Sceleratus Catiline. From Republican history to Virgil’s Tartarus (Aen. 8, 666-670)

The Virgilian representation on the Aeneas’ shield of Catiline as a paradigm of the worst enemies of Rome in antithetical pair with Cato of Utica (an equally paradigmatic character of Roman imaginary), is a projection- on the historical level- of the list of the damned of the myth and of the penalties imposed on them: it is a sort of extension of the traditional cruciamenta Acheruntis. The focus is on the punishments- that imply the presence of rocks- inflicted on the mythical damned (Prometheus, Tantalus, Sisyphus) who broke the established order. The presence of the avenging Furies is consistent with the profile of Catiline as a parricide in a literal sense (killer of his only son) as well as in a figured sense as a subversive of the homeland.