CHAPTER I.
Whatsoever change may have been wrought in the rugged isle of Capreae bythe neglect, or the hand, of man, during the long ages since the days ofImperial fame and favour, we can be sure, as we survey the sea-girt spotfrom one of its rocky eminences, that we look upon the same outlines andformation of nature as met the eyes of humble fisherman and jadedpatrician of antiquity. A low-lying sandy shore appears and disappears inthe lapse of centuries. What was once a sandy strand, worn by the waves,grated by the keels of ships, and pressed by the busy feet of citizens athousand years ago, is now, perhaps, an inland region of cultivated fieldslying around a sleepy town. What was once a green plain, ages ago, is nowthe sandy bottom of a waste of waters. But the rocky face of Capreae isunchanged and changeless. Its flinty cliffs rise sheer from the blue sea;beaten by the waves, but imperishable. At their feet are the natural cavesand grottoes which have been discovered from time to time in modern days,and pointed out as marvels, when lo! on inspection, they are found to havebeen better known and more frequented in the olden time.
There, starting out of the sea, lie, in a row, three huge detached crags,as if they had been torn from the cliffs and hurled beneath--abrupt,impregnable, immutable, as in the day when they saw the ships of thefabled Aeneas sail by on their way to found a mighty empire.
What an ephemeral existence to theirs was that of the Pharos which oncestood adjacent, and, nightly, cast a gleam from its lofty lantern upontheir jagged tops, maybe for a long space of generations!
And, see, on the summit of one of them rest the remains of a Roman tomb,which arouse strange wonderings as to the being of antiquity whose spiritdesired such an isolated, inviolable spot for a last resting-place!
On the summits of the hills, in the valleys, even under the pellucid waterof the marge, are yet remaining the traces of the magnificence whichsprang at the Imperial nod to adorn this lovely island, in the period whenthe Caesars sought it as a secluded residence. The traces are but small ofthe much that is known to have once been; but, as the eye roves from oneelevation to another, over the luxuriant gardens, vineyards, and orangeplantations which carpet the valleys and clothe the terraced slopes, wecan picture to our imaginations the palaces and groves of Imperial luxury,and, if tradition speak truth, of Imperial vice.
Neæra: A Tale of Ancient Rome Page 12