Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/376

 362 STRABO. CASA.UB. 243, ants, and even violated their wives. Still, however, there remain numerous traces of the Grecian taste, their temples, and their laws. Some are of opinion that Cumse was so called from TO. Kvpara, the waves, the sea-coast near it being rocky and exposed. These people have excellent fisheries. On the shores of this gulf there is a scrubby forest, extending over numerous acres of parched and sandy land. This they call the Gallinarian l wood. It was there that the admirals of Sextus Pompeius assembled their gangs of pirates, at the time when he drew Sicily into revolt. 2 5. Near to Cuma? is the promontory of Misenum, 3 and between them is the Acherusian Lake, 4 which is a muddy es- tuary of the sea. Having doubled Misenum, you come to a harbour at the very foot of the promontory. After this the shore runs inland, forming a deeply indented bay, on which are Baiae and the hot springs, much used, both as a fashion- able watering-place, and for the cure of diseases. Contiguous to Baue is the Lucrine Lake, 5 and within this the Lake Aver- nus, 6 which converts into a peninsula the land stretching from the maritime district, situated between it and Cuma3, as far as Cape Misenum, for there is only an isthmus of a few stadia, across which a subterraneous road is cut [from the head of the gulf of Avernus] to Cumae and the sea [shore] on which it stands. Former writers, mingling fable with history, have applied to Avernus the expressions of Homer in his Invoca- tion of Departed Spirits, 7 and relate that here formerly was an oracle of the dead, 8 and that it was to this place that Ulysses came. However, this gulf of Avernus is deep even near the shore, with an excellent entrance, and is both as to its size and nature a harbour ; but it is not used, on ac- count of the Lucrine Gulf which lies before it, and is both large and somewhat shallow. The Avernus is surrounded with steep hills which encompass the whole of it, with the excep- (lib. xii. 76) places this event in the fourth year of the 89th Olympiad, 421 B. c. Livy (lib. iv. 44) seems to place it a year later. 1 It is now called Pineta di Castel Volturno. 2 Forty years B. c. 3 Punta di Miseno. 4 Lago di Fusaro. 6 Lago Lucrino. This lake has almost disappeared, owing to a subter- raneous eruption, which in 1538 displaced the water and raised the hill called Monte Nuovo. 8 Lago d'Averno. 7 vijKvla, the title of the llth book of the Odyssey. 6 vtievofiavrelov, another title of the same (llth) book