Abstract
I argue for the efficacy of approaching Aeneid 6 as one would approach a dream, an approach that defies insistence on discovering fully coherent solutions to perceived problems. True to the polysemic nature of dreams, Vergil seems to have intended, on numerous fronts, to convey a multiplicity of meanings to multiple types of readers. This is suggested by the sheer variety of sources from which Vergil drew to compose book 6; these sources can be assigned to five categories: Homer’s Odyssey; various Orphic-Pythagorean-Platonic texts; Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis; miscellaneous other possible sources pertaining to conceptions of the fates of souls (e.g., the painting by Polygnotus of the underworld at Delphi, described by Pausanias); and Roman history as Vergil understood it. I proceed to consider the two most daunting interpretational challenges of Aeneid 6: the seeming incongruity of mixing Orphic-Pythagorean-Platonic ideas with traditional Roman values, and the twin gates of sleep (or dreams) and the exit by Aeneas and the Sibyl through the ivory gate of false dreams. I also explore two possible historically accurate presentations of religious phenomena in Aeneid 6, one involving connection to the Eleusinian mysteries, the other involving funeral rituals.