Translation of text from Flavio Biondo, ITALIA ILLUSTRATA

Flavio Biondo, Italia

Begins with p. 4l2. The itinterary starts north in Campania and continues south through the Phlegraean Fields towards Naples. The following account begins at Liternum.

Now Liternum is the place where P. Scipio Africanus went into voluntary exile. The story is that when he was dying, he ordered the following to be inscribed on his tomb, "Ungrateful country, you do not have even my bones." As a result of the fact that this inscription about the ingratitude of his country was put on a monument; we have recently succeeded in finding the place with great certainty and security. For at the already mentioned Clanius River, a little above its mouth into the sea, there is a tower built on top of the ruins of ancient buildings, which, as I said, they call "The Tower of the Country." This is where we hold that that monument was. And beyond this name "Tower of the Country" and the above-mentioned testimonia of Ptolemy, Pliny, Livy and others, the Spring of Sour Water (Fons Aquae Acidulae) presented us with rather plain certainty. Pliny says that this spring was at Liternum; its water like wine makes people drunk. In fact even now the water gushes amidst the above mentioned ruins of buildings. Shepherds say that this water cures all sicknesses of the head when it is drunk. When we tasted it carefully, we recognized that its flavor, just like that of all the other waters which are drunk, was good.

Although we inhaled into our nostrils fumes from it that were not unpleasant, just as is usual with wine, perhaps because of the moderation of our draft we were not able to see what effects drinking it has. Seneca in Epistle 51 [Ep. 51.11] says, "At Liternum Scipio passed his exile more honorably than at Baiae." But I am not surprised if there is extant no trace of the tomb and of that inscription and the monument and the statue because Livy of Patavium, who lived less than a hundred years from his time, writes in Book 29 [38.56.3-4] what he himself saw, "Some people say that Scipio died and was buried in Rome, others at Liternum. In both places monuments and statues are shown. For both at Liternum there was a monument and a statue placed on top of it. This we ourselves saw recently; it had fallen down from age. At Rome also outside Porta Capena at the monument of the Scipios there are three statues: two are said to be of Publius and Lucius Scipio, the third of the poet Q. Ennius." And Seneca at the beginning of Epistle 77 [Ep. 86.1] seems not tohave known that tomb. For he says, "While resting in the very villa of Scipio I write these things to you, after having reverenced his spirit and the altar which I suspect is the tomb of the great man."

Cumae is located at the fifth milestone from Liternum. Between both places where the shore curves between a lake and the sea was the villa of Sevilius Vatia, which Seneca describes in Epistle 55. [accurate citation] and says that that rich ex-praetor was known for no other thing than his leisure at that villa in which he grew old, so that busy people once shouted, "O Vatia, you alone know how to live" although in the judgment of Seneca he knew how to hide, not to live. Hence Seneca says of himself that every time he passed there, he was accustomed to say of him as a joke, "Here Vatia lies," as if he were not alive, but dead. Livy in the eighth book [8.22.5] gives this as the origin of the city of Cumae, "The Cumaeans take their origin from Euboean Chalcis, With the fleet with which they sailed from home, they had much power on the shore of the sea which they live on, landing first on Aenaria and Pithecussae, then daring to transfer their homes to the mainland." Vergil says, "And at last he glides on to the Euboean shores of Cumae." [A. 6.2]. "And when you put ashore, you will come to the city of Cumae [A. 3.441]; on which Servius [on A. 3.441 and 6.2] says, "Euboea is an island: from Chalcis, a city on this island, they set out to seek new homes. And not far from Baiae, which took its name from Baius, the son of Ulysses who was buried here, they found an empty shore where, upon seeing a pregnant woman, they founded a city. Livy in the second book [2.14.7], "Then help was summoned from the Latin peoples and from Cumae. The Cumaean forces using technique against force turned aside a little; spreading out they turned their standards around and attacked the enemy as they wandered about." And below [2.21.5], "This year was noteworthy for the news of the death of Tarquin. He died at Cumae where he had retreated to Aristodemus the tyrant after the destruction of the resources of the Latins." And in the fourth book [4.44.12], "In the same year the city of Cumae, which the Greeks then held, was captured by the Capuans." And in the eighth [8.14.11], "the peoples of Cumae and Suessula of the same legal rights and status as they decided Capua to be." There is a lofty hill in the city of Cumae, at the top of which was a temple of Apollo about which Vergil says, "The citadels on which lofty Apollo presides." [A. 6.9-10]. And now in that city, which, as we have seen, is bereft of any inhabitants, in addition to stupendous crags of living rock, the lofty merlons of the walls can be seen. And where the citadel of Apollo was, there is a Christian shrine; it too has been worn down by age. Nothing remains intact except a cavern decorated with a gable. Our travel companion, Prosper Camuleius, a learned man, entered it and on the basis of certain inferences asserted that it was the cave of the Sibyl. There was also close to Cumae at a distance of three miles the sacred place of Hamae, about which Livy in Book 23 [23.35] says, "The Capuans attempted to bring the state of Cumae under their jurisdiction, first by importuning them to defect from the Romans; when this had no succcess, they prepared a trick to capture them. There was a nocturnal sacrifice at Hamae." Of this once populous place a high mountain, which is barely a mile and a half from the baths now called Tripergolan, is covered up to its peak with conspicuous ruins. And no human habitation or cultivated land is closer to Tripergolae than these. Now in the direction where Cumae faces Avernus and Baiae, there stands equally distant from both cities an arch in brick work supported by lofty columns which is comparable to any Roman structure.

Next at the fifth milestone from Cumae stands Mt. Misenus which was celebrated by Vergil in his poetry, "And now it is called Misenus from him." [A. 6.234-235] Where it faces Cumae, there is located the lake that is now called the Dead Sea. Around it on the ridge of land that is adjacent outstanding ruins and foundations are observed. For this was the place in which Suetonius Tranquillus [Aug. 49.1] writes that Octavian Augustus established at Misenus a large fleet which was to guard the provinces of the Roman empire which faced the Tyrrhenian Sea, on this side, Gaul and the two Spains, on that Mauritania and Africa and the islands placed between. And the prefect of that fleet was Pliny of Verona when he died in a fire at Mt. Vesuvius.

Cumae stands distant from the promontory of Misenus, on this side, as we said, at the fifth milestone; on that side Lucrinus and Avernus are the same number of miles away, and while Avernus is barely four miles away from Cumae by land, the distance of five miles at sea on both sides goes around land which was once the most beautiful of all in Italy, in which Baiae was a rich city. Even if all this territory extends, as we said, five miles, while the width remains unchanged, it occupies two miles in one place and less in another so that as a result it offers the appearance of a finger. In this finger of land, so to speak, so many things are to be observed, part intact underground, part half-collapsed in their superstructures, part the fallen remains of ancient structures, so that I think that outside the walls of Rome nothing in the whole world is the equal of it in the size and beauty of its buildings, and I believe that not unjustly does Horace say [Ep. 1.1.83], "No place outshines lovely Baiae." Since Misenus faces Puteoli in a straight line, the sea by which they are separated from each other, according to Suetonius Tranquillus [Cal. 19.1] in his life of Gaius Caligula, scarcely fills three and six-tenth miles. Hence the bay which on both sides was once called the Bay of Baiae stretches five miles from Misenus to the inmost recess of Avernus and as many miles from Avernus to Puteoli. It would be laborious to describe each thing one by one which either that finger of land or the Bay of Baiae contains. But we will touch on the more worthy matters as far as it will be possible to do so.

First, Mt. Misenus itself, even if it is by nature hollow where it narrows into the promontory, nevertheless, has been excavated in so many construction projects, so many either in marble or reinforced with brick work and squared stone, it is supported by so many columns that rise aloft that as a result it seems everywhere to hang suspended. There were within it, as becomes clear, baths, there were swimming pools, there were dining rooms for dinners and sumptuous indulgence. On top of the mountain, moreover, in the area adjacent and where it turns toward the above-mentioned site of the Misenus fleet, foundations are to be viewed which are incredible to those who have not seen them; where they speak popularly of the "Piscina Mirabilis." Whereas this was the foundations of, as it is agreed, a very beautiful house whose superstructure was destroyed, the part that is extant is subterranean and is held up by lofty brick columns two hundred fifty feet high; its width is one hundred sixty feet. It is so intact that it seems new. We maintain that it was the house of Lucius Lucullus which he had in the territory of Baiae. And because it was located in the warmest place of all in Italy, it seems to be the one about which Plutarch writes [Luc., 39.4] that Lucullus very charmingly joked with Cn. Pompey and Marcus Cicero and many leading men of that period when, as all these Romans were dining with Lucullus at the Lucullanum, now the Frascatum, during the summer, Pompey criticized Lucullus inexperience in construction because he had built a very beautiful and luxurious house that was suited to summer since it was open with a large number of porticoes and windows, but was completely uninhabitable in winter. Lucullus answered that Pompey was disparaging his merits because he thought that cranes had more sense than he had since they changed their abodes in summer and winter. For he says that while he built this house at the Lucullanum to be suitable for summer, he had constructed another very beautiful for winter in the territory of Baiae where it is always spring.

There are so many tombs and remains of villas and other monuments in part completely in ruins, in part half intact that are to be seen in the territory of this five mile peninsula and finger of land that there seems to have been one city there extending without a break rather than villas scattered over the countryside. But now let us describe the Bay of Baiae, about which there is nothing that we can say which evokes greater awe than the fact that its shores which extend for ten miles from Misenus to Puteoli were covered without a break by structures, and not simply by structures, but by the greatest of all the structures which we have seenbut rarelyelsewhere. Some of them were located on very high hills and were supported on piers looming over the open water that were built up in the deepest part of the sea on a structure of insanely huge moles. Some, however, are extant in a nearly intact state. There are baths, to be sure, in the inmost part of the Bay of Baiaethis is the only spot which preserves the memory and the ancient name of Bay of Baiae; there are other nearly similar baths close to these, but we were not able to get information about the founder of these and about his name. But there is a bath far below these which meets you as you head for Avernus and Lucrinus. It preserves, not to mention the structure of the building, a painting as well which is in part intact. In it part of the painted verses are extant; from the disconnected words which can be read, you may make the conjecture that this was the bath of Cicero. Pliny [Nat. 61-6-8] states that his freedman wrote the poem for him. And above this Ciceronian bath there is another bath which was cut from the stone in the shape of a long and twisting ditch. Without the use of any hot water, but only with its vapors it causes the most abundant and, as the doctors say, the most salubrious sweating. Our ancestors regularly used hot baths of this type, which from the act of rubbing and wiping they inevitably called "Frictolae." The glorious doctor of the church Jerome warned Christian widows and virgins to avoid these heat baths (thermae) just like the regular baths (balnea). They now corruptly call this bath "Tritola."

At this part of the Bay of Baiae Lucrinus begins. In his explication of the Vergilian verse on Lucrinus, "Or should I mention the ports and the barriers added to Lucrinus," [G. 2.161], Servius [on G. 2.161] has this to say, "In the Bay of Baiae in Campania, opposite the city of Puteoli there are two lakes, Avernus and Lucrinus, which once because of the abundance of fish provided great revenue. But when the violence of the sea which frequently broke through into the lakes kept the fish out, and the contractors suffered heavy losses, they made a request to the senate. C. Iulius Caesar set out and by building out piers blocked off the part of the sea which previously was usually the cause of the damage. He left a short passage through to Avernus by which both large numbers of fish could enter and the waves could cause no harm. This project was called Julian." About this project Suetonius says [Aug. 16], "He created the Julian Port by letting the sea into Lake Lucrinus and Avernus." And Servius in his explication of the Vergilian verse, "and divine lakes" [A. 3.442], says [on A. 3.442] the following, "Lakes Avernus and Lucrinus previously were surrounded by such thick forests that a very harsh smell of sulphurous water emanating from them through narrow openings killed the birds flying overhead; and hence it was called Avernus. When Caesar heard this, he cut down the forests and made these places pleasant." And below, on the Vergilian verse, "Acheron poured out" [A. 6.107], "The Acheron River is said to belong to the underworld. But it is agreed that the place is not far from Baiae and is surrounded by mountains, so much so that it can look upon neither the rising nor the setting sun, but only the width of the Bay of Baiae on the south," about which we have spoken.

Suetonius in the life of Caligula [Cal. 19] indicates the following, "He joined the distance between Baiae and the jetties of Puteoli with a bridge approximately three and six tenths miles long by gathering cargo ships from all over and setting them together at anchor in a double row after heaping earth on them and in a straight line in the form of the Via Appia. Over this bridge he went back and forth for two days straight, on the first day on a horse decked out in metal ornaments, he himself adorned also with a civic crown and carrying a shield and with a sword and a golden cloak; on the next day in the dress of a charioteer and on a two-horse chariot drawn by famous horses."

But Nero his successor too devised greater insanities in the area of Baiae, about which Suetonius [Ner. 31.3] says, "He began a covered pool from Misenus to Lake Avernus which was enclosed, as it were, by porticoes; to this whatever warm waters there were in all of Baiae were to be diverted; a channel from Avernus to Ostia on which one could travel by ship as well as by a road, one hundred sixty miles long and wide enough for quinquremes to pass side by side." About this most wicked emperor Suetonis also says [Ner. 34], "He sent a letter and invited his mother Agrippina to Baiae to celebrate the Festival of Minerva with him. After giving his naval commanders the job of wrecking in an apparently accidental collision the light galley on which she had sailed, he prolonged the dinner party. But when she escaped by swimming away, he had her strangled."

Servius, explicating the Vergilian verse, "and infernal lakes" [A. 3.386], says [on A. 3.386] that Lucrinus and Avernus are meant, between which there is a cave, through which one descended to the underworld.

But enough now about ancient things; let us go to more recent matters. Helius Spartianus has this about the most excellent emperor Alexander, the son of the Christian Mammaea, "In the territory of Baiae he built a palace with a pool for his mother Mammaea, which was then called the Mammaea and is so named today. He also built other magnificent structures in the territory of Baiae in honor of his relatives and marvelous pools into which the sea was made to flow.

Close to the Bay of Baiae was Bauli, a place associated with Hercules. Servius [on A. 6.107] thinks it was called Bouali, as it were, because he kept his animals there. These are the things which, whether concerned with antiquity or with more recent periods, we considered worth mentioning. It remains to turn this discussion to the present. Lucrinus began at Frictolae, now Tritolla. There are to be seen in this district projections of walls which Caesar built to separate off the violent part of the sea; Avernus is now separated from Lucrinus; he closed off this brief channel left by Caesar so that the abundant number of fish could enter the sea by putting sand over it; this barrier is deliberately very diligently maintained so that the waters which rise as the sea approaches may not damage the baths. The district now called Tripergula has these baths in very great number, and, as the doctors say, they are the most salubrious in Italy. Now all these baths are located near Lake Avernus which retains a salty flavor in its waters. Its waters are so deep that the depth cannot be touched by a great mass of rock or lead tied perpendicularly to even the longest ropes. It is marvelous to see the buildings of stupendous and insanely extravagant structure which were put up either around Avernus or in the waters close to the shore while, however, streets paved in stone in a circuit and forms of aquaducts of sweet water on the upper hills are nearly intact.

When you leave the low-lying sites of Lucrinus and Avernus and you want to head for Puteoli, you proceed on the Via Sillicata, on which everywhere there are to be seen the ruins of bigger buildings than the ones mentioned above which look down onto the territory of Baiae from above, all the way until you get to the Via Atellana which went from the city of Rome to Atellae along the Appia and after Atellae to Baiae. Now on this road not far from Puteoli and on the stretch from the middle of the territory of Baiae to the current Adversa there are still the remains of ancient structures intact to such a degree that if doors and windows were added, it seems that they would provide not uncomfortable dwellings. When you leave behind this road at the ridge of Baian territory where the shrine of St. Mary is located behind the spine, of all the buildings which we have so far described in the territory of Baiae, ruins of even larger ones are to be seen built up on high. These the inhabitants call Belgermanum. As the letters inscribed on a marble pier indicate, there were structures which Tiberius Caesar built upon the successful completion of the German Waras a result of which he was called Germanicusto celebrate and memorialize this accomplishment. Hard by this structure which is even now very beautiful there is a theater which survives nearly intact; [cuius occasione] Suetonius says [Aug. 44] that it happened that when at a very crowded program of games which Augustus Caesar attended, no one in the very crowded auditorium gave the proper reception to a man of senatorial rank, the emperor made changes in the manner of viewing the shows.

Next there is Puteoli. About this ancient city Livy has this in the fourth [24.7.10], "At the end of this year Q. Fabius according to a resolution of the senate [per bellum captum frequentari fecit emporiumque communivit atque (the problem is with captum which should be coeptum; this generates all the other changes in the text)] stationed a garrison there." And below [24.13.6], about Hannibal at Lake Avernus under the pretext of making a sacrifice, "In reality he went down to Puteoli in order to make an attempt on it. When the sacrifice for which he had come was completed and while he was lingering there after ravaging the territory of Cumae all the way up to the Promontory of Misenus, he suddenly turned his army to Puteoli in order to take the Roman garrison unawares." And below [32.7.3] , "P. Cornelius Scipio and C. Laelius Paetus in great mutual harmony controlled the senate without a black mark against anyone and they established duties for the naval yards at Capua and Puteoli." And below [32.29.3], "The consul Atinius proposed a law to found five colonies on the shore of the sea, one of which was founded at Puteoli." Helius Spartianus says that the emperor Hadrian, when he died at Baiae, was buried at Puteoli in the Villa Ciceroniana, where his sucessor Antoninus consecrated a temple in place of a tomb. [Puteolis nostro ordine transmissis] a place is found in the area midway between Puteoli and the city of Naples which was celebrated among the ancients for its fame. For the villa which Plutarch [Luc. 39.3] says that Lucius Lucullus had near Naples and that on the estate he excavated the mountain and hollowed it out in such a way that he let the sea in; hence Cn. Pompey and M. Cicero used to call him Xerxes in a toga. This is the villa, the huge ruins of which overhang the so-called Bath of Agnani although there are no baths in the place, but other Frictolae better than the ones above. And those who have knowledge of great things of this type which are produced by genius and power very easily will realize that there was an opening, and they understand that the opening was man-made and for this reason the mountain was excavated and pushed back and so provided a path and that even now with scant effort it could be restored so that the sea could now fill the Lake of Agnani in such a way that one could sail up to the walls and porticoes of the villa. As you proceed on this route, you arrive at Caverna which is now called the Crypt, where the very beautiful Mt. Pausillipus, which was once, as Pliny [Nat. 9.167] says, inhabited by villas, is excavated to the length of six tenths of a mile and provides a level road for vehicles on the Via Puteolana. It is not known to us who built this memorable structure, but we read that mention of this place is made in Seneca of Corduba in the fifty-seventh letter where he says [Ep. 57.1-2], "The Neapolitan Crypt welcomed me, There is nothing longer than that prison, nothing darker than its jaws, which give us the opportunity not to see through the darkness, but to see darkness itself. If the place had light, the dust, even in the open air a bothersome and noxious thing, would carry it off. But there where it gets rolled up in itself and, when without any vents it is closed up, it falls down on those by whom it is stirred up!" And Donatus in his explication of Vergil says that this poet was buried in Naples on the Via Puteolana at the second milestone. This tomb has often been sought in the area of the above mentioned Crypt, but we have not been able to find it.

Next comes the ancient and famous city of Naples, whose origin Livy attributes in the eighth book [8.22.5] to the people of Cumae, "Palaepolis was not far from where Naples now is. The same people lived in two cities. They took their origin from Cumae." And Liviy says below [cf. 8.25.5-26.7] that Palaepolis, which the Greeks held, was captured by the consul Publius Plantius, and below [8.23.10], "Publius after opportunely capturing a place between Palaepolis and Naples cut the enemy off from an alliance that provided mutual assistance." And below he says in the same way that Naples was surrendered to the Romans with the assistance of the people of Nola. But ever after the Neapolitans always acted with the most steadfast good faith toward the Romans and their other masters. First, when the Roman state was in a state of shock after the disaster at Cannae, and at Gereonium the war was at a standstill with winter impending, Neapolitan legates came to Rome. Forty libation bowls of great weight were delivered by them to the senate house. And the senate, contrary to its practice, accepted these and thanked the Neapolitans. [22.32.4] And when Hannibal sought with the utmost effort to to take possession of Naples, the Neapolitans remained on the side of the Romans. Livy in Book 23 [23.1.5] says about Hannibal, "He headed through the territory of Cumae to the Tyrrhenian Sea with the intention of attacking Naples, so that he might have control of a maritime city." And below [23.14.5], "Hannibal after taking Capua, when he had made an attempt on the spirits of the Neapolitans partly with hope, partly with fear, he led his army into the territory of Nola." And below in the fourth [24.13.7], "Then he led (an army) to lay waste the territory of Naples more in anger than in hopes of taking conrol of the city." But the city of Naples always flourished intact after that during the period of the Roman state under the consuls and equally under the emperors, so much so that serious people sought relief from their cares there and grumps the diversion of fun and sport. Suetonius on Nero [Ner. 25.1], "When he returned from Greece, because he had made his musical debut in Naples, he knocked down a part of the wall and entered the city in a chariot drawn by white horses." And below [Ner. 40.4], "Nero learned about the revolt in the provinces of Gaul at Naples on the very day he had killed his mother." But we also see that men famous for their literary productions stayed in Naples, Vergil for a long time, T.Livius from time to time, and Horace. And Servius [on G. 4.563] states that Vergil wrote the Georgics in Naples, which he called Parthenope, and he branded it for its ignoble leisure.