The fleet of Aeneas, carrying the last remnants of Troy, finally touched the sandy shores of Euboean Cumae. While the younger men set about the tasks of survival—foraging for food and striking sparks from flint—Aeneas turned his eyes toward the heights. Above the shoreline stood the great temple of Apollo, its golden roof glinting in the sun, and nearby lay the dark, mysterious cavern of the Sibyl. This was the place Aeneas had been told to seek, for it was here that the veil between the world of men and the realm of the divine was at its thinnest. The hero climbed the steep path, his heart heavy with the losses of his journey and the uncertainty of his future.
At the entrance of the temple, Aeneas was greeted by the sight of magnificent carvings in the stone doors. These images, crafted by the legendary Daedalus himself, told the story of the Minotaur, the Labyrinth of Crete, and the tragic flight of Icarus. Aeneas stared at the image of the fallen boy, feeling a pang of empathy for the fathers who had lost their sons. He was interrupted by Achates, who brought with him the priestess Deiphobe, the daughter of Glaucus, better known as the Cumaean Sibyl. She did not waste time with pleasantries. She commanded Aeneas to offer sacrifices to the gods and led him into her sanctuary, a massive hollow in the rock of the cliffside.
The cave of the Sibyl was a place of immense power. It featured a hundred wide mouths and a hundred tunnels that amplified every sound into a roaring echo. As the priestess reached the threshold, her appearance began to change. The presence of the god Apollo surged into her soul. Her hair became wild and disheveled, her color faded, and her chest heaved as she struggled to contain the divine energy. She was no longer a mere mortal woman; she seemed to grow in stature, and her voice lost its human quality, becoming a resonant, terrifying roar. She commanded Aeneas to pray, for the doors of the cave would not open until the hero’s heart was laid bare before the gods.
When Aeneas prayed, he did not ask for wealth or personal glory. He asked for the survival of the Trojan people and a place where they could finally rest. In response, the hundred doors of the cave flew open by themselves, and the Sibyl’s voice rushed out like a hurricane. She prophesied that the Trojans would indeed reach their promised land in Latium, but she warned that their arrival would not bring peace. She saw a vision of the Tiber River foaming with blood, a second Achilles rising to oppose them, and a marriage that would ignite a devastating war. The prophecy was a labyrinth of riddles, intended to test the hero’s resolve, but Aeneas remained steadfast. He told the Sibyl that he had already lived through the worst that fate could offer and was ready to face whatever lay ahead.
Aeneas then made his most difficult request: he asked for permission to descend into the Underworld, the realm of Dis, to speak with the shade of his father, Anchises. The Sibyl looked at him with a mixture of pity and respect. She warned him that the descent into the abyss of Avernus was easy; the doors of death stood open night and day. The true challenge lay in returning to the light. To be allowed such a journey, she explained, he must find a specific gift for Proserpina, the queen of the Underworld. Hidden within the densest part of the forest was a tree that grew a Golden Bough. If Aeneas could find this branch and pluck it, he would be granted passage. However, the branch would only come away for a man chosen by fate; for anyone else, no amount of strength or steel could break it.
Before he could begin his search, the Sibyl revealed one more truth: one of Aeneas's companions lay dead on the shore, and his unburied body was polluting the fleet. Aeneas returned to the beach to find that the trumpeter Misenus had been killed, drowned by the sea-god Triton after foolishly challenging the gods to a musical contest. The Trojans immediately set about building a massive funeral pyre. While gathering wood in the deep forest, Aeneas looked up and saw two white doves, the birds of his mother, Venus. The doves led him deeper into the shadows of the woods until they perched upon a dark oak tree. There, amidst the green leaves, he saw the glint of gold. The Golden Bough clung to the tree like mistletoe, its metallic leaves tinkling in the breeze. With a trembling hand, Aeneas reached out, and the branch broke away easily, signaling that he was indeed chosen by destiny.
With the funeral of Misenus completed and the Golden Bough in his possession, Aeneas returned to the Sibyl. At the mouth of a dark, sulphurous cave near Lake Avernus, they performed the final sacrifices to Hecate and the gods of the night. As the sun began to rise, the earth beneath their feet groaned, and the woods began to tremble. The Sibyl cried out for the uninitiated to flee, and she plunged into the dark opening of the cave, with Aeneas following close behind. They walked through the silent, shadow-filled wasteland of the entrance, passing by the personified horrors of the human condition: Grief, Care, Disease, Age, Fear, and Hunger. They saw the shapes of monsters—Centaurs, Scyllas, and the Chimaera—but the Sibyl reminded Aeneas that these were mere ghosts, incapable of harming him.