Bonus Halloween Minisode

Since ancient times Avernus, an ancient volcanic crater in the Campania region of southern Italy, has been the source of legend. In this special minisode, I bring you the story of Italy’s legendary gateway to the underworld.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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Transcript

Pre-roll
You’re listening to Enchanted, a podcast on the history of magic, sorcery and witchcraft. I’m Corinne Wieben. I have a quick announcement before we get started: as usual, Enchanted is taking the month of November off to prepare for the new season premiering on December 6th, but I’ve decided to take advantage of the spooky season to release this month’s subscriber minisode into the regular feed as a special Halloween treat. If you want to access all past and upcoming subscriber-exclusive minisodes as well as ad-free versions of all episodes, please visit Patreon dot com slash enchantedpodcast. And now, let’s get on with the show!

Intro
In the Forgotten Realms setting of the table-top role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (also used for the recent video game Baldur’s Gate 3), the underworld consists of the Nine Hells. The largest of these is Avernus, which appears particularly infernal, with lava streaming through barren, rocky terrain and air full of noxious fumes. Players familiar with this setting know that Avernus serves as the gateway to the rest of the lower realms. What players may not know is that Avernus is real and located in Italy.

All right, it’s not the Avernus of D&D fame, but since ancient times Avernus, an ancient volcanic crater in the Campania region of southern Italy, has been the source of legend. In this special minisode, I bring you the story of Italy’s legendary gateway to the underworld.

The Avernus crater, lies nestled within the ancient volcanic landscape of the Phlegraean Fields, a caldera of smoldering earth and boiling springs just west of Naples. Thousands of years ago, a violent eruption carved out this vast, circular basin, which filled with water to form the serene yet ominous Lake Avernus. Surrounded by steep, forested hills, the lake exudes a haunting beauty, its stillness steeped in mystery. Rising sulfurous gases, now faint whispers but once potent and deadly, veiled the lake in thick, noxious fog. The air itself seemed inhospitable, warning all who approached of forces beyond human control. In fact, the name probably comes from the Greek áornos, meaning “birdless,” as some reports held that birds that tried to fly over the lake would fall down dead.

The ancient Greeks were the first to settle this land, establishing Cumae on Italy’s coast in the eighth century BCE. To them, Avernus was no ordinary lake; they saw it as the gateway to the underworld itself, a threshold into the shadowy realm of the dead. Here, at the border between worlds, Avernus became a sacred site, a place where rituals and rites invoked the chthonic gods who ruled the depths below. Associated with both prophecy and necromancy, the poisonous lakeshore teemed with offerings to oracles and sacrifices made to deities of the underworld. Avernus’ mythos grew rich, woven with tales of divine power and mortal reverence, casting it as both feared and revered—a place where the living sought wisdom from the dark mysteries that lay beyond life itself.

Soon, the Greek cities of southern Italy came under the rule of the ancient Romans. Like their Greek neighbors, the Romans, too, believed the depths of Lake Avernus hid the very entrance to Hades, the threshold between the world of the living and the dead. Roman authors even used “Avernus” as a poetic stand-in for the underworld itself, evoking the lake’s dark, otherworldly aura. In the Aeneid, an epic written in the first century by the famed Roman poet Virgil, the hero Aeneas journeys to Avernus to seek the Cumaean Sibyl, the mysterious oracle of the god Apollo, who delivers divine prophecy and guides brave adventurers into the depths of the underworld. In Book VI, Aeneas begs the Sibyl to take him to the underworld to see his late father, Anchises. Describing the Sibyl’s grotto, Virgil writes, “A deep cave there was, yawning wide and vast, of jagged rock, and sheltered by dark lake and woodland gloom, over which no flying creatures could safely wing their way; such a vapour from those black jaws was wafted to the vaulted sky whence the Greeks spoke of Avernus, the Birdless Place.” When Aeneas petitions the oracle, she tells him, “Trojan, Anchises’ son, the descent of Avernus is easy. / All night long, all day, the doors of Hades stand open. / But to retrace the path, to come up to the sweet air of heaven, / That is labour indeed.”

Despite the lake’s menacing reputation, its shores did not remain desolate for long. Romans established villas and vineyards, creating a rare blend of the mundane and the mystical along its banks. Here, the deity Avernus was worshipped in lakeside temples, a god honored amid ominous fumes and still waters. The eastern shore even featured a sprawling bathhouse, a symbol of Rome’s characteristic audacity in the face of danger.

In 37 BCE, the Roman general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa transformed the lake’s strategic position into a naval base, the Portus Julius, named in honor of Octavian. A canal connected Lake Avernus to the neighboring Lake Lucrinus, and from there, to the open sea, turning Avernus into a powerful military asset. An underground passage linked Avernus to the nearby Greek colony of Cumae. This tunnel, a kilometer long and wide enough for chariots, became the world’s first major road tunnel, still in use as recently as the 1940s—a testament to the engineering prowess of Rome and to the enduring, myth-laden legacy of Lake Avernus.

Even well after the advent of Christianity, Avernus’ reputation persisted. The late medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri alludes to Avernus in Inferno, the first canticle of his epic, The Divine Comedy. Though Dante never names Avernus, Dante’s vision of Hell is steeped in the atmosphere of Virgil’s Aeneid. Guided by Virgil himself, the protagonist’s journey begins with a similar descent into darkness, invoking Avernus as a symbolic forerunner to this passage into the infernal. The lake’s infamous fog, toxic vapors, and foreboding stillness reverberate through Inferno, where each circle has its own haunting environment—twisted woods, burning sands, and frigid pools. Hell’s gate in Inferno resonates with the Roman view of Avernus as a liminal place, a threshold between the living and the dead. Like Avernus, Dante’s Hell is a descending, subterranean realm—a journey downward, echoing the pathway to the Roman underworld through sites as hallowed and haunting as Avernus itself.

As humanism and the revival of classical literature spread through Renaissance Europe, so did the reputation of Avernus as the mouth of Hades. At the height of the witch-craze in the early modern period, Avernus came to be associated with the diabolical and the demonic. The seventeenth century saw not one but two English-language treatises that mention it. The first, published in 1642 by Mark Parinter, bears the title Nevves from Avernvs being certaine propositions and promises made by Don Belzebub, alias Pluto, emperor of Gobynon, King of Sheol, Tophet and Avernus, Prince of Phlegiton, Styx and Acheron, Duke of Aetna. The other, published anonymously just five years later, is titled Strange nevves from Campania a province in Italy: being a true relation of one who slept at noon-time of day, how his spirit was transported into the province of Campania in Italy, by chance, near unto the lake Avernus, also his discourse with an old man of that province, concerning the present distempers in those parts, not unlike these in England, who after his recovery out of an extasie (by reason of the cruelties and bloud-sucking oppressions in that province). Taken together, these works testify both to Avernus’ fame as a real location in southern Italy and its continued association with death and the underworld.

Conclusion
Known as one of Europe’s most active volcanic zones, the Phlegraean Fields remain under vigilant scientific watch. In March of 2022, the waters of Lake Avernus suddenly turned a deep scarlet. A group of scientists studying the lake determined that its red color was most likely the result of a toxic bacterial bloom. Though the focus of the published study is the presence of the bacterium in the lake, the authors can’t help but take a brief detour to explain the lake’s infernal reputation. According to their study, these periodic bacterial blooms may have contributed to both the lake’s toxicity and its long-standing identity as the gateway to Hades.

In 2019, Edith Speers published her poem, Avernus, which likens the volcanic nature of the crater to social and moral upheaval. The last stanza echoes the words of Virgil’s Cumaean Sibyl and captures Avernus’ lasting legacy:

Hell has no exit. But you choose to enter.
 It needs no fools to stumble in, so when
 you need reminding of the threat below,
 just look for emptiness, for what’s not there.
 Where birds are not, the hell-mouth has its home.

Outro
If you enjoyed this minisode, you can subscribe to Enchanted wherever you listen. This episode was produced by me with original music by Purple Planet. You can find them at purple dash planet dot com. If you want to learn more about Lake Avernus, be sure to check out the sources link in the show notes. Special thanks to Enchanted’s Patreon patrons for supporting the production of this and every episode. If you want to support Enchanted and access ad-free versions of each episode and monthly subscriber-exclusive minisodes like this one, please visit patreon dot com slash enchantedpodcast. If you’re looking for a way to support the show that won’t cost you anything, you can always give Enchanted: The History of Magic & Witchcraft a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, Audible, or wherever you listen and recommend it to your friends. You can get in touch with me via email at enchantedpodcast at gmail dot com or follow on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads at enchantedpodcast. As always, for more information and special features, visit enchantedpodcast dot net. I’m Corinne Wieben. Thank you for listening and stay enchanted.