d, and Rome held her fleets, and thence
Pliny took the water, to get a nearer view of the labors of the volcano,
after its awakening from centuries of sleep. In the hollow of the ridge,
between that naked bluff and the next swell of the mountain, lie the
fabulous Styx, the Elysian fields, and the place of the dead, as fixed by
the Mantuan. More on the height and nearer to the sea, lie, buried in the
earth, the vast vaults of the Piscina Mirabile--and the gloomy caverns of
the Hundred Chambers; places that equally denote the luxury and the
despotism of Rome. Nearer to the vast pile of castle, that is visible so
many leagues, is the graceful and winding Baiaen harbor; and against the
side of its sheltering hills, once lay the city of villas. To that
sheltered hill, emperors, consuls, poets, and warriors, crowded from the
capital, in quest of repose, and to breathe the pure air of a spot in
which pestilence has since made its abode. The earth is still covered with
the remains of their magnificence, and ruins of temples and baths are
scattered freely among the olives and fig-trees of the peasant. A fainter
bluff limits the north-eastern boundary of the little bay. On it, once,
stood the dwellings of emperors. There Caesar sought retirement, and the
warm springs on its side are yet called the baths of the bloody Nero. That
small conical hill, which, as you see, possesses a greener and fresher
look than the adjoining land, is a cone ejected by the caldron beneath,
but two brief centuries since. It occupies, in part, the site of the
ancient Lucrine lake. All that remains of that famous receptacle of the
epicure, is the small and shallow sheet at its base, which is separated
from the sea by a mere thread of sand. More in the rear, and surrounded by
dreary hills, lie the waters of Avernus. On their banks still stand the
ruins of a temple, in which rites were celebrated to the infernal deities.
The grotto of the Sybil pierces that ridge on the left, and the Cumaean
passage is nearly in its rear. The town, which is seen a mile to the
right, is Pozzuoli--a port of the ancients, and a spot now visited for its
temples of Jupiter and Neptune, its mouldering amphitheatre, and its
half-buried tombs. Here Caligula attempted his ambitious bridge; and while
crossing thence to Baiae, the vile Nero had the life of his own mother
assailed. It was there, too, that holy Paul came to land, when journeying
a prisoner to Rome. The small but high isla