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Updated: June 4, 2025
At no great distance, though hidden from view, stood the classic Paestum, with its temple to Neptune; and nothing was easier than to imagine, on his native sea as it were, the shell-borne ocean-god and old Triton blowing his wreathed horn. Capri, the retreat of Tiberius, was of easy access. Eastward swept a land of myrtle and lemon orchards.
I own to believing that Virgil's storms never blew on the sea until once, near Salerno, as I rode back from Paestum, there came a storm over the wide gulf that held my eyes enchanted such masses of ragged, full clouds, such darkness in their broad bosoms broken with rapid flame, and a change beneath so swift, such anger on the sea, such an indescribable and awful gleaming hue, not purple, nor green, nor red, but a commingling of all these a revelation of the wrath of colour!
We had landed at Salerno, and we had been turned back from Cava, and we had tried to cross towards Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we had been driven back for want of food, and so we had come down among the marshes by Paestum, where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea that by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take once more to sea.
"'Indeed it was lucky for some of us you devoted yourself to high art, Gandish, Mr. Smee says, and sips the wine and puts it down again, making a face. It was not first-rate tipple, you see. "'Two girls, continues that indomitable Mr. Gandish. 'Hidea for 'Babes in the Wood. 'View of Paestum, taken on the spot by myself, when travelling with the late lamented Earl of Kew.
It was on the 16th of May, 18 that we left Naples at three in the morning for the purpose of visiting the remains of the temples of Paestum, and having provided relays of horses we found ourselves at about half- past one o'clock descending the hill of Eboli towards the plain which contains these stupendous monuments of antiquity.
Everybody asked the same thing, and he who belonged to that country had never seen a rose of Paestum.... Sometimes, just in order to satisfy the whim of tourists, he would bring rose bushes from Capaccio Vecchio and other mountain villages, rose bushes just like others with no difference except in price.... But he didn't wish to take advantage of anybody.
At first he had five ships, the largest of which were two triremes, given to him by Marcellus, but afterwards, in consequence of his spirited conduct on many occasions, three quinqueremes were added to his number, at last, by exacting from the allied states of Rhegium, Velia, and Paestum, the ships they were bound to furnish according to treaty, he made up a fleet of twenty ships, as was before stated.
On such a festive occasion these great shallow basins of pure white marble before us would be heaped high with fragrant pyramids of red and white roses, roses that were perhaps plucked all dewy in the famous gardens of Paestum on the other side of Mons Gaurus.
Ambassadors from Paestum brought some golden goblets to Rome; they were thanked, as the Neapolitans were, but the gold was not accepted. During the same time a fleet from Hiero arrived at Ostia with a large cargo of supplies.
The armies met on the Silarus, in the northern part of Lucania; and the battle which followed, and which was to finish this remarkable war, was fought not far from where the traveller now sees the noble ruins of Paestum. Spartacus made his last speech to his soldiers, warning them of what they would have to expect, if they should fall alive into the hands of their old masters.
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