards the Fucine plain. Due to the absence of outlets and the sudden variations in the water level causing floods or unhealthy drying, it was the subject of numerous attempts at regulation. The first partial draining of

204-539: A city from which Rome would emerge. The Aeneid 's first six books describe the journey of Aeneas from Troy to Rome. Virgil made use of several models in the composition of his epic; Homer, the pre-eminent author of classical epic, is everywhere present, but Virgil also makes special use of the Latin poet Ennius and the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes among the various other writers to whom he alludes. Although

306-419: A combination of regional tectonics, recent instrumentally recorded events, accounts of historical earthquakes, and geomorphological evidence. This information can then be used to quantify the seismic hazard of an area. Impact tectonics is the study of modification of the lithosphere through high velocity impact cratering events. Techniques used in the analysis of tectonics on Earth have also been applied to

408-473: A commentator of the 4th century AD, based his work on the commentary of Donatus . Servius's commentary provides us with a great deal of information about Virgil's life, sources, and references; however, many modern scholars find the variable quality of his work and the often simplistic interpretations frustrating. Even as the Western Roman Empire collapsed, literate men acknowledged that Virgil

510-532: A district 1.9 mi (3 km) from the centre of Naples , near the Mergellina harbour, on the road heading north along the coast to Pozzuoli . While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of pilgrimages and veneration. Through

612-461: A fresh perspective. Eclogues 1 and 9 address the land confiscations and their effects on the Italian countryside. 2 and 3 are pastoral and erotic, discussing both homosexual love ( Ecl . 2) and attraction toward people of any gender ( Ecl . 3). Eclogue 4 , addressed to Asinius Pollio , the so-called "Messianic Eclogue", uses the imagery of the golden age in connection with the birth of a child (who

714-450: A lecture on the subject "What Is a Classic?" by asserting as self-evidently true that "whatever the definition we arrive at, it cannot be one which excludes Virgil – we may say confidently that it must be one which will expressly reckon with him." Biographical information about Virgil is transmitted chiefly in vitae ('lives') of the poet prefixed to commentaries on his work by Probus , Donatus , and Servius . The life given by Donatus

816-476: A lowering up to 7,500-6,500 years ago, a subsequent rise up to 5,000 years ago, a decrease up to 2,800 years ago, a rise up to 2,300 years ago, a decrease up to 1,800 years ago, which continued until the 17th century of our era, reaching historical limits. During the Little Ice Age in the period 1750 - 1861, the last important rise occurred. The waters are drained by a system of drainage channels, built in

918-460: A member of the gens Magia , to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at Casalpoglio , just 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua, which led Robert Seymour Conway to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or Carpenedolo , not Pietole,

1020-409: A memoir of his friend Virgil, and Suetonius likely drew on this lost work and other sources contemporary with the poet. A life written in verse by the grammarian Phocas (probably active in the 4th through 5th century AD) differs in some details from Donatus and Servius. Henry Nettleship believed that the life attributed to Probus may have drawn independently from the same sources as Suetonius, but it

1122-495: A particularly important example of post-Virgilian response to the epic genre. Lucan 's epic, the Bellum Civile , has been considered an anti-Virgilian epic, disposing of the divine mechanism, treating historical events, and diverging drastically from Virgilian epic practice. The Flavian-era poet Statius in his 12-book epic Thebaid engages closely with the poetry of Virgil; in his epilogue he advises his poem not to "rival

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1224-495: A pillar that was of bright tin-plated iron"), and in the Divine Comedy , in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory , Dante pays tribute to Virgil with the words tu se' solo colui da cu'io tolsi / lo bello stile che m'ha fatto onore ( Inf. I.86–7) ("thou art alone the one from whom I took the beautiful style that has done honour to me"). In the 20th Century, T. S. Eliot famously began

1326-524: A process ultimately driven by the continuous loss of heat from the Earth's interior. There are three main types of plate boundaries: divergent , where plates move apart from each other and new lithosphere is formed in the process of sea-floor spreading ; transform , where plates slide past each other, and convergent , where plates converge and lithosphere is "consumed" by the process of subduction . Convergent and transform boundaries are responsible for most of

1428-470: A refugee of the Trojan War , named Aeneas , as he struggles to fulfill his destiny. His intentions are to reach Italy, where his descendants Romulus and Remus are to found the city of Rome. The epic poem consists of 12 books in dactylic hexameter verse which describe the journey of Aeneas , a warrior fleeing the sack of Troy, to Italy, his battle with the Italian prince Turnus, and the foundation of

1530-473: A standard school text, and stood as the most popular Latin poet through late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and early modernity, exerting inestimable influence on all subsequent Western literature . Geoffrey Chaucer assigned Virgil a uniquely prominent position among all the celebrities of human history in The House of Fame (1486–7), describing him as standing on a pilere / that was of tinned yren clere ("on

1632-677: Is attributed by other authorities to an anonymous author of the 5th or 6th century AD who drew on Donatus, Servius, and Phocas. The Servian life was the principal source of Virgil's biography for medieval readers, while the Donatian life enjoyed a more limited circulation, and the lives of Phocas and Probus remained largely unknown. Although the commentaries record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on allegorizing and on inferences drawn from his poetry. For this reason, details regarding Virgil's life story are considered somewhat problematic. According to

1734-415: Is found at divergent plate boundaries, in continental rifts , during and after a period of continental collision caused by the lateral spreading of the thickened crust formed, at releasing bends in strike-slip faults , in back-arc basins , and on the continental end of passive margin sequences where a detachment layer is present. Thrust tectonics is associated with the shortening and thickening of

1836-409: Is generally considered to closely reproduce the life of Virgil from a lost work of Suetonius on the lives of famous authors, just as Donatus used this source for the poet's life in his commentary on Terence , where Suetonius is explicitly credited. The far shorter life given by Servius likewise seems to be an abridgement of Suetonius except for one or two statements. Varius is said to have written

1938-403: Is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or his later biographers. A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante, identifies Andes with modern Pietole , two or three miles southeast of Mantua. The ancient biography attributed to Probus records that Andes was thirty Roman miles (about 45 kilometres or 28 miles) from Mantua. There are eight or nine references to

2040-577: Is often mentioned, and Varius Rufus , who later helped finish the Aeneid . At Maecenas's insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long dactylic hexameter poem called the Georgics (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to Propertius , by Augustus . According to

2142-410: Is said to have received the toga virilis on the very day that Lucretius died. From Cremona, he moved to Milan, and shortly afterwards to Rome. After briefly considering a career in rhetoric and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry. Despite the biographers statements that Virgil's family was of modest means, these accounts of his education, as well as of his ceremonial assumption of

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2244-473: Is the character of Aeneas. As the protagonist of the poem, Aeneas seems to waver constantly between his emotions and commitment to his prophetic duty to found Rome; critics note the breakdown of Aeneas's emotional control in the last sections of the poem where the "pious" and "righteous" Aeneas mercilessly slaughters Turnus. The Aeneid appears to have been a great success. Virgil is said to have recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus; and Book 6 apparently caused

2346-456: Is the site of Andes. E. K. Rand defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that Egnazio 's 1507 edition of Probus' commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from Bobbio Abbey which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing that this is the correct reading. Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that

2448-661: The Divine Comedy . Dante also mentions Virgil in De vulgari eloquentia , as one of the four regulati poetae along with Ovid , Lucan and Statius (ii, vi, 7). The Renaissance saw a number of authors inspired to write epic in Virgil's wake: Edmund Spenser called himself the English Virgil; Paradise Lost was influenced by the example of the Aeneid ; and later artists influenced by Virgil include Berlioz and Hermann Broch . The legend of "Virgil in his basket" arose in

2550-478: The gens to which Vergil belonged, gens Vergilia , in inscriptions from Northern Italy . Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from Verona , and one in an inscription from Calvisano , a votive offering to the Matronae (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia. A tomb erected by

2652-632: The Aeneid became standard texts in school curricula with which all educated Romans were familiar. Poets following Virgil often refer intertextually to his works to generate meaning in their own poetry. The Augustan poet Ovid parodies the opening lines of the Aeneid in Amores 1.1.1–2, and his summary of the Aeneas story in Book 14 of the Metamorphoses , the so-called "mini-Aeneid", has been viewed as

2754-525: The Aeneid casts itself firmly into the epic mode, it often seeks to expand the genre by including elements of other genres, such as tragedy and aetiological poetry. Ancient commentators noted that Virgil seems to divide the Aeneid into two sections based on the poetry of Homer; the first six books were viewed as employing the Odyssey as a model while the last six were connected to the Iliad . Book 1 (at

2856-627: The Calabrians took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl. Bernard Knox ) Martial reports that Silius Italicus annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), and Pliny the Younger says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" ( Epistulae 3.7.8). The structure known as Virgil's tomb is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel ( grotta vecchia ) in Piedigrotta ,

2958-638: The Catalepton , consists of fourteen short poems, some of which may be Virgil's, and another, a short narrative poem titled the Culex ("The Gnat"), was attributed to Virgil as early as the 1st century AD. The Eclogues (from the Greek for "selections") are a group of ten poems roughly modeled on the bucolic (that is, "pastoral" or "rural") poetry of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus , which were written in dactylic hexameter . While some readers have identified

3060-654: The Fagles translation). Lake Fucine was a karst lake system, whose only real tributary was the Giovenco River, entering the basin from the northeast, just after the town of Pescina. The lake also collected, especially in the winter period, the waters of small-flow streams from the Velino-Sirente massif to the north and from the Vallelonga mountains to the south. The water level of the basin was regulated by

3162-530: The Fucino Space Centre . The teleport commenced construction in 1963 by the Telespazio company and is used for the ground management of artificial satellites in orbit for telecommunications . The Fucine basin is the subject of numerous neotectonic , paleoseismological , archaeoseismological , and paleoenvironmental geological studies due to the peculiar "visibility" of its sediments and

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3264-508: The Georgics to Octavian upon his return from defeating Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The Aeneid is widely considered Virgil's finest work, and is regarded as one of the most important poems in the history of Western literature ( T. S. Eliot referred to it as 'the classic of all Europe'). The work (modelled after Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey ) chronicles

3366-511: The Middle Ages , and is often seen in art and mentioned in literature as part of the Power of Women literary topos , demonstrating the disruptive force of female attractiveness on men. In this story Virgil became enamoured of a beautiful woman, sometimes described as the emperor's daughter or mistress and called Lucretia. She played him along and agreed to an assignation at her house, which he

3468-473: The Renaissance of the 12th century , Alexander Neckham placed the "divine" Aeneid on his standard arts curriculum, and Dido became the romantic heroine of the age. Monks like Maiolus of Cluny might repudiate what they called "the luxurious eloquence of Virgil", but they could not deny the power of his appeal. Dante presents Virgil as his guide through Hell and the greater part of Purgatory in

3570-474: The golem may have been inspired by Virgilian legends about the poet's apocryphal power to bring inanimate objects to life. Possibly as early as the second century AD, Virgil's works were seen as having magical properties and were used for divination . In what became known as the Sortes Vergilianae ("Virgilian Lots"), passages would be selected at random and interpreted to answer questions. In

3672-603: The neoteric writers Pollio and Cinna , it has been inferred that he was, for a time, associated with Catullus 's neoteric circle. According to the Catalepton , he began to write poetry while in the Epicurean school of Siro in Naples. A group of small works attributed to the youthful Virgil by the commentators survive collected under the title Appendix Vergiliana , but are largely considered spurious by scholars. One,

3774-488: The toga virilis, suggest that his father was in fact a wealthy equestrian landowner. He is said to have been tall and stout, with a swarthy complexion and a rustic appearance. Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. Schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" ("virgin") because of his social aloofness. The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began

3876-482: The 12th century, starting around Naples but eventually spreading widely throughout Europe, a tradition developed in which Virgil was regarded as a great magician . Legends about Virgil and his magical powers remained popular for over two hundred years, arguably becoming as prominent as his writings themselves. Virgil's legacy in medieval Wales was such that the Welsh version of his name, Fferyllt or Pheryllt , became

3978-484: The 13th and 15th centuries but neither succeeded. In the 19th century, the Swiss engineer Jean François Mayor de Montricher was commissioned by the prince Alessandro Torlonia to drain the lake. A 6.3 km-long (3.9 mi) and 21 m-wide (69 ft) canal was begun in 1862 and after more than 13 years, the lake was completely drained. The resulting plain is one of Italy's most fertile regions. Antiquities from

4080-484: The Aristaeus episode replaced, at the emperor's request, a long section in praise of Virgil's friend, the poet Gallus, who was disgraced by Augustus , and who committed suicide in 26 BC. The tone of the Georgics wavers between optimism and pessimism, sparking critical debate on the poet's intentions, but the work lays the foundations for later didactic poetry. Virgil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns reading

4182-510: The Claudian initiative may have reduced to about 90 km (35 sq mi). A 4.5 km (2.8 mi) collecting canal was extended and deepened by Hadrian which reduced the area of the lake to about 57 km (22 sq mi). The larger 19th century tunnel, along the same route as the Roman tunnel, destroyed most of the archaeology of the Roman tunnel, which is why the success of

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4284-463: The Latin word for 'wand' ( uirga ), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in the Middle Ages . There is also a possibility that virg- is meant to evoke the Latin virgo ('virgin'); this would be a reference to the fourth Eclogue , which has a history of Christian, and specifically Messianic , interpretations . Virgil spent his boyhood in Cremona until his 15th year (55 BC), when he

4386-552: The Roman occupation of the land, after the first drainage scheme, became part of the Torlonia collection. Tectonic Tectonics (from Latin tectonicus ; from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός ( tektonikós )  'pertaining to building ') are the processes that result in the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. The field of planetary tectonics extends

4488-552: The Rutulians; Book 10, the death of Evander's young son Pallas ; and 11 the death of the Volscian warrior princess Camilla and the decision to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. The Aeneid ends in Book 12 with the taking of Latinus's city, the death of Amata, and Aeneas's defeat and killing of Turnus, whose pleas for mercy are spurned. The final book ends with the image of Turnus's soul lamenting as it flees to

4590-503: The Sicilians on the lake. At the end of the ceremony the dam was opened but the water did not drain due to a small landslide that occurred shortly before. Once the canal was purged and the locks reopened, a further landslide caused a large return wave that hit the stage where the imperial family was banqueting. The freedmen Tiberius Claudius Narcissus and Pallante were blamed for these events, who were not architects but rather prefects of

4692-413: The activity of the karst sinkholes, located mainly to the south on the slopes of the mountains such as that of Petogna near Luco dei Marsi . The absence of an effective outlet resulted in a high variability of the lake level. These fluctuations are attributable partly to karst drainage or tectonic movements affecting the area, but above all to climatic variations such as seasonal changes in precipitation and

4794-577: The ancient vitae , Publius Vergilius Maro was born on the Ides of October in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul ( northern Italy , added to Italy proper during his lifetime). The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of an apparitor named Magius, whose daughter he married. According to Phocas and Probus,

4896-471: The assumption that this earthquake would damage Rome it seems very likely that the earthquake occurred shortly before 508 AD when the earthquake damage to the Colosseum was repaired. The lake appears to have returned to its uncontrolled pre-Claudian area by the end of the 5th century and certainly by the end of the 6th century. Some suggestion, or attempt, to restore the Roman drainage scheme appears in both

4998-473: The attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as his motives in the composition of the Eclogues . This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the Eclogues . In Eclogues 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom but offers no indisputable evidence of

5100-403: The beloved Laus Italiae of Book 2, the prologue description of the temple in Book 3, and the description of the plague at the end of Book 3. Book 4 concludes with a long mythological narrative, in the form of an epyllion which describes vividly the discovery of beekeeping by Aristaeus and the story of Orpheus ' journey to the underworld. Ancient scholars, such as Servius, conjectured that

5202-480: The child was meant to be has been subject to debate). 5 and 8 describe the myth of Daphnis in a song contest, 6, the cosmic and mythological song of Silenus ; 7, a heated poetic contest, and 10 the sufferings of the contemporary elegiac poet Cornelius Gallus . Virgil in his Eclogues is credited with establishing Arcadia as a poetic ideal that still resonates in Western literature and visual arts and with setting

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5304-432: The concept to other planets and moons. These processes include those of mountain-building , the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents known as cratons , and the ways in which the relatively rigid plates that constitute the Earth's outer shell interact with each other. Principles of tectonics also provide a framework for understanding the earthquake and volcanic belts that directly affect much of

5406-405: The crust of the Earth is dissected by thousands of different types of tectonic elements which define the subdivision into numerous smaller microplates which have amalgamated into the larger Plates. Salt tectonics is concerned with the structural geometries and deformation processes associated with the presence of significant thicknesses of rock salt within a sequence of rocks. This is due both to

5508-656: The crust, or the lithosphere. This type of tectonics is found at zones of continental collision , at restraining bends in strike-slip faults, and at the oceanward part of passive margin sequences where a detachment layer is present. Strike-slip tectonics is associated with the relative lateral movement of parts of the crust or the lithosphere. This type of tectonics is found along oceanic and continental transform faults which connect offset segments of mid-ocean ridges . Strike-slip tectonics also occurs at lateral offsets in extensional and thrust fault systems. In areas involved with plate collisions strike-slip deformation occurs in

5610-405: The dangers of floods and health threats diminished, while agricultural activities revived. The economy of Marsica and in particular of the municipalities of Alba Fucens, Lucus Angitiae and Marruvium became flourishing and the surrounding mountain areas were elected to all intents and purposes as holiday resorts. The original lake had a fluctuating area of about 140 km (54 sq mi) which

5712-465: The degree of insolation , produced by the Earth's orbit (precession of the equinoxes and obliquity of the ecliptic). The Romans knew the lake as Fucinus Lacus and founded settlements on its banks, including Marruvium . It was the site of the Battle of Fucine Lake in 89  BCE ; however, while the lake provided fertile soil and a large quantity of fish, it was also believed to harbour malaria and having no natural outflow it repeatedly flooded

5814-505: The disjunctive phase linked to liassic rifting which persisted until the middle Miocene. Alluvial-colluvial continental deposits emerge that can be attributed to the Plio-Pleistocene and Holocene , in particular in correspondence with the ancient lake bottom characterized by silty sediments. The Quaternary evolution of the basin is linked to the activity of two main faults, one in a NW-SE direction and western dip, tangent to

5916-496: The divine Aeneid , but follow afar and ever venerate its footsteps." Virgil finds one of his most ardent admirers in Silius Italicus . With almost every line of his epic Punica , Silius references Virgil. Partially as a result of his so-called "Messianic" Fourth Eclogue  – widely interpreted later to have predicted the birth of Jesus Christ  – Virgil was in later antiquity imputed to have

6018-431: The earlier Claudian scheme is so uncertain. The deeper Hadrianic canal destroyed the archaeology of the Claudian canal. The final Roman canal has left clear archaeology, showing that 1 km (0.62 mi) from the lake, the tunnel was 7.5 m (25 ft) deep, 19.5 m (64 ft) wide at the top, and 4.5 m (15 ft) wide at the base. It sloped to the tunnel at 0.05% (a gradient of one in two thousand). As

6120-537: The east: "Costa Grande- Monte d'Aria", "Monte Cefalone Monti della Magnola", "Rocche plateau - Aielli-Celano gorges", and "Monte Sirente". These compressive structures deform underlying Mesozoic - Tertiary layers belonging to two depositional domains. The first groups together persistent sedimentation of a platform drowned in the Miocene and the second of areas drowned in the Mesozoic with persistent sedimentation of

6222-501: The emperor's sister Octavia to faint. Although the truth of this claim is subject to scholarly skepticism, it has served as a basis for later art, such as Jean-Baptiste Wicar 's Virgil Reading the Aeneid . Some lines of the poem were left unfinished, and the whole was unedited, at Virgil's death in 19 BC. As a result, the text of the Aeneid that exists may contain faults which Virgil was planning to correct before publication. However,

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6324-414: The empire fell, maintenance of the Roman drainage scheme stopped. Sediment and vegetation blocked the collecting canal. An earthquake on a fault crossing the collecting canal dropped the land on the lake side 30–35 cm (12–14 in) relative to the tunnel entrance. Investigations where the fault crosses the canal reveal that large amounts of sediment had accumulated in the canal before the earthquake. On

6426-521: The endorheic basin was carried out by the Roman emperor Claudius in 52 CE. The total draining of the Fucian basin was undertaken in the second half of the 19th century by Jean François Mayor de Montricher , who expanded the hydraulic works of the Roman era by increasing the number of wells and expanding the vents and underground canals. These works and others drained Lake Fucino by 1878. An improvement in socio-economic conditions followed its draining and

6528-628: The fierce wars between Carthage and Rome. In Book 5, funeral games are celebrated for Aeneas's father Anchises , who had died a year before. On reaching Cumae , in Italy in Book 6, Aeneas consults the Cumaean Sibyl , who conducts him through the Underworld where Aeneas meets the dead Anchises who reveals Rome's destiny to his son. Book 7 (beginning the Iliadic half) opens with an address to

6630-497: The former lake to the southeast, and the other, tangential to the north, in a WSW-ENE direction and dip southern. The Abruzzo territory is characterized by considerable seismic activity, mainly linked to crustal distension processes. The Plio-Quaternary deformation field is still active. Virgil mentioned the lake in book 7 of the Aeneid , in that it weeps for Umbro , the healer priest killed tragically in battle. (See line 7:882 in

6732-440: The global population. Tectonic studies are important as guides for economic geologists searching for fossil fuels and ore deposits of metallic and nonmetallic resources. An understanding of tectonic principles can help geomorphologists to explain erosion patterns and other Earth-surface features. Extensional tectonics is associated with the stretching and thinning of the crust or the lithosphere . This type of tectonics

6834-511: The head of the Odyssean section) opens with a storm which Juno , Aeneas's enemy throughout the poem, stirs up against the fleet. The storm drives the hero to the coast of Carthage , which historically was Rome's deadliest foe. The queen, Dido , welcomes the ancestor of the Romans, and under the influence of the gods falls deeply in love with him. At a banquet in Book 2, Aeneas tells the story of

6936-470: The hexameter Eclogues (or Bucolics ) in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial. After defeating the army led by the assassins of Julius Caesar in the Battle of Philippi (42 BC), Octavian tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and

7038-516: The lake waters into the Liri river . The outcome, however, was not exactly as planned. Due to the numerous landslides in the tunnel during the construction phase and the periods following the inauguration of the work, simple ordinary maintenance was not enough. Once the work was finished, Claudius wanted to celebrate the work with pomp by organizing the naumachia, a naval battle between the Rhodians and

7140-507: The lake were those most subject to flooding and therefore, in addition to the obvious seasonal problems for farmers, another major problem in these marshy areas was malaria. Authors such as Pliny the Elder , Suetonius , Tacitus and Cassius Dio wrote about drainage projects and subsequent reclamation of emerged lands, demonstrating the importance of this problem. Julius Caesar was the first who wanted to attempt to drain Fucine, however he

7242-427: The latter spelling spread to the modern European languages. This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholar Poliziano had shown Vergilius to be the original spelling. Today, the anglicisations Vergil and Virgil are both considered acceptable. There is some speculation that the spelling Virgilius might have arisen due to a pun, since virg- carries an echo of

7344-418: The low density of salt, which does not increase with burial, and its low strength. Neotectonics is the study of the motions and deformations of the Earth's crust ( geological and geomorphological processes) that are current or recent in geological time . The term may also refer to the motions and deformations themselves. The corresponding time frame is referred to as the neotectonic period . Accordingly,

7446-536: The magical abilities of a seer; the Sortes Vergilianae , the process of using Virgil's poetry as a tool of divination, is found in the time of Hadrian , and continued into the Middle Ages. In a similar vein Macrobius in the Saturnalia credits the work of Virgil as the embodiment of human knowledge and experience, mirroring the Greek conception of Homer. Virgil also found commentators in antiquity. Servius ,

7548-641: The most famous poems in Latin literature : the Eclogues (or Bucolics ), the Georgics , and the epic Aeneid . A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana , were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars generally regard these works as spurious, with the possible exception of a few short pieces. Already acclaimed in his own lifetime as a classic author, Virgil rapidly replaced Ennius and other earlier authors as

7650-569: The muse and recounts Aeneas's arrival in Italy and betrothal to Lavinia , daughter of King Latinus . Lavinia had already been promised to Turnus , the king of the Rutulians , who is roused to war by the Fury Allecto and Amata , Lavinia's mother. In Book 8, Aeneas allies with King Evander , who occupies the future site of Rome, and is given new armor and a shield depicting Roman history. Book 9 records an assault by Nisus and Euryalus on

7752-582: The name of Virgil's mother was Magia Polla. The cognomen of Virgil's maternal family, Magius, and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this rare name ( Magi ) in Servius' life from the genitive magi of the noun magus ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician himself. Analysis of his name has led some to believe that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation

7854-466: The nineteenth century, the supposed tomb regularly attracted travellers on the Grand Tour , and it still draws visitors today. According to the commentators, Virgil received his first education when he was five years old and later went to Cremona , Milan , and finally Rome to study rhetoric , medicine , and astronomy , which he would abandon for philosophy. From Virgil's admiring references to

7956-491: The one as founder and the other as re-founder of Rome. A strong teleology , or drive towards a climax, has been detected in the poem. The Aeneid is full of prophecies about the future of Rome, the deeds of Augustus, his ancestors, and famous Romans, and the Carthaginian Wars ; the shield of Aeneas even depicts Augustus's victory at Actium against Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in 31 BC. A further focus of study

8058-450: The only obvious imperfections are a few lines of verse that are metrically unfinished (i.e. not a complete line of dactylic hexameter ). Some scholars have argued that Virgil deliberately left these metrically incomplete lines for dramatic effect. Other alleged imperfections are subject to scholarly debate. The works of Virgil almost from the moment of their publication revolutionized Latin poetry . The Eclogues , Georgics , and above all

8160-411: The over-riding plate in zones of oblique collision and accommodates deformation in the foreland to a collisional belt. In plate tectonics, the outermost part of the Earth known as the lithosphere (the crust and uppermost mantle ) act as a single mechanical layer. The lithosphere is divided into separate "plates" that move relative to each other on the underlying, relatively weak asthenosphere in

8262-633: The plain after the Torlonian drainage and subsequent reclamation, which relate to the main drainage tunnel. This crosses Mount Salviano and pours its waters into the Liri river (Basin Authority of the Liri-Garigliano and Volturno rivers). Although the Romans had chosen Fucino as a holiday resort, it was in their era that the need to drain and reclaim the lake began to emerge. The southern areas of

8364-458: The poem be burned , instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible. After his death at Brundisium according to Donatus, or at Taranto according to some late manuscripts of Servius, Virgil's remains were transported to Naples , where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph that he himself composed: Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces ; " Mantua gave me life,

8466-549: The poet himself with various characters and their vicissitudes, whether gratitude by an old rustic to a new god ( Ecl . 1), frustrated love by a rustic singer for a distant boy (his master's pet, Ecl . 2), or a master singer's claim to have composed several eclogues ( Ecl . 5), modern scholars largely reject such efforts to garner biographical details from works of fiction, preferring to interpret an author's characters and themes as illustrations of contemporary life and thought. The ten Eclogues present traditional pastoral themes with

8568-470: The preceding time is referred to as palaeotectonic period . Tectonophysics is the study of the physical processes associated with deformation of the crust and mantle from the scale of individual mineral grains up to that of tectonic plates. Seismotectonics is the study of the relationship between earthquakes, active tectonics, and individual faults in a region. It seeks to understand which faults are responsible for seismic activity in an area by analysing

8670-589: The reading "three" is not Egnazio's own conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles." Other studies claim that today's consideration for ancient Andes should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of Castel Goffredo . By the fourth or fifth century AD the original spelling Vergilius had been changed to Virgilius , and then

8772-469: The resultant plain is one of the most fertile vegetable growing areas in Italy. Products that have obtained European Protected geographical indication marks include the Fucino potato and the Fucino plateau carrot. Along the former Fucino shoreline, in addition to Avezzano (the largest city), are other populous municipalities including Celano and Pescina . In addition to agriculture, the plain also hosts

8874-477: The sack of Troy , the death of his wife, and his escape, to the enthralled Carthaginians, while in Book 3 he recounts to them his wanderings over the Mediterranean in search of a suitable new home. Jupiter in Book 4 recalls the lingering Aeneas to his duty to found a new city, and he slips away from Carthage, leaving Dido to commit suicide, cursing Aeneas and calling down revenge in symbolic anticipation of

8976-482: The shore line in the periods immediately preceding the last reclamation, on the Contour line at an altitude of 660. It is not possible to precisely establish the variations during protohistory, but they probably did not differ much from that of the 19th century. According to Giraudi between 33,000 and 18-20,000 years ago there was a general increase in the lake level, probably the highest level ever reached, followed by

9078-454: The slope and basin, the latter immediately northeast of the Fucino. Corresponding to the first domain, the bryozoan calcarenites of the Langhian - Tortonian rest, while there is a gap between the upper Cretaceous and the end of the lower Miocene. In the second domain, however, there is greater continuity until the middle Miocene. This discrepancy may have been created in conjunction with

9180-458: The stage for the development of Latin pastoral by Calpurnius Siculus , Nemesianus and later writers. The ostensible theme of the Georgics is instruction in the methods of running a farm. In handling this theme, Virgil follows in the didactic ("how to") tradition of the Greek poet Hesiod 's Works and Days and several works of the later Hellenistic poets. The four books of the Georgics focus respectively on: Well-known passages include

9282-505: The structures relating to the formation and evolution of the basin itself. Over time, these characteristics have also helped interpret other Apennine sectors whose context was less clear. The Fucine is a large tectonic depression surrounded by normal and transtensional faults active in the upper Pliocene to Quaternary era. There is also a late Messinian to early Pliocene compressive deformational phase schematically attributed to four main units, roughly NNW-SSE in direction, converging to

9384-515: The study of the planets and their moons, especially icy moons . Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro ( Classical Latin : [ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː] ; 15 October 70 BC – 21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( / ˈ v ɜːr dʒ ɪ l / VUR -jil ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period . He composed three of

9486-436: The supposed biographic incident. Sometime after the publication of the Eclogues (probably before 37 BC), Virgil became part of the circle of Maecenas , Octavian's capable agent d'affaires who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including Horace , in whose poetry he

9588-445: The surrounding arable land. In the 19th century variation of the lake was the greatest on record (12.69 metres of excursion in twenty years). During flood episodes the lake generally invaded only some flat areas at low altitude, such as that between Ortucchio and Venere dei Marsi to the south-east, and not the fans and terraces located at a higher altitude, albeit by a few metres, to the north and east. The geologist Carlo Giraudi located

9690-628: The tradition, Virgil traveled to the senatorial province of Achaea in Greece in about 19 BC to revise the Aeneid . After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near Megara . After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in Apulia on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, Lucius Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca , to disregard Virgil's own wish that

9792-485: The underworld. Critics of the Aeneid focus on a variety of issues. The tone of the poem as a whole is a particular matter of debate; some see the poem as ultimately pessimistic and politically subversive to the Augustan regime, while others view it as a celebration of the new imperial dynasty. Virgil makes use of the symbolism of the Augustan regime, and some scholars see strong associations between Augustus and Aeneas,

9894-417: The works and it was thought that after spending a good deal less than he had received, he had then purposely contrived the collapse, in order that his wrong-doing might not be detected." With the inauguration of the work, a regulation of the surface waters was effectively achieved, so much so that the lake basin shrank considerably but was not totally dried up, as some historical sources have reported. However,

9996-520: The world's major ( M w > 7) earthquakes . Convergent and divergent boundaries are also the site of most of the world's volcanoes , such as around the Pacific Ring of Fire . Most of the deformation in the lithosphere is related to the interaction between plates at or near plate boundaries. The latest studies, based on the integration of available geological data, and satellite imagery and Gravimetric and magnetic anomaly datasets have shown that

10098-726: Was a master poet – Saint Augustine , for example, confessing how he had wept at reading the death of Dido. The best-known surviving manuscripts of Virgil's works include manuscripts from late antiquity such as the Vergilius Augusteus , the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus . Gregory of Tours read Virgil, whom he quotes in several places, along with some other Latin poets, though he cautions that "we ought not to relate their lying fables, lest we fall under sentence of eternal death". In

10200-427: Was killed before he could do it. The Emperor Claudius attempted to control the lake's maximum level by digging a 5.6 km (3.5 mi) drainage tunnel through Monte Salviano . According to Suetonius it required 30,000 workers working 24 hours a day in 3 x 8 hour shifts and took eleven years from 41 to 52  CE . The result was a 5.6 km long tunnel under Mount Mount Salviano, capable of partially draining

10302-561: Was such that it inspired legends associating him with magic and prophecy. From at least the 3rd century, Christian thinkers interpreted Eclogue 4 , which describes the birth of a boy ushering in a golden age, as a prediction of Jesus's birth . In consequence, Virgil came to be seen on a similar level to the Hebrew prophets of the Bible as one who had heralded Christianity. Relatedly, The Jewish Encyclopedia argues that medieval legends about

10404-415: Was to sneak into at night by climbing into a large basket let down from a window. When he did so he was hoisted only halfway up the wall and then left trapped there into the next day, exposed to public ridicule. The story paralleled that of Phyllis riding Aristotle . Among other artists depicting the scene, Lucas van Leyden made a woodcut and later an engraving . In the Middle Ages, Virgil's reputation

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