Praeterea grandes effosso marmore sulci
saucia longinquo limite saxa secant. 25
[85] perfodit Koch; codd. (Birt) perforat.
XXVI. (XLIX.)
Aponus.[86]
Fount that prolongest life for the dwellers in Antenor’s city, banishing by thy neighbouring waters all harmful fates, seeing that thy marvels stir utterance even in the dumb, that a people’s love bids poets to honour thee in song, and that there is no hand whose fingers have not traced for thee some lines in thankful witness of prayers granted, shall I not be held guilty alike by the Muses and the Nymphs if I alone sing not thy praises? How can a spot whose fame is on so many lips rightly be passed over by me in slighting silence?
Lower than a lofty hill yet higher than the level plain rises a gentle eminence, clear to see from all around. Prolific is it in hot springs, for wherever water penetrates its recesses encountering fires drive it forth. The crumbling ground exhales vapours, and the water, closed down in its prison of burning rock, forces its way out by many a fissured channel. ’Tis a region of liquid fire where Vulcan’s flames spring forth from earth’s breast, a land of burning and of sulphur. Who would not think it barren? Yet are those fiery fields green with verdure; grass grows o’er the burning marl and, though the very rocks melt at the heat, plants, mocking at the flames, boldly flourish.
Beyond this are vast furrows cut in the rock, scarring and cleaving it in long lines. Traces are
[86] Aponus (mod. Abano) near Padua, famous for its hot mineral springs (cf. Mart. vi. 42. 4; Lucan, vii. 193; Sil. Ital. xii. 218, etc.). Padua (Patavinum) is said to have been founded by Antenor.