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Yet Cassiodorus says that the hill by which you approached the town was not high enough to weary a traveller, a consideration making for the later view that Scylaceum stood very near to the Marina of Catanzaro, at a spot called Roccella, where not only is the nature of the ground suitable, but there exist considerable traces of ancient building, such as are not discoverable here on the mountain top.
Over against it the goddess of Lacinium rears her head, with the towers of Caulon, and Scylaceum wrecker of ships. Then Trinacrian Aetna is descried in the distance rising from the waves, and we hear from afar a great roaring of the sea on beaten rocks, and broken noises by the shore: the channels boil up, and the surge churns with sand.
The Scylaceum of the sixth century is described by Cassiodorus a picture glowing with admiration and tenderness. It lay, he says, upon the side of a hill; nay, it hung there "like a cluster of grapes," in such glorious light and warmth that, to his mind, it deserved to be called the native region of the sun.
Here is a commentary on that book, written by the learned and pious Cassiodorus; written in the religious house which he himself has founded, upon the shore of "ship-wrecking Scylaceum," as saith Virgilius. Not a week ago it came into my hands, a precious gift from the writer, and I have read much in it.
Looking down upon Squillace, one sees its houses niched among huge masses of granite, which protrude from the scanty soil, or clinging to the rocky surface like limpet shells. Was this the site of Scylaceum, or is it, as some hold, merely a mediaeval refuge which took the name of the old city nearer to the coast?
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