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It is shut in by small hills, bare except in a few places, and the sea there forms a kind of triple bay. The first is outside and near the cities; the second is separated from it by a small passage; and the third, like a real harbor, is seen far back. The last named is called Avernus, and the middle bay Lucrinus: the outer one belongs to the Tyrrhenian Sea and takes its name from that water.
In this roadstead within the other two, which had but narrow entrances then, Agrippa, by cutting channels close along the shore through the land separating Lucrinus from the sea on each side, produced harbors affording most safe anchorage for ships. These mountains close to the inner bodies of water have springs full of both fire and water in considerable quantity mixed together.
The meanest of the rowers felt the caprices of a potentate, the itch to imitate the opulent for a night that they might console themselves with its memory in future days of hunger; and they asked for oysters from Lucrinus, which an occasional ship brought packed in amphoræ with sea water as a delicacy for the great merchants of Saguntum, or the oxygarum, salted fishmilt, prepared with vinegar and spices as an appetizer for which the patricians of Rome paid a great price.
As a harbor for his fleet, he executed a plan of the great Cæsar; namely, to make a good and secure harbor on the coast of Latium, which then, as now, offered no shelter to ships. For this purpose he cut a passage through the narrow necks of land which separated Lake Lucrinus from the sea, and Lake Avernus from Lake Lucrinus, and faced the outer barrier with stone. This was the famous Julian Port.
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