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Popular Culture Review
mountain boulder that plunges headlong from a lofty crag,
uprooted by the wind, either undermined by swirling flood or
passing years—a relentless mass rushing furiously downward
and bounding over the earth, taking in its path forests, herds,
and men.
Here surely at last we must have evidence of a description of a real
mountain and a real disaster, impressively described, something Virgil himself
must actually have experienced. The problem is that the passage was lifted
almost verbatim from the Iliad (XIII 136-41), a description already known to
classical audiences. I find no scholar claiming the elusive Homer as a
mountaineer. Both Greek and Roman poet would seem to be indulging in
literary tropes, however realistic.
On a more positive note, we have Hadrian's famous ascent of Mount
Etna, ca. 120 A.D. (even then an impressive 9000 ft. high). The emperor spent a
night on top, awoke the next mom to a f