Synopses & Reviews
The extraordinary discovery of the Underworld of the ancient Greeks.
We tend to think of ancient stories of visits to the Underworld by Odysseus, Orpheus and Aeneas as being poetic fictions, but Robert Temple shows here that in fact, the Ancients believed the Underworld to be a place that actually existed. It was maintained by a college of priests who would prepare, through ritual fasting, prayer, animal sacrifice, bathing and solitude, whoever wished to meet the shades of the dead. The candidate would then be led through the entrance to the Underworld, a dark, terrifying place, far underground, where after a series of ordeals and apparitions, they would finally meet with the ghosts of the dead. All these features recur in the ancient stories.
Recently Robert Temple heard that a 1962 archaeological expedition had actually discovered the entrance in Italy.This is the amazing story of what he found when he was finally allowed to make his own descent into the Underworld – the River Styx, false doors, a snake pit and carved invocations to the Goddess of the Underworld, all revealed for the first time since ancient times.
Synopsis
An updated version of a classic examination of the science of prediction from the penetrating mind of Robert Temple, author of world-wide bestseller The Sirius Mystery.
The future alludes us, yet we still consult oracles and believe in divination. How did the tradition develop? Robert Temple examines the phenomenon in the ancient world, contrasting the techniques and practices of divination in classical Greece, Rome and ancient China. He reveals how the oracles of classical antiquity were stage-managed to give clients the sense of having a genuine “conversation with eternity.” In the underworld settings in the tales of Odysseus, Orpheus, and Aeneas, secret mechanisms persuade heavily drugged neophytes that they are in touch with the supernatural. Robert Temple also takes us to the archeological site at Baia in southern Italy, believed to be the entrance to the underworld. Drawing evidence from a range of scholarly sources, and the latest scientific discoveries about time and space, he shows us that ‘magical’ and ‘scientific’ world views are not all that far apart.
About the Author
Robert Temple is the author of The Sirius Mystery, a bestseller in many countries. He is also the author of China: Land of Discovery and Invention, and a translator of the epic Gilgamesh, which was staged at the Royal National Theatre to critical acclaim, and the recent Penguin Classic edition of Aesop’s Fables. He is also a television producer, whose credits include Kenneth Clark’s Civilization.