The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1867-03-12

thereby making this Museum one of
the most important in the world. In
one of the houses are shown four hui
man bodies pertrifed-blocks of stone
which we know once to have been
moving forms of flesh and blood !;
how strangel The Amphitheatre is
interesting, from the good state of
preservation it is in. The villa or
house of Diomede, near one of the
gates of the city, has been brought
into prominence by Bulwer In The
Last Days of Pompeii. tried to
pilfer a piece of Mosaic from the
house of the .Faun, but the guide
strenuously objected to let me take it.
Herculaneum is less interesting when
you have seen Pompeii. The town of
Resina is built all over its former site.
The excavations here are very limited
on account of the great depth and
hardness of its coverings.
To the west of Naples, all along the
various bays and hooks which look
out upon the high rocky islands of
Ischia and Procida, lies very inter-
esting scope of country. On leaving
Naples by carriage, you pass through
the Grotto of Porsilipo, tunnel
through a mountain about half a
mile in length, the construction
of which dates back to the
time of Nero. At the entrance
and above, is the tomb of Virgil.
Beyond the tunnel and across a level
road, skirted by mulberries and vim
yards, which, further on, falls into
the Via Domitiana and other roads of
the olden Roman times, is Pozzuoli,
once, together with Bai@, the center
of Roman gaiety and extravaganza.
In this neighborhood are the vari-
Gus lakes and ponds from which the
tables of the luxurious Romans were
supplied with fish and oysters. At
Bai@, which is further on, when the
Patricians of Rome crowded to these
shores, and every nook had.
been appropriated to the cree
ton of their villas, it became
necessary to supply the deficiency of
room upon the land, by building into
the sea. This spot was the most
fiourishing as well as the most disso-
Lutte, or what in our day we would
call fastest of all the Roman
watering places. Here the
Roman matrons would arrive with the
reputation of Penelope. and leave it
with that of Helen1so says one of
the old historians. Here such great
men of antiquity as Caesar, Pompey,
Marius, Lucullus, Anthony, Scylla,
Brutus, Augustus and Domitian spent
~o,,ab &c tba.r @,yoo Ho.o N,ao.o III
his villa, while the Emperor Ha-
drian here starved himself to death.
Ruins of villas, temples and
baths, the first and last of colossal
proportions, surround you on all
sides, around which clusters the ro-
nance of the centuries long gone by.
Not far off, are the ponds where the
sea cells, which were considered great
luxury, in order to fatten them and
make them savory, were fed on the
carcasses of slaves killed or drowned
for that purpose. From here, across
the bay to Pozzuoli, Caligula built
bridge of boats, selling every vessel
he could find in all the ports of Italy,
so that, for the want of ships to i'm
port grain, the s country was
reduced to "a state of fam
inc, all to satisfy the insane within
of the tyrant. The Lakes, ,Ayernus
and Lucrine-up to the time of the
great volcanic revolution in 1888, con-
nected with the sea by a canal, built
with force of twenty thousand slaves
by, iAgrippa, thereby making these
lakes the secure and unssailabfei har-
Dor for his feets-7are close by. Lake
Ayernus, famous for its oysters, lies
in perfect basip, open only on the 4
side towards the sea, where the canal
entered it, To wander upon its beau
tiful banks, and imagine. the spectacle
of the battle of Acteum, by Agrippa,
given to Augustus, with all its pomp |
and circumstance of war, and the ,ac-
festivities, is an. indul- |
gence I. partook of largely. We did |
not visit the cave of the Sybil, black
ened by the smoke of torches, nor the |
cave of the Dog, where to prove the
presence of carbonic acid gas, a dog, |
who is kept for that purpose, |
and has gotten quite used to the bust
ness of dying. for a franc paid to his |
owner, is made to die and afterwards T
resurrected, The large amphitheatre
on the hill back of Pozzuoli is still in
a fair state of preservation. For the,
Christian traveller it is interesting to
know that here at Pozzuoli Saint
Paul, in company with Saint Luke,
finished his long and perilous journey |
from Cesarea under the care of the
Centurion, Julius. There are many
other points of great interest in this
such as Monte Nuova, Sol
fatore and other extinct volcanoes, the
Promontory Of Misenum, the Islands
Of Ischia and Procida, which for
want of time we did not visit. We
.ook on the way the strife, of Nero.
ong, narrow tunnel cut into the rock,
eading into eternal darkness down to