The hills which rise to the south of the Campania cannot boast of the grandeur of the Rocca Monfina, but they have been looked upon from the most remote times as one of the great curiosities of our earth. Standing upon the commanding height of the Camaldoli (518 feet), the Phlegræan Fields lie at our feet. Acquainted as we now are with the far more formidable volcanoes of Java and the Andes, this verdant sea-bound country may not strike us as a region of horrors. But our Græco-Roman predecessors looked upon it with very different eyes, and being unable to account for the phenomena they witnessed, they ascribed them to the gods. The quaking soil, the flames bursting forth from hidden furnaces, the gaping funnels communicating with unexplored caverns, lakes which disappeared at irregular intervals, and others exhaling deadly gases—all these things left their impress upon ancient mythology and poetry. At the time of Strabo the shores of the Bay of Baiæ had become the favourite resort of {289} voluptuaries, and sumptuous villas rose upon every promontory; but the terrors inspired by hidden flames and mysterious caverns had not yet departed. A dreaded oracle was said to have its seat there, guarded by Cimmerians, to whom strangers desirous of consulting the gods had to apply. These troglodytæ were doomed never to behold the sun, and only quitted their caverns during the night. The Phlegræan Fields were likewise supposed to have been the battle-ground of giants struggling for the possession of the fertile plains of the Campania. During the Middle Ages Pozzuoli was looked upon as the spot from which Christ descended into hell.

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Fig. 106.—THE ASHES OF THE CAMPANIA.

According to Carl Vogt. Scale 1 : 835,400.

The number of craters still distinguishable is twenty. If we were to suppose {290} the country to be deprived of its vegetation, its aspect would resemble that of the surface of the moon. Even the city of Naples occupies an ancient crater, the contours of which have become almost obliterated. To the west of it several old craters can still be traced, one of them occupying a promontory of tufa, surmounted by what is called the tomb of Virgil. Passing through the famous grotto of Posilippo, we find ourselves in the Phlegræan Fields. On our left rises the small conical island of Nisita, its ancient crater invaded by the sea. Farther on we reach the crater known as the Solfatara, the Forum Vulcani of the ancients. Its last eruption took place in 1198, but it still exhales sulphuretted hydrogen. The Park of Astroni lies to the north. The interior slope of its enclosing wall is exceedingly steep, so as to render impossible the escape of the deer and boars which are kept within. The only access is through an artificial breach. Another crater, less regular in shape, is now filled with the bubbling waters of the Lake of Agnano. Near it is the famous Grotto of Dogs, with its spring of carbonic acid. Other springs of gas and sulphurous water rise in the neighbourhood, and to them Pozzuoli is indebted for its name, which is said to mean the “town of stinks.” The town, in turn, has given its name to the earth known as pozzuolana, which supplies an excellent material for the manufacture of cement.

The coast of the bay of Pozzuoli has undergone repeated changes of level, in proof of which the three columns of the temple of Serapis are usually referred to. At a time anterior to the Romans this temple, together with the beach upon which it stands, sank beneath the waters of the sea, and its columns must have been exposed to their action for many years, perhaps centuries, for up to a height of twenty feet they are covered with tubes of serpulæ, and perforated by innumerable holes bored by pholadidæ. In the course of time it rose again slowly above the waters. This happened, perhaps, in 1538, when the Monte Nuovo sprang into existence. In the short period of four days this new volcano, 490 feet in height, rose above the surrounding plain, and buried the village of Tripergola beneath its ashes. A beach now known as La Starza was formed at the foot of the cliffs, and two sheets of water to the west of Monte Nuovo were cut off from the sea. One of these, the Lago Lucrino, is famous for its oysters; the other is the Lago d’Averno, which Virgil, in conformity with antique legends, described as the entrance to the infernal regions. It occupies an ancient crater, and its pellucid waters abound in fish. There are no exhalations of poisonous gases now, and birds fly over the lake with impunity. Still its vicinity is haunted by the memories of the old pagan mythology. Lake Fusaro is referred to by the ciceroni as the Acheron; close to it they point out the den of Cerberus; the sluggish stream of Acqua Morta has been identified with the Cocytus; Lake Lucrino, or rather a spring near it, with the Styx; and the remains of a subterranean passage which connected the Averno with the sea are pointed out as the whilom grotto of the Sibyl. The inhabitants of Cumæ, which was founded by a colony from Chalcis, and the ruins of which still exist on the Me­di­ter­ra­nean coast, to the east of Pozzuoli, brought with them the myths of Hellas, and Grecian poetry, which took possession of them, has kept their memory alive.

It is quite proper that this region of Tartarus should have its contrast in Elysian {291} Fields, and this name has actually been bestowed upon a portion of the peninsula of Baiæ, which formed the chief attraction of the voluptuous Romans, and where Marius, Pompey, Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Agrippina, Nero, and others had their palaces. Many a fearful tragedy has been enacted in these sumptuous buildings. But hardly a trace of them exists now; nature has resumed possession of the country, and the hills of tufa and volcanoes are the only curiosities of the peninsula. Cape Miseno is one of these old volcanoes, and from its summit may be enjoyed one of the most delightful prospects in the world. The whole of the Bay of Naples—“a bit of heaven fallen upon our earth”—lies spread out beneath us, and Ischia the joyous, formidable Capri, the promontory of Sorrento, Mount Vesuvius, and the houses and villas of Naples fill up the space bounded by the sea and the distant Apennines.

The island of Procida joins the Phlegræan Fields to the chain of island volcanoes lying off the Bay of Gaeta. Ischia is the most important of these, and its volcano, the Epomeo (2,520 feet), almost rivals Mount Vesuvius in height. One of its most formidable eruptions occurred in 1302, at a time when Mount Vesuvius was quiescent, but after the latter resumed its activity Ischia remained in repose. Similarly, when the Monte Nuovo was ejected from the earth, the huge volcano went to sleep for no less a period than one hundred and thirty years. Ischia has known no eruption for five centuries and a half, and the gases escaping from its thirty or forty hot springs are now the only signs of volcanic activity.

Ischia has certainly been upheaved during a comparatively recent epoch, for its trachytic lavas rest in many places upon clays and marls containing marine shells of living Me­di­ter­ra­nean species. Some of these have been found at a height of nearly 2,000 feet. At the present time the tufa rocks of Ischia, and of the other volcanic islands to the west of it, are being washed away by the sea. Ventotene, the ancient Pandataria, to which the Roman princesses were exiled, is hardly more now than a heap of scoriæ. Ponza, likewise a place of exile of the Romans, has been separated by the erosive action of the sea into a number of smaller islands. Its lavas overlie Jurassic rocks, similar in all respects to those of Monte Circello on the coast nearest to it.