The Temple of Jupiter Serapis at Puzzoli, is accounted a very interesting monument of antiquity; being quite different from the Roman and Greek temples, and built in the manner of the Asiatics, probably by the Egyptian and Asiatic merchants settled at Puzzoli, which was the great emporium of Italy, until the Romans built Ostia and Antium.
Sylla having abdicated the Dictatorship, retired, and passed the remainder of his life in this city.
The ruins of Cicero’s villa, near this city, are of such extent, as to give a high idea of the wealth of this great orator. Had Fortune always bestowed her gifts with so much propriety, she never would have been accused of blindness. When the truly great are blessed with riches, it affords pleasure to every candid mind. Neither this villa near Puzzoli, that at Tusculum, nor any of his other country-seats, were the scenes of idleness or riot. They are distinguished by the names of the works he composed there; works which have always been the delight of the learned, and which, still more than the important services he rendered his country when in office, have contributed to immortalize his name.
The bay between Puzzoli and Baia is about a league in breadth. In crossing this in a boat, you see the ruins called Ponte di Caligula, from their being thought the remains of a bridge which Caligula attempted to build across. They are by others, with more probability, thought to be the ruins of a mole built with arches. Having passed over this gulph, a new field of curiosities presents itself. The baths and prisons of Nero, the tomb of Agrippina, the temples of Venus, of Diana, and of Mercury, and the ruins of the ancient city of Cumæ; but no vestiges now remain of many of those magnificent villas which adorned this luxurious coast, nor even of the town of Baia. The whole of this beauteous bay, formerly the seat of pleasure, and, at one period, the most populous spot in Italy, is now very thinly inhabited; and the contrast is still stronger between the antient opulence and present poverty, than between the numbers of its antient and present inhabitants. It must be acknowledged, that we can hardly look around us, in any part of this world, without perceiving objects which, to a contemplative mind, convey reflections on the instability of grandeur, and the sad vicissitudes and reverses to which human affairs are liable; but here those objects are so numerous, and so striking, that they must make an impression on the most careless passenger.
LETTER LXVI.
Naples.
As the Court are not at present at Casserta, we have not seen that place in all its splendour; we passed, however, one very agreeable day there, with Lady H—— and S—H—— F——n.