this favored region. On the summit of that promontory (Misenus) rose the villa of Marius. Lucullus succeeded to it, and spread around it the amenity, and the beauty which distinguished his character. On the slope of the hill beyond the harbor and looking towards Pozzuolo stood the villa of Baulis, where Cicero and Hortensius used to meet and exercise their rival powers. On the eminence above it, rose the retreat of Cæsar, lofty in its site, but in the vicinity of Baia; thus suited to the temper of that chief, high and imperious, but open to all the charms of literature, and to all the allurements of pleaYonder in the curve of the bay and almost in the beach was Cicero's Academy sacred as its name implies, to meditation and philosophical research. sure. Around in different directions, but all within the compass of four miles, were the villas of Pompey, Varro, and Lucullus; of Pompey, once the first of Roman citizens in power and moderation; of Lucullus, famed alike for his talents, his learning, and his luxury; and of Varro, renowned for his deep erudition and thorough insight into the laws, the literature, and the antiquities of his country. What spot in the universe, Rome alone ex cepted, ever united so much power, so much genius, so much greatness! Baie indeed at that time was the resort, or rather the very temple of Wisdom and the Muses; whither the masters of the world retired, not to dissolve their energies in effeminacy, but to unbend their minds in literary inquiries and refined conversation. Luxury appeared, without doubt, but in her most appropriate form and character, as the handmaid of taste, to minister at the tables, and season the repasts, where Cæsar and Cicero, Pompey and Lucullus, Varro and Hortensius, enjoyed the feast of reason. Shortly after this era of greatness and glory, the sun of liberty set for ever on the Roman world; but it cast a parting beam, which still continued to brighten the hemisphere. Augustus himself felt its influence; he had been educated in the principles, and inured to the manly and independent manners of a free Roman; he observed the forms and retained the simplicity of ancient times, and gloried in the plainness and even in the appellation of a citizen; he may therefore be considered as a republican prince. In the modesty of this character, he frequented the coasts of Baia, and conducted in his train improvement, opulence, and festivity; Agrippa and Mæcenas, Virgil and Horace. One of the most pleasing scenes of this Emperor's life, and well calculated to close a career once so active, with tranquillity, took place in the bay of Puteoli.* The spirit of the republic seems to have expired with Augustus: under his successor Rome was destined to taste the bitters of despotism, and during the following reigns, to drain the cup to the dregs. Then Baie became the receptacle of profligacy and effeminacy†, of lust and cruelty, as far beyond the bounds of nature as the power of the imperial monsters was above human control. The beauties of nature were tarnished by the foulness of vice, and the virtuous man turned away from scenes which he could not behold without disgust and horror. Silius, Martial, Statius, courted the Muse in vain on that shore which had inspired the strains of Virgil. They attempted to celebrate the beauties of Baia; but the subject was degraded; and their lines forced and inharmonious, neither delight the ear nor win the under *Suetonius, Aug. 98. + Diversorium vitiorum esse cæperunt. Seneca, Ep. v. standing*. Baie and its retreats, defiled by obscenity, and stained with blood, were doomed to devastation; and earthquakes, war and pestilence were employed in succession to waste its fields, and to depopulate its shores. Its pompous villas were gradually levelled in the dust; its gay alcoves were swallowed up in the sea; its salubrious waters were turned into pools of infection; and its gales that once breathed health and perfume, now wafted poison and * With all due respect to the partial opinion of the admirers of Silius, Martial, and Statius, the compositions of these authors are the offspring of study and exertion, and though in different proportions, yet always in some degree, strained, harsh, and obscure. They have been praised, it is true, but principally, I believe, by their editors and annotators. Pliny, indeed, speaks with kindness and partiality of Martial, but his praise seems dictated less by his taste than his gratitude; and that his opinion of Martial's poetical powers was not very high, may be suspected from the equivocal expression with which he closes his eulogium. "At non erunt æterna quæ scripsit! non erunt fortasse: ille tamen scripsit, tanquam futura." In fact, Naples is more. indebted to a single modern poet, than to the three ancients above-mentioned united. I allude to Sannazarius, who has celebrated the scenery of his country in a strain, pure, graceful and Virgilian, and interwoven all the characteristic features of the Bay with the subject of his eclogues and elegies. death. The towns forsaken by the inhabitants, gradually sunk to ruin, and the most delicious region the sun beholds in his course, is now a desert, and seems destined to expiate in ages of silence and desolation the crimes of the last degenerate Romans.* The morning was now far advanced, and I turned towards the west to view the island, which is highly cultivated, thickly inhabited, and presents to a spectator beholding it from the castle a most delightful grove of mulberries, poplars, and vines, with domes, and clusters of white houses intermingled. Juvenal† seems to * The present unwholesomeness of Baia and its bay, if real, must be ascribed partly to the same cause as that of the lakes Agnano and Averno; and partly to the streams and sources once collected on the hills behind it in aqueducts and reservoirs, now spreading and oozing down the declivities, and settling in the hollows below. In a warm climate all stagnant water becomes putrid during the hot months. This inconvenience might easily be remedied, and will, without doubt, when the government becomes more active, and the taste of the Neapolitan gentry more rural. + Quamvis digressu veteris confusus amici, |