'I may add that they are so troubled by the constant passage of travellers entering Italy or leaving it, that it would have been right to excuse them even if those products had been found there in abundance[845].'
[15.] Senator, Praetorian Praefect, to Maximus, Vir Clarissimus, Cancellarius of Lucania and Bruttii[846].
Praises of the author's birthplace, Scyllacium.
'Scyllacium, the first city of Bruttii, which Ulysses the destroyer of Troy is believed to have founded, is said to be unreasonably vexed by the exorbitant demands of purveyors[847]. These injuries grieve us all the more on account of our patriotic love for the place.
'The city of Scyllacium, which is so placed as to look down upon the Hadriatic Gulf, hangs upon the hills like a cluster of grapes: not that it may pride itself upon their difficult ascent, but that it may voluptuously gaze on verdant plains and the blue back of the sea. The city beholds the rising sun from its very cradle, when the day that is about to be born sends forward no heralding Aurora; but as soon as it begins to rise, the quivering brightness displays its torch. It beholds Phoebus in his joy; it is bathed in the brightness of that luminary, so that it might be thought to be itself the native land of the sun, the claims of Rhodes to that honour being outdone.
'It enjoys a translucent air, but withal so temperate that its winters are sunny, and its summers cool; and life passes there without sorrow, since hostile seasons are feared by none. Hence, too, man himself is here freer of soul than elsewhere, for this temperateness of the climate prevails in all things.
'In sooth, a hot fatherland makes its children sharp and fickle, a cold one slow and sly; it is only a temperate climate which composes the characters of men by its own moderation. Hence was it that the ancients pronounced Athens to be the seat of sages, because, enriched with an air of the greatest purity, it prepared with glad liberality the lucid intellects of its sons for the contemplative part of life. Assuredly for the body to imbibe muddy waters is a different thing from sucking in the transparency of a sweet fountain. Even so the vigour of the mind is repressed when it is clogged by a heavy atmosphere. Nature herself hath made us subject to these influences. Clouds make us feel sad; and again a bright sky fills us with joy, because the heavenly substance of the soul delights in everything that is unstained and pure.
'Scyllacium has also an abundant share of the delicacies of the sea, possessing near it those gates of Neptune which we ourselves constructed. At the foot of the Moscian Mount we hollowed out the bowels of the rock, and tastefully[848] introduced therein the eddying waves of Nereus. Here a troop of fishes, sporting in free captivity, refreshes all minds with delight, and charms all eyes with admiration. They run greedily to the hand of man, and before they become his food seek dainties from him. Man feeds his own dainty morsels, and while he has that which can bring them into his power, it often happens that being already replete he lets them all go again.
'The spectacle moreover of men engaged in honourable labour is not denied to those who are sitting tranquilly in the city. Plenteous vineyards are beheld in abundance. The fruitful toil of the threshing-floor is seen. The face of the green olive is disclosed. No one need sigh for the pleasures of the country, when it is given him to see them all from the town.
'And inasmuch as it has now no walls, you believe Scyllacium to be a rural city, though you might judge it to be an urban villa; and thus placed between the two worlds of town and country, it is lavishly praised by both.