Enna - Classical Mythology

Classical Mythology

The neighborhood of Enna is celebrated in mythological story as the place whence Proserpine was carried off by Pluto. The exact spot assigned by local tradition as the scene of this event was a small lake surrounded by lofty and precipitous hills, about 8 km from Enna, the meadows on the banks of which abounded in flowers, while a cavern or grotto hard by was shown as that from which the infernal king suddenly emerged. This lake is called "Pergus" by Ovid and Claudian, but it is remarkable that neither Cicero nor Diodorus speaks of any lake in particular as the scene of the occurrence: the former however says, that around Enna were lacus lucique plurimi, et laetissimi flores omni tempore anni. Diodorus, on the contrary, describes the spot whence Proserpine was carried off as a meadow abounding in flowers, especially odoriferous ones, to such a degree that it was impossible for hounds to follow their prey by the scent across this tract: he speaks of it as enclosed on all sides by steep cliffs, and having groves and marshes in the neighborhood, but makes no mention of a lake. The cavern however is alluded to by him as well as by Cicero, and would seem to point to a definite locality. At the present day there still remains a small lake in a basin-shaped hollow surrounded by great hills, and a cavern near it is still pointed out as that described by Cicero and Diodorus, but the flowers have in great measure disappeared, as well as the groves and woods which formerly surrounded the spot, and by the 19th century, the scene was described by travelers as bare and desolate.

The connection of this myth with Enna naturally led to (if it did not rather arise from) the peculiar worship of the two goddesses Ceres and Proserpine in that city: and we learn from Cicero that there was a temple of Ceres of such great antiquity and sanctity that the Sicilians repaired thither with a feeling of religious awe, as if it were the goddess herself rather than her sanctuary that they were about to visit. Yet this did not preserve it from the sacrilegious hands of Verres, who carried off from there a bronze image of the deity herself, the most ancient as well as the most venerated in Sicily. No remains of this temple are now visible: according to Fazello it stood on the brink of the precipice, and has been wholly carried away by the falling down of great masses of rock from the edge of the cliff. Nor are there any other vestiges of antiquity still remaining at Enna: they were probably destroyed by the Saracens, who erected the castle and several other of the most prominent buildings of the modern city.