Design Something Everyday 11/365: In honor of my love of maps, information graphics and Virgil, I decided to imagine Aeneas journey as if it were a subway map. So enjoy. Don’t forget your subway token’s for Charon!

I have always loved maps, as a child I would look at our world atlas and ponder the far flung reaches of the globe. Then I discovered a historical atlas at my school and realized that maps could not only take you horizontally across the globe but also vertically in to the distant past.

A period I found particularly fascinating was the Roman Empire. I’d gaze at the maps showing the roads stretching out from Rome like a web uniting the disparate corners western world under the the banner of The Senate and People of Rome – SPQR.

The great poet Publius Vergilius Maro, better known to us today as Virgil wrote his masterpiece the Aeneid at the same time Rome was nearing the apex of it’s power and confidence. This magnificent poem was written to, amongst other things, create a mythologized past for the Romans of the first century CE, particularly for Virgil’s patron, the Emperor Augustus. As such, the poem depicts the Romans  as a people not great at skill in art, destined to rule.

Let others better mold the running mass
Of metals, and inform the breathing brass,
And soften into flesh a marble face;
Plead better at the bar; describe the skies,
And when the stars descend, and when they rise.
But, Rome, ‘t is thine alone, with awful sway,
To rule mankind, and make the world obey,
Disposing peace and war by thy own majestic way;
To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free:
These are imperial arts, and worthy thee.”
–The Aeneid, Book 6 Translated by John Dryden

This passage takes place during a conversation between Aeneas and his dead father Ancheises in the underworld. This is direct allusion to Homer and The Odyssey. In Homer’s work must his hero Odysseus must visit a cave where he will summon the dead seer Tiresias (amongst other dead celebs). By doing this he will gain the knowledge to compete his quest and finally reach the far shores of Ithica.

In the Aeneid, Aeneas has the same quest but he actually has to travel through the land of the dead, instead of just waiting at the gate like Odysseus. This is one of the most important and vivid parts of the poem. His journey has inspired artists and poets for centuries, now it has inspired a daily design and underworld subway map!

Links & Sources:

• The basic outline of the map was taken from Alice K. Turner’s truly amazing book A History of Hell. It would be devilish of me not to recommend it.
• The Aeneid translated by John Dryden via The Internet Classics Archive at MIT. The recent Robert Fagels translation looks really good too.
• Free Audio Version of  The  Aeneid via Libravox.org (also the Dryden version… yeah Public Domain!)
• Underworld & the Afterlife: A good article about Greco-Roman ideas of, well the underworld & the afterlife via Carlos Parada of Greek Mythology Link. I used a little of this for the subway of the underworld map.