Greek Texts & Translations

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 Cumae was so called from τὰ κύματα, 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 ^note wood. It was there that the admirals of Sextus Pompeius assembled their gangs of pirates, at the time when he drew Sicily into revolt. ^note 5

Near to Cumae is the promontory of Misenum, ^note and between them is the Acherusian Lake, ^note which is a muddy estuary 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 Baïae and the hot springs, much used, both as a fashionable watering-place, and for the cure of diseases. Contiguous to Baïae is the Lucrine Lake, ^note and within this the Lake Avernus, ^note which converts into a peninsula the land stretching from the maritime district, situated between it and Cumae, 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 Invocation of Departed Spirits, ^note and relate that here formerly was an oracle of the dead, ^note 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 account 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-