Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/377

 B. v. c. iv. 5. ITALY. CAMPANIA. 363 tion of the entrance. These hills, now so beautifully culti- vated were formerly covered with wild forests, gigantic and impenetrable, which overshadowed the gulf, imparting a feeling of superstitious awe. The inhabitants affirm that birds, flying over the lake, fall into the water, 1 being stifled by the vapours rising from it, a phenomenon of all Plutonian 2 localities. They believed, in fact, that this place was a Plutonium, around which the Kimmerians used to dwell, and those who sailed into the place made sacrifice and propitiatory offerings to the infernal deities, as they were instructed by the priests who ministered at the place. There is here a spring of water near to the sea fit for drinking, from which, however, every one abstained, as they supposed it to be water from the Styx : [they thought likewise] that the oracle of the dead was situated some where here ; and the hot springs near to the Acherusian Lake indicated the proximity of Pyriphlegetbon. Ephorus, peopling this place with Kimmerii, tells us that they dwell in under-ground habitations, named by them Argilla3, and that these communicate with one another by means of certain subterranean passages ; and that they conduct strangers through them to the oracle, which is built far below the sur- face of the earth. They live on the mines together with the pro- fits accruing from the oracle, and grants made to them by the king [of the country]. It was a traditional custom for the serv- ants of the oracle never to behold the sun, and only to quit their caverns at night. It was on this account that the poet said, " On them the Sun Deigns not to look with his beam-darting eye." 3 At last, however, these men were exterminated by one of the kings, the oracle having deceived him ; but [adds Ephorus] the oracle is still in existence, though removed to another 1 Strabo is not the only one who mentions this : Virgil says, " Spelunca alta fuit, vastoque immanis hiatu, ' Scrupea, tuta lacu nigro, nemorumque tenebris ; Quam super haud ullse poterant impune volantes Tendere iter pennis ; talis esse halitus atris Faucibus effundens supera ad convexa ferebat ; Unde locum Graii dixerunt nomine Avernum." ^Eneid. vi. 237. 2 The Greeks applied the term Plutonian to places where disagree- able and pestilential exhalations arose. 3 " Nor ever does the light-giving Sun shine upon them." Odys. xi. 15.