Ode to Onotrians: An Invocation
Massimo A. Navarretta
USAWP | Sage Hill School | Onotria Wine Country Cuisine | Imperial Water Polo | American Society of Safety Professionals | Hispanic Safety Professionals
“ ‘O queen, whom Jupiter grants the right to found a new city, and curb proud tribes with your justice,
we unlucky Trojans, driven by the winds over every sea, pray to you: keep the terror of fire away from our ships,
spare a virtuous race and look more kindly on our fate. We have not come to despoil Libyan homes with the sword,
or to carry off stolen plunder to the shore: that violence is not in our minds, the conquered have not such pride.
There’s a place called Hesperia by the Greeks, an ancient land, strong in men, with a rich soil:?There the Oenotrians lived: now rumour has it that a later people has called it Italy, after their leader.” (Virgil, BK1: 520 – 560)
Onotria can trace its roots deep into antiquity.?Etymologically Greek, the stanzas translate to “land of vines” and refer to a divine covenant for a people in exodus.?Since the 8th Century B.C., the Greeks had developed trading ports throughout the Mediterranean and even as far as the Black Sea near modern Odessa.?The Foundation Decree of Cyrene (modern Libya) & Neapolis (pictured below) are two of the earliest written archaeological sources of ancient Mediterranean trade and governance.?Amphorae of olive oil and wine were transported en masse from Southern Italy, which became dubbed “Magna Graeca”, or greater Greece.?In fact, early evidence of Mediterranean trade even pre-dates writing, traveling as far back as the Bronze Age of the Myceneans and Copper Age of the Egyptians.?Some of our earliest insights to humanity evolve from these agricultural civilizations as grave sites indicate burial rituals involved jewelry and libations.?Here we have four constants of homo sapiens – vanity, alcohol, death, and the unknown.?Somewhere lost among the ruins of myth and memory lies the truth.??
By 146 B.C., the Roman inhabitants of the “City of Seven Hills” had consolidated the Italian peninsula and begun to display their force as the dominant hegemon of the Mediterranean and just kept expanding… and expanding… and expanding.?Greeks In Name Only, the battle cry of “freedom” against a foreign invader was the only thing that could unite the competing populations – and aristocracy. This ancient call even served as the pretense for Alexander’s campaign Eastward; Caesar pulls a page from this book when waging war across the Alps earning him equal veneration from the masses.?The multipolar anarchy of the classical Greek cities paved the way for Phillip’s phalanxes and Macedonian dominance.?Yet after the death of Alexander the Great, his general’s cannibalized and so did their respective territories: the Seleucids, the Antigonids, and Ptolemaic Egypt.?One by one, these antiquated dynasties fell to the new tenants of these former Greek colonies.?Much like the American Experiment & Manifest Destiny, early Romans shrugged the yoke of tyranny to develop a constitutional republic – dividing authority among the Senatorial elite, Elected/Appointed Magistrates, and the demos (the people or mob).?The philosopher Polybius opines the strength of this form of government due to its flexibility and primitive iteration of checks & balances, but nearly a millennia later, Caesar’s fateful encounter with Cleopatra marked the end of the epoch. ?A dramatic ballad to say the least. ?Dealing with a coup domestically, the obsolescent figurehead invites the Wolf to help her maintain control – inadvertently ushering the new world order. ?Caesar marries a Pharoah (literal god to the Egyptians) and the rest is history.?So, there you have the setting:
Over two thousand years ago, the esteemed poet, Virgil, etched an epic that mirrored the Homeric tales of Troy and Odysseus’ protracted nostos home from an arduous decade of war & decade lost at sea.??The purpose, like all epic poetry, was to build a sense of culture for a population that had experienced centuries of subterfuge, political violence, and civil wars; an new identity for the new Roman state just as the new Roman head of state - ?Octavian now Augustus - transcended 500 years of Republican rule to become the “First Citizen” of the Empire.?Caesar’s expedition across the Alpines into France, fording the channel to Britannica, and marching back over the Rubicon River to Rome, vastly changed the direction of human civilization – a butterfly effect rivaling orders of magnitude to Alexander the Great, a personal hero of Caesar’s, and ultimately, Jesus Christ.?To cauterize the seeping wounds of a century of civil scars, Augustus commissioned a golden age of art & poetry, the Augustan Age, that would inspire the genius of the Renaissance.?Incubated in a flourishing century of peace known as the Pax Romana, with a stroke of the mighty pen, history was written by the victor.
Luckily for us, winemaking is just as old of a human tradition as conquest & civilization.?In fact, the modern term “Epicurean” is an homage to the founder of a school of Greek philosophy; Plato’s seminal work, The Symposium, employs a lavish dinner party with plenty of imbibing involved before discussing the forms of love; and Alexander the Great (Aristotle’s pupil) was known to enjoy potent Macedonian wine with his companion cavalry before, (probably during), and after his battles from Issus to India.?The rich soil of Southern Italy and Sicily’s sun-kissed coastline became Europe’s breadbasket buried in the bosom of the Mediterranean.?Translating much of Greek culture to their Latin lifestyles, you can be assured Romans continued the tradition of symposium.?From the Latifundia estates in the provinces to the grain doles in the capital, Augustus’ summer feasts paid tribute to deities of fertility. The Campania region specifically cited in the excerpts is nestled between the rugged Apennine Mountains and Mediterranean Sea.?
Chef Massimo’s hometown, Alvignano, is situated in the sloping foothills beneath the monolithic Montecasino and the palatial Regia Caserta.?Onotria refers to this fertile “countryside” situated in the land of vines.?Societal customs and virtues so deeply engrained that they are truly sculpted by the environment.?Akin to Hesiod’s Works & Days, Virgil’s grand didactic, The Georgics, lauds the duties and honor of pastoralism, and the Roman Consul Cincinnatus was considered the model Roman leader for returning to his farm after rising to the occasion of fending off the invading barbarian tribes of Gaul.??
With arable French fields, consolidation of the fertile Nile River Valley, creation of roads & aqueducts across Europe, control of the Eurasian channel, and access to the Silk Road, the Romans created an import/export hub of Amazonian proportion.?Shipping was exponentially expedient compared to traveling by road, and Rome controlled the flow of Eurasia’s essential rivers: Seine, Rhine, Tiber, Danube, Nile, and the biblical Tigris & Euphrates.?Along with commodities, culture became the top Roman export.?Spanning territories from Barcelona to Berlin and Bulgaria to Baghdad, the people of the “known world” had ubiquitous language & law, secure trade routes, and incentive towards citizenship as this coveted status brought economic prosperity and corporal protection.?The lasting impression of these exchanges can be heard in the vernacular Romance languages that digressed from Latin.?Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy follows suit in the epic meter.?In fact, the Florentine poet features Virgil as his guide to the realms of the dead, psychopomp.?The archetypal descent (katabasis) of the hero reverberates throughout time and space.?
领英推荐
Virgil’s, Aeneid, recants the apotheosis of the mythical hero, Aeneas, and his divine destiny to lay the foundations of the Roman Empire via the settlement of Latium.?Much like Odysseus’ quest home, Aeneas flees to the seas with his father & “household gods” on his back as the conquering Greeks immolate his home, Troy.?Just as Athena (Minerva) divinely interceded on Odyssesus’ behalf, Aphrodite (Venus) graced our young hero – in the belly of the beast, lost in the abyss of the Mediterranean -- with his grand destiny.?Caesar’s family, House of Julii, traced their lineage to Venus; thus, the cunning author sets the stage to connect every Roman to their glorious founder and patron. Aeneas, symbolizes two core Roman morals – piety & discipline.?Venus tells Aeneas to not stop his quest until he has arrived at shores where, “they eat their table”.?Thus, another epicurean mystery is discovered, and this vague commandment is realized in the form of flatbread when the crew arrives in the Bay of Naples.?You’ve heard of the Botticelli’s Birth of Venus??Well, that was the birth of Pizza.
Worn down by the tempests, Aeneas’ crew of weary Trojans wash to the shores of Libya and are welcomed, most hospitably, by Queen Dido of Carthage.?For those familiar with Roman history, the Senator Cato is famed for ending every speech with, “Delende est Carthago”, or Carthage must be destroyed.?Hearing the pleas of the supplicant foreigners, Dido assuages the woeful strangers, giving them food & shelter.?Subsequently, she falls in love – despite her vows to celibacy after losing the love of her life.?In one of Western canon’s most famous “he said, she saids”, they copulate.?How did the two entangled lovers become so bitter with animosity??What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immutable object??
She thought they married and offers everything in her city, but he has his own city to found.?It’s destiny.?At this point, our battered protagonist is faced with a choice similar to the great warrior, Achilles’: to be comfortable & content or to pursue his fated glory.??
As we know, the story doesn’t go, “Carthage wasn’t built in a day”; hence, this ironically ill-fated tale of temptation crashes & burns.?An allegory for the rival Mediterranean powers, the tragedy of Dido ends with the Queen desperately collapsing on her sword as the visitor sails West towards Italy.??Considering the Phoenicians were the primary explorers of Mare Nostrum (and early pioneers of a written alphabet), the Carthaginian navy was much more skilled at sea.?In an homage to Greek ingenuity besting the Persians at the straits of Salamis, the Romans engineered the corvus to grapple the enemy vessels and allow their superior infantry to regain the upper hand by boarding the ships and slaughtering the crew in melee combat.??Most famous for Hannibal crossing the Alps in Caesarion fashion, the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage concludes with the complete razing of the Canaanite city and sowing of salt to prevent rehabilitation of the accursed site.?After abandoning the keys to Dido’s heart, our epic hero lands near the mouth of Vesuvius, guarding the gated Gulf of Napoli.?Crossing the liminal Lake Avernus, he enters the abyss of the underworld to fulfill his fate of usurping the tribal tyrant, Turnus
Far before the United States entered the Barbary Wars of the 19th Century A.D., these were the original marines of the Shores of Tripoli.?While Caesar is said to have wept on his 33rd birthday for not achieving as much as his idol, Alexander, Augustus’ humbly brags in his autobiography, Res Gestae, that he had the foresight to establish a succession plan, famously leaving Rome a city of marble.?While the marble does make for a lovely photo-op, Rome could only rise after the swampy Pontine Marshes were drained.?This is the crucible that forged the farming festivities of Ferragosto.?“Earth and water”, utters a speedo-clad computer graphically enhanced Gerard Butler before proceeding to “Spartan Kick” a subjugating messenger into the annals of Hollywood history.?The vessel may have undergone many metamorphoses (oral to inscribed, printed, & digital), but the human struggle to climb Maslow’s pyramid from physiological needs like bread & wine to individual liberties such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of property, remains perennial.?The petrified carnage of Pompeii & Herculaneum survives as a Promethean caveat of ashes to dust.?Earth and Water.?From water to wine.?
Along with the restaurant, we’ve opened an online wine store (https://onotria.com/shop )?that can ship all the products we use like olive oils, dry pastas, salamis, cheese, and of course wines.??
You can give a unique gift, easily prep dinner for the kiddos, or have a special night with your significant other(s) if applicable.?
Typically, we have sales on new imports on Wednesdays and offer special rates for email subscribers.?All wine event announcements & menu updates are communicated via email
Onotria Wine Country Cuisine?
2915 Red Hill Suite A 108, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Contact: 9497356761 or 6572184450 ; [email protected]
Thank you for your consideration and have a wonderful day #carpediem