Eustace, John Cretwode: A classical tour through Italy An. MDCCCII (Vol. 3): 3. ed., rev. and enl (London: J. Mawman, 1815)

146 CLASSICAL TOUR Ch, IV.
“ Pausilypi colics, et Candida Mergellina,
Et myrteta sacris consita littoribus.”...,.,
Me tibi, terra beata, dico; tu meta laborum,
Jamque senescentis grata quies anirni.
Tu, dum fata sinunt, lucemque auramque ministra ;
Tu, precor, exstincti corporis ossa tege.
Such were the wishes of Flaminius ; such might
have been our’s were not England our country !
The first stage from Naples is Aversa, a well-
built modern town. A few miles from thence we
crossed the Clanis, now called Chiagno, and
sometimes Cagno, and proceeded rapidly over the
plain of Campania. We arrived at Capua rather
too late to visit the ruins of the ancient city of the
same name, which lie about two miles from the
modern town. They are shapeless masses spread
over a vast extent of ground, or so at least they
appear when viewed from the walls of the present
city : the theatre retains somewhat of its original

cepting its language, which at present is more Roman than
ever it was in ancient times; it is a singular circumstance that
Latin, though spoken in Gaul, Germany, Britain, Spain, and
Africa, with their dependent islands, yet never became the
language of «7Ζ Italy. Greek still kept its grotfhd in the south-
ern provinces, and enjoyed a pre-eminence over the im-
perial language, even to the fall of the western empire, and
during the two succeeding centuries.