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CHAPTER XIV.

EXCURSIONS TO POZZUOLI AND BAIE.

On our way to Pozzuoli from Naples, we passed the celebrated grotto of Posilipo, cut through the mountain of that name*. It is about half a mile in length, and is sufficiently broad for two carriages to pass. This grotto was probably begun by extracting stone and sand, and afterwards continued to shorten the road from Pozzuoli to Naples, which before passed over the mountain. There are various accounts as to its origin. It is said to have been dug by the inhabitants of Cumæ, a city celebrated in antiquity; and it is very likely they formed it, to facilitate their progress to Naples and that part of Cam

*Posilipo is a Greek word, which signifies cessation of sorrow, the suspension of which the beauty of this situation is supposed to have caused. Marius, Pompey, Virgil, Cicero, and Lucullus, had houses here.

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GROTTO OF POSILIPO.

pania, particularly as their works are described to have been very much in the taste of the ancient people of Egypt, Greece, Sicily, and Italy. Varro attributes it to Lucullus. Strabo says that Agrippa caused two grottos to be formed in the environs of Pozzuoli, under the direction of the architect Coccejus; one of which conducted from the Lake Avernus to Cuma; the other from Pozzuoli to Naples. The common people attribute it to the enchantment of Virgil; but it is most probably a work much more ancient than Rome. In height it is about fifty feet, having two openings in the roof which admit the light; and there is a chapel to the Virgin in the centre, where a lamp burns at night. The direction of this grotto is such, that towards the end of October the setting sun illuminates its whole length.

Above, on the hill, is the tomb of Virgil. Ælius Donat, a celebrated grammarian who lived in 354 of the Christian æra, mentions, in his life of Virgil, that his ashes were transported to Naples by the order of Augustus, and placed on the road to Poz

zuoli. Many concur in having seen the sarcophagus or cinerary urn of Virgil. Alphonso Heredias, who lived in 1500, said that it was constructed of brick, with nine columns in the middle, which supported the urn of marble with the ancient distich :

Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuêre, tenet nunc
Parthenope: cecini pascua, rura, duces.

Nothing remains but a square room with an arched roof. Above the ruin, among many briers, pellitories, and other wild herbs, is an ancient laurel, which, according to the fable, grew of itself upon the tomb of the poet, after his ashes had been deposited there. They say that it is in vain to cut or pluck it up, it always buds again; nevertheless, to preserve the species, slips of the tree are carefully planted around, and the principal branch does not appear to have been there more than sixty

years.

The territory of Pozzuoli comprises a country the most singular perhaps in the world. Nature offers, besides an astonishing fertility, phenomena the most rare and

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TERRITORY OF POZZUOLI.

curious, in the volcanoes which are not entirely extinguished. This place has been celebrated in Heathen mythology, the poets having made it the seat of many of their fables, and contributed much to the attraction of numbers of people. When the Romans became masters of the world, they made it the centre of their delights; they embellished it with magnificence, and spread there the treasures which they had brought from other nations. They found upon its shores, a sweetness of climate, a fruitful soil, ease of mind, a remedy for their ills, and a liberty which they could not enjoy in great capitals. It was covered with delightful country-houses, and with the most sumptuous public and private buildings. The edifices of pleasure were built like cities; and Cicero, in speaking of this country, calls it, “Puteolana et Cumana Regna," the kingdom of Pozzuoli and Cumæ.

This fortunate country did not survive. the fall of the Roman empire. It became uncultivated, and so miserable, that the air we respire is unwholesome and pernicious. Those populous and flourishing cities exist

no more, and there cannot be found even a trace of their ancient grandeur. Pozzuoli presents but a pale and afflicted population; and at each step we meet with wrecks of antique monuments. The phenomena of nature, which have not passed through the same vicissitudes, still excite attention; particularly in the quantity of mineral waters, which her bounty offers as remedies of all our ills.

A mile and a half from the grotto is the Lago d'Agnano. It is about two miles in circumference, has no fish, but frogs innumerable. We were astonished, as the carriage drove along its border, to see the agitation of the water, which we afterwards discovered to be caused by myriads of these animals, which our passing had disturbed on its grassy banks, who were taking refuge in the lake. This, like many others, is supposed to be the crater of an extinguished volcano, and that the action of the subterranean fire is still seen in the bubbling of the water at times. Others think as the water is not warm, that it may be caused by some vapour disengaging itself. I am inclined to