Continuing our route, partly on the Appian way, we came to Mola di Gaeta, a town built on the ruins of the ancient Formiæ. Horace compliments Ælius Lamia, on his being descended from the first founder of this city:
Auctore ab illo ducis originem,
Qui Formiarum mœnia dicitur,
Princeps.
The same Poet puts the wine, made from the grapes of the Formian hills, on a footing with the Falernian:
——mea nec Falernæ
Temperant vites, neque Formiani
Pocula colles.
Cicero had a villa near this place; and it was on this coast where that great orator was murdered in his litter, as he was endeavouring to make his escape to Greece. The fortress of Gaeta is built on a promontory, about three miles from Mola; but travellers, who have the curiosity to go to the former, generally cross the gulph between the two; and immediately, as the most remarkable thing in the place, they are shewn a great cleft in a rock, and informed that it was miraculously split in this manner at the death of our Saviour. To put this beyond doubt, they shew, at the same time, something like the impression of a man’s hand on the rock, of which the following account is given.—A certain person having been told on what occasion the rent took place, struck the palm of his hand on the marble, declaring he could no more believe their story, than that his hand would leave its stamp on the rock; on which, to the terror and confusion of this infidel, the stone yielded like wax, and the impression remains till this day.