Gell, William; Gandy, John P. : Pompeiana: the topography, edifices and ornaments of Pompeii (Band 1) (London, 1824)

42 POMPEIANA.

Quaeque suo viridi semper se gramine vestit,

Ilia tibi laetis intexet vitibus ulmos

Ilia ferax oleae est .... .

Talem dives arat Capua et vicina Vesevo

Ora jugo '. Geo. ii.

But neither Vesuvius nor iEtna ap-
pear to have been in a state of activity
in the time of Homer, 900 years B. C.;
although the volcanic nature of the country
seems not to have been unknown to him.
Accordingly we find an awful horror
thrown over the whole coast. It is re-
presented as the ultimate limit of the
unfruitful ocean and habitable world. An
impervious gloom, unenlivened by rising
or setting sun, spread a thick eternal
shade over the beach, where the dark
and barren groves of the remorseless Pro-
serpine marked the entrance to the re-
gions of the dead.

1 Varro mentions its salubrious soil: Ubi montana loea
ut in Vesuvio, quod leviora et ideo salubriora. Also Poly-
bius—and in later times Procopius, says. Physicians sent their
consumptive patients to it," tabe affectos."
• Iliad. K. L.