That
small conical hill, which, as you see, possesses a greener and fresher
look than the adjoining land, is a cone ejected by the caldron beneath,
but two brief centuries since. It occupies, in part, the site of the
ancient Lucrine lake. All that remains of that famous receptacle of the
epicure, is the small and shallow sheet at its base, which is separated
from the sea by a mere thread of sand. More in the rear, and surrounded by
dreary hills, lie the waters of Avernus. On their banks still stand the
ruins of a temple, in which rites were celebrated to the infernal deities.
The grotto of the Sybil pierces that ridge on the left, and the Cumaean
passage is nearly in its rear. The town, which is seen a mile to the
right, is Pozzuoli--a port of the ancients, and a spot now visited for its
temples of Jupiter and Neptune, its mouldering amphitheatre, and its
half-buried tombs. Here Caligula attempted his ambitious bridge; and while
crossing thence to Baiae, the vile Nero had the life of his own mother
assailed. It was there, too, that holy Paul came to land, when journeying
a prisoner to Rome. The small but high island, nearly in its front, is
Nisida, the place to which Marcus Brutus retired after the deed at the
foot of Pompey's statue, where he possessed a villa, and whence he and
Cassius sailed to meet the shade and the vengeance of the murdered Caesar,
at Philippi. Then comes a crowd of sites more known in the middle ages;
though just below that mountain, in the back-ground, is the famous
subterranean road of which Strabo and Seneca are said to speak, and
through which the peasant still daily drives his ass to the markets of the
modern city.
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