Baiæ—Grotto of Posilipo—Tomb of Virgil—Pozzuoli—Ruins of the
Temple of Jupiter Serapis—The Lucrine Lake—Lake of Avernus,
the Tartarus of Virgil—Temple of Proserpine—Grotto of the
Cumæan Sybil—Nero’s villa—Cape of Misenum—Roman villas—Ruins
of the Temple of Venus—Cento Camerelle—The Stygian Lake—The
Elysian Fields—Grotto del Cane—Villa of Lucullus.
We made the excursion to Baiæ on one of those premature days of March
common to Italy. A south wind and a warm sun gave it the feeling of
June. The heat was even oppressive as we drove through the city, and the
long echoing grotto of Posilipo, always dim and cool, was peculiarly
refreshing. Near the entrance to this curious passage under the
mountain, we stopped to visit the tomb of Virgil. A ragged boy took us
up a steep path to the gate of a vineyard, and winding in among the just
budding vines, we came to a small ravine, in the mouth of which, right
over the deep cut of the grotto, stands the half-ruined mausoleum which
held the bones of the poet. An Englishman stood leaning against the
entrance, reading from a pocket copy of the Æneid. He seemed ashamed to
be caught with his classic, and put the book in his pocket as I came
suddenly upon him, and walked off to the other side whistling an air
from the _Pirata_, which is playing just now at San Carlo. We went in,
counted the niches for the urns, stood a few minutes to indulge in what
recollections we could summon, and then mounted to the top to hunt for
the “myrtle.” Even its root was cut an inch or two below the ground. We
found violets, however, and they answered as well. The pleasure of
visiting such places, I think, is not found on the spot. The fatigue of
the walk, the noise of a party, the difference between reality and
imagination, and, worse than all, the caprice of mood—one or the other
of these things disturbs and defeats for me the dearest promises of
anticipation. It is the recollection that repays us. The picture recurs
to the fancy till it becomes familiar; and as the disagreeable
circumstances of the visit fade from the memory, the imagination warms
it into a poetic feeling, and we dwell upon it with the delight we
looked for in vain when present. A few steps up the ravine, almost
buried in luxuriant grass, stands a small marble tomb, covering the
remains of an English girl. She died at Naples. It is as lovely a place
to lie in as the world could show. Forward a little toward the edge of
the hill some person of taste has constructed a little arbour, laced
over with vines, whence the city and bay of Naples is seen to the finest
advantage. Paradise that it is!
It is odd to leave a city by a road piercing the base of a broad
mountain, in at one side and out at the other, after a subterranean
drive of near a mile! The grotto of Posilipo has been one of the wonders
of the world these two thousand years, and it exceeds all expectation as
a curiosity. Its length is stated at two thousand three hundred and
sixteen feet, its breadth twenty-two, and its height eighty-nine. It is
thronged with carts and beasts of burden of all descriptions, and the
echoing cries of these noisy Italian drivers are almost deafening.
Lamps, struggling with the distant daylight as you near the end, just
make darkness visible, and standing in the centre and looking either
way, the far distant arch of daylight glows like a fire through the
cloud of dust. What with the impressiveness of the place, and the danger
of driving in the dark amid so many obstructions, it is rather a
stirring half-hour that is spent in its gloom! One emerges into the
fresh open air and the bright light of day with a feeling of relief.
The drive hence to Pozzuoli, four or five miles, was extremely
beautiful. The fields were covered with the new tender grain, and by the
short passage through the grotto we had changed a busy and crowded city
for scenes of as quiet rural loveliness as ever charmed the eye. We soon
reached the lip of the bay, and then the road turned away to the right,
along the beach, passing the small island of Nisida (where Brutus had a
villa, and which is now a prison for the carbonari).
Pozzuoli soon appeared, and mounting a hill we descended into its busy
square, and were instantly beset by near a hundred guides, boatmen, and
beggars, all preferring their claims and services at the tops of their
voices. I fixed my eye on the most intelligent face among them, a
curly-headed fellow in a red lazzaroni cap, and succeeded, with some
loss of temper, in getting him aside from the crowd and bargaining for
our boats.
While the boatmen were forming themselves into a circle to cast lots for
the bargain, we walked up to the famous ruins of the temple of Jupiter
Serapis. This was one of the largest and richest of the temples of
antiquity. It was a quadrangular building, near the edge of the sea,
lined with marble, and sustained by columns of solid cipolino, three of
which are still standing. It was buried by an earthquake and forgotten
for a century or two, till in 1750 it was discovered by a peasant, who
struck the top of one of the columns in digging. We stepped around over
the prostrate fragments, building it up once more in fancy, and peopling
the aisles with priests and worshippers. In the centre of the temple was
the place of sacrifice, raised by flights of steps, and at the foot
still remain two rings of Corinthian brass, to which the victims were
fastened, and near them the receptacles for their blood and ashes. The
whole scene has a stamp of grandeur. We obeyed the call of our
red-bonnet guide, whose boat waited for us at the temple stairs, very
unwillingly.
As we pushed off from the shore, we deviated a moment from our course to
look at the ruins of the ancient mole. Here probably St. Paul set his
foot, landing to pursue his way to Rome. The great apostle spent seven
days at this place, which was then called Puteoli—a fact that attaches
to it a deeper interest than it draws from all the antiquities of which
it is the centre.
We kept on our way along the beautiful bend of the shore of Baiæ, and
passing on the right a small mountain formed in thirty-six hours by a
volcanic explosion, some three hundred years ago, we came to the Lucrine
Lake, so famous in the classics for its oysters. The same explosion that
made the Monte Nuovo, and sunk the little village of Tripergole,
destroyed the oyster-beds of the poets.
A ten minutes’ walk brought us to the shores of Lake Avernus—the
“Tartarus” of Virgil. This was classic ground indeed, and we hoped to
have found a thumbed copy of the Æneid in the pocket of the cicerone. He
had not even heard of the poet. A ruin on the opposite shore, reflected
in the still dark water, is supposed to have been a temple dedicated to
Proserpine. If she was allowed to be present at her own worship, she
might have been consoled for her abduction. A spot of more secluded
loveliness could scarce be found. The lake lay like a sheet of silver at
the foot of the ruined temple, the water looking unfathomably deep
through the clear reflection, and the fringes of low shrubbery leaning
down on every side, were doubled in the bright mirror, the likeness even
fairer than the reality.
Our unsentimental guide hurried us away as we were seating ourselves
upon the banks, and we struck into a narrow footpath of wild shrubbery
which circled the lake, and in a few minutes stood before the door of a
grotto sunk in the side of the hill. Here dwelt the Cumæan sybil, and by
this dark passage, the souls of the ancients passed from Tartarus to
Elysium. The guide struck a light and kindled two large torches, and we
followed him into the narrow cavern, walking downward at a rapid pace
for ten or fifteen minutes. With a turn to the right, we stood before a
low archway which the guide entered, up to his knees in water at the
first step. It looked like the mouth of an abyss, and the ladies refused
to go on. Six or seven stout fellows had followed us in, and the guide
assured us we should be safe on their backs. I mounted first myself to
carry the torch, and holding my head very low, we went plunging on,
turning to the right and left through a crooked passage, dark as Erebus,
till I was set down on a raised ledge called _the Sibyl’s bed_. The lady
behind me, I soon discovered by her screams, had not made so prosperous
a voyage. She had insisted on being taken up something in the
side-saddle fashion; and the man, not accustomed to hold so heavy a
burden on his hip with one arm, had stumbled and let her slip up to her
knees in water. He took her up immediately, in his own homely but safer
fashion, and she was soon set beside me on the sibyl’s stony couch,
dripping with water, and quite out of temper with antiquities.
The rest of the party followed, and the guide lifted the torches to the
dripping roof of the cavern, and showed us the remains of beautiful
mosaic with which the place was once evidently encrusted. Whatever truth
there may be in the existence of the sybil, these had been, doubtlessly,
luxurious baths, and probably devoted by the Roman emperors to secret
licentiousness. The guide pointed out to us a small perforation in the
rear of the sybil’s bed, whence, he said (by what authority I know not),
Caligula used to watch the lavations of the nymph. It communicates with
an outer chamber.
We reappeared, our nostrils edged with black from the smoke of the
torches, and the ladies’ dresses in a melancholy plight, between smoke
and water. It would be a witch of a sybil that would tempt us to repeat
our visit.
We retraced our steps, and embarked for Nero’s villa. It was perhaps a
half mile further down the bay. The only remains of it were some vapour
baths, built over a boiling spring which extended under the sea. One of
our boatmen waded first a few feet into the surf, and plunging under the
cold sea-water, brought up a handful of warm gravel—the evidence of a
submarine outlet from the springs beyond. We then mounted a high and
ruined flight of steps, and entered a series of chambers dug out of the
rock, where an old man was stripping off his shirt, to go through the
usual process of taking eggs down to boil in the fountain. He took his
bucket, drew a long breath of fresh air, and rushed away by a dark
passage, whence he reappeared in three or four minutes, the eggs boiled,
and the perspiration streaming from his body like rain. He set the
bucket down, and rushed to the door, gasping as if from suffocation. The
eggs were boiled hard, but the distress of the old man, and the danger
of such sudden changes of atmosphere to his health, quite destroyed our
pleasure at the phenomenon.
Hence to the cape of Misenum, the curve of the bay presents one
continuation of Roman villas. And certainly there was not probably in
the world, a place more adapted to the luxury of which it was the scene.
These natural baths, the many mineral waters, the balmy climate, the
fertile soil, the lovely scenery, the matchless curve of the shore from
Pozzuoli to the cape, and the vicinity, by that wonderful subterranean
passage, to a populous capital on the other side of a range of
mountains, rendered Baiæ a natural paradise to the emperors. It was
improved as we see. Temples to Venus, Diana, and Mercury, the villas of
Marius, of Hortensius, of Cæsar, of Lucullus, and others whose masters
are disputed, follow each other in rival beauty of situation. The ruins
are not much now, except the temple of Venus, which is one of the most
picturesque fragments of antiquity I have ever seen. The long vines hang
through the rent in its circular roof, and the bright flowers cling to
the crevices in its still half-splendid walls with the very poetry of
decay. Our guide here proposed a lunch. We sat down on the immense stone
which has fallen from the ceiling, and in a few minutes the rough table
was spread with a hundred open oysters from Fusaro (near Lake Avernus),
bottles at will of _lagrima Christi_ from Vesuvius, boiled crabs from
the shore beneath the temple of Mercury, fish from the Lucrine lake, and
bread from Pozzuoli. The meal was not less classic than refreshing. We
drank to the goddess (the only one in mythology, by the way, whose
worship has not fallen into contempt), and leaving twenty ragged
descendants of ancient Baiæ to feast on the remains, mounted our donkeys
and started over land for Elysium.
We passed the villa of Hortensius, to which Nero invited his mother,
with the design of murdering her, visited the immense subterranean
chambers in which water was kept for the Roman fleet, the horrid prisons
called the Cento Camerelle of the emperors, and then rising the hill at
the extremity of the cape, the Stygian lake lay off on the right, a
broad and gloomy pool, and around its banks spread the Elysian fields,
the very home and centre of classic fable. An overflowed marsh, and an
adjacent corn-field will give you a perfect idea of it. The sun was
setting while we swallowed our disappointment, and we turned our
donkeys’ heads toward Naples.
We left the city again this morning by the grotto of Posilipo to visit
the celebrated Grotto del Cane. It is about three miles off, on the
borders of a pretty lake, once the crater of a volcano. On the way there
arose a violent debate in the party on the propriety of subjecting the
poor dogs to the distress of the common experiment. We had not yet
decided the point when we stopped before the door of the keeper’s house.
Two miserable-looking terriers had set up a howl, accompanied with a
ferocious and half-complaining bark, from our first appearance around
the turn of the road, and the appeal was effectual. We dismounted and
walking toward the grotto, determined to refuse to see the phenomenon.
Our scruples were unnecessary. The door was surrounded with another
party less merciful, and as we approached, two dogs were dragged out by
the heels, and thrown lifeless on the grass. We gathered round them, and
while the old woman coolly locked the door of the grotto, the poor
animals began to kick, and after a few convulsions, struggled to their
feet and crept feebly away. Fresh dogs were offered to our party, but we
contented ourselves with the more innocent experiments. The mephitic air
of this cave rises to a foot above the surface of the ground, and a
torch put into it was immediately extinguished. It has been described
too often, however, to need a repetition. We took a long stroll around
the lake, which was covered with wild-fowl, visited the remains of a
villa of Lucullus on the opposite shore, and returned to Naples to
dinner.
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