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

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 Cumæ 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^[1] wood. It was there that the admirals of Sextus Pompeius assembled their gangs of pirates, at the time when he drew Sicily into revolt.^{[y 1]}

5. Near to Cumæ is the promontory of Misenum,^{[p 1]} and between them is the Acherusian Lake,^{[p 2]} 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 Baïæ and the hot springs, much used, both as a fashionable watering-place, and for the cure of diseases. Contiguous to Baïæ is the Lucrine Lake,^[2] and within this the Lake Avernus,^{[p 3]} which converts into a peninsula the land stretching from the maritime district, situated between it and Cumæ, 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 Cumæ 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,^[3] and relate that here formerly was an oracle of the dead,^[4] 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 exception