S

By Daphne Shelmerdine

From Discovery, London

Rome lies the Lake of Neri, which

was called by the ancients the Mirror of Diana. This year the lake is being drained of its water by means of electric pumps, in an attempt to discover the two great barges of the Emperor Caligula which lie sunk at the bottom. The history of the lake is a strange one, and this is not the first attempt to discover its hidden treasures.

Five hundred years ago Cardinal Prospero Colonna, whose family held the villages of Nemi and Genzano in fief, obtained the help of the engineer Leone Battista Alberti in a similar enterprise. Alberti caused a raft to be made, upon which he erected machinery, and let down into the lake great chains with hooks upon them. Seamen from Genoa were hired to fasten the hooks round the prow of one of the ships. They surprised the peasant inhabitants of the lake villages by their fishlike agility, but their diving was of no avail, for the chains broke, bringing only fragments of timber to the surface. This was between the years 1431 and 1439.

accurate description was not forthcom.

the mooring rings in their mouths, and

fountains once played amidships. On the lead pipes Caligula's name inscribed.

ing until last century, when two further attempts were made. The first, that of Annesio Fusconi in 1827, was inaugurated with a great ceremony, to which were invited prelates, diplomats, and noblemen to witness the beginning of operations. But this fine company which

mous vessels, at least forty feet longer than the men-of-war of their day, launched upon a tiny lake which measures only four miles in circumference?

A hundred years later, on July 5th, 1535, the famous military engineer, Francesco de Marchi, made a descent in a diving bell, invented by Guillaume de Lorraine; but the attempt again ended in failure, though de Marchi's account of his expedition was exciting enough. The convex glass of the aperture through which he spied into the bowels of the lake acted as a lens, by which he saw fabulous sights; more strange than Edgar's imagined view from the cliff top, when he saw crows 'scarce as gross as beetles,' and 'fishermen that walked upon the beach appeared like mice.' De Marchi's vision was an inverted one. The lens magnified what he saw: tiny fish swimming in the water appeared monstrous beasts, and the great ships themselves he reported to be 475 feet in length.

They were, indeed, of an enormous

gathered about the desolate lake on platforms constructed for the spectacle saw no secret wrested from the silent water. It was not until the end of the century, in 1895, that a more definite century, in 1895, that a more definite account was given of the size and grandeur of the lost barges. By means of floaters attached by strings to the ship, floaters attached by strings to the ship, Eliseo Borghi then outlined the form of a great barge upon the surface of the lake, while divers brought up mooring rings of great beauty and huge timbers were dragged above the water.

The first ship is about 200 feet long; the length of the second is probably more than 250 feet. Their depth is unknown, for their long burial has silted them up with sand. Their parapets are gilded, the decks paved with porphyry; bronze heads of lions and wolves, fashioned with exquisite workmanship, hold

Were they floating palaces, the property of Caligula, sunk by some catastrophe, or were they abandoned as Julius Caesar's large and costly villa on the shores of the lake was abandoned, because it was not to his liking? Or had they some connection with that other and deeper mystery of Nemi, the sanctuary of Diana?

On the northern shore of the lake is a flat piece of ground called Il Giardino. Here, overgrown with bushes and thick grass, are the remains of a huge wall, some 700 feet long and 30 feet high, which forms two sides of a square on the north and east. In it are cut niches like chapels, filled now with trees and tall grass. The terrace it encloses rested, on the lake side, on a buttressed wall which was was once probably

lapped by the water. Upon this terrace stood the temple of Diana, thirty metres long and about half as broad. In its northeast corner a circular basement has been discovered which probably supported a vestal temple like the round temple of the Vestal Virgins in Rome. The terrace is now cultivated as a flower garden, and sends daily, to be sold at Rome, the flowers for which Nemi is famous. In the spring it is a field of violas, stretching in a purple carpet from wall to wall. Such is the site of the famous sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis, which day and night was guarded by a priest whose successor slew him and was himself slain in his turn.

HE foundation of the sanctuary is

Told in conflicting legends; its origin

is lost beyond the reach of history. springing from remote and powerful

BRONZE MOORING RING FROM NEMI

beliefs in Diana, 'the mistress of mountains and forests green, lonely glades and sounding rivers,' of the chase, and of wild beasts and tame animals; the goddess of fertility and teeming life, who made the barren fruitful and conferred her blessing upon pregnant women. In those days the now desolate Campagna was thickly grown with trees, and the woods at Nemi were dark and sombre groves. Wild boars roved the primeval forest. On the summit of Monte Cavo, then known as Mons Albanus, rose the great temple of Jupiter Latialis. The neighboring Latin cities looked with reverence towards the deep groves at Nemi, where the King of the Wood waited with drawn sword for his successor, guarding at once the goddess and his life.

The barbarous priesthood lasted into the times of the Antonines, when it was reported by a Greek traveler. While the long succession of Kings of the Wood fought and won, and fought again and died, the shrine of Diana increased in riches and splendor. Images of Egyptian goddesses, of Isis and Bubasis, were set up by Eastern potentates by the side of the statue of Diana the huntress, and of models of stags and hinds and the wild animals of her forests. So rich was the sanctuary that Octavian despoiled it of some of its treasures to fill his coffers. Tiles of gilt bronze roofed the temple, which was built of blocks of peperino with Doric columns. Diana was worshiped with fire, and her great altars flamed beside the shore. On the 13th of August her annual festival was kept with sacred rites at every hearth in Italy; at Nemi a multitude of torches lit the dark grove, as the pilgrims processed to her shrine and besought the goddess for the fruitfulness of their lands, the blessing of their vines, the safe delivery of their children. This festival was later to be sanctified by the Christian church as the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on August 15th, and to her also the people, changing their faith but not their desires, prayed for a blessing on the vines.

Perhaps the great barges of Caligula took some part in the Festival of the Ides of August, and while the procession of torches lit the grove, Caligula's ships

upon the lake, with their marble decks and playing fountains, shared in the worship of the goddess. But whether these ships were for the personal glory of the Emperor, or whether they were dedicated to the glory of Diana, is, so far, unknown. Caligula, thinking that the King of the Wood had reigned long enough, hired a ruffian to provide him with a successor, and this appears to be his only known action in connection with the sacred grove. It remains to be seen when the lake is drained whether the barges bear any signs of having been used in the service of Diana.

Never in the history of Nemi has such a fate befallen it as that which it will suffer this autumn. Hitherto divers have plunged into the lake, excavators turned up the earth, but the still, unmoving water has remained in the crater. All previous attempts at discovery have been directed towards raising the ships, and they have ended in failure because the barges are embedded in mud, and the timbers to which the chains were fastened broke away. The present century has brought new methods to the problem. It has been possible to observe the position of the barges from the air. From heights of which de Marchi did not dream when he went down into the lake in the diving bell, airmen have been able to look into its depth, and since the water will not give up its secret, it has been decided to remove the water.

TIE Italian Government Commis

sion which considered the problem last year suggested that Nemi should be

BRONZE HEAD FROM NEMI

AN EARLY find from one of Caligula's barges.

connected with the neighboring Lake Albano by means of an underground tunnel. The blue Lake Albano, in which a palace of one of the Alban kings is said still to be buried, is more than 1,000 feet deep and lies at a lower level than Nemi, deep and lies at a lower level than Nemi, whose waters it could easily contain. This project was abandoned, because there already exists a channel through which the water can be drawn off, and the expense of creating a new outlet can

191

BRONZE MOORING RING FROM NEMI

thus be saved. An emissary, so ancient that the date of its construction is uncertain, though it is believed to have been constructed by Roman engineers in the second century A.D., drew off the water that might otherwise in rainy seasons have flooded the temple of Diana, which stood on a level with the lake, protected by the stone buttress. This emissary consists of a tunnel 1,649 yards long, running under the hill on which the village of Genzano stands - opposite the village of Nemi to the plain of Ariccia, and thence to the sea. Five electrical and engineering firms have offered their services free of charge to the Government to drain the lake until it is possible to see the prow of the first ship, which is not so deeply sunk as the second. From this point the Government and the archæological authorities will be responsible for the continuation of the work. The pumping was to have been started in March, and it was hoped that the first ship would be visible in six months' time. Caution is necessary in draining the lake, as it is feared that the ships may be damaged if the water is withdrawn too rapidly. It was expected that the level of the water could be lowered by about one and a half metres for every thirty days' pumping.

More recently, however, when the present writer revisited the lake, a small erection on the shore was the only sign of activity, and the construction of the funicular to carry equipment from Genzano to the water had not been started. The padrone of the inn at Genzano was busily enlarging his loggia in the hope of an increased number of visitors to Nemi to watch the operations. They will not see the mirror of Diana. The railway and the machinery set up in the midst of the crater will have most cruelly transformed her grove. But the engineers who are draining the lake have undertaken that the water shall be returned to the basin, and since this is composed of the hardest lava and basalt, and the water nowhere runs underneath the banks, there is no fear of a landslip which would alter the familiar shape of the lake and sweep away its gardens.

Nemi will be once more as it was, though, if the experiment is successful, it will no longer be possible to say that

the fields are lonely; no temples rise beside the lake, a mediæval castle rears its walls in the village of Nemi; but the spirit of the watchful priest seems to brood over the scene, which in the freshness of the springs bears an indefinable imprint of antiquity, and needs no discoveries to bear witness to its long past.

The secrets which we dimly discern the quiet earth knows and holds, and will yield them rather to the imagination than to the spade.

It is impossible to do justice to the beauty of Nemi, the loveliness of its desolation; the exquisite delicacy of the coloring of the woods; the grey-blue color of the lake; the beauty of the flowers which follow each other in the rapid succession of the Italian springfrail, early snowdrops, short-stemmed crocusses, opening starlike in the grass, violets, deep purple and pale parchment colored, narcissi bending in the wind, and later, sweet scented cyclamen. On the terraces of Il Giardino the heaped ranks of flowers are grown for the market, are plucked and plucked again, yet never seem to diminish; as though the goddess of fertility were still guarded by the melancholy priest, who now, unhoused and deprived of his sombre grove, haunts in a milder spirit the solitary fields.

I'

T IS a good journey when you accomplish the objects you set out for, and are not disappointed: but a lucky journey brings you, for a kind of bonus, some experience which you never planned for because you never knew it could be had. Such chances await the traveler in England at a thousand corners. Or, overseas, France is so rich a treasure house, offering such a variety of beauty and interest and pleasure, that again and again on my wanderings I have, as we say in Ireland, happened lucky there.

But the luck I mean comes to those who work for it. You must be on the look-out for information all the time, in all places; and you really must carry a guide book. Respectful homage to those who compile and edit the Guides Bleus, which have seldom failed to answer any question that I put to them, and which have told me, time on time, of things that could be done or seen on the way to a special destination places where I should just have changed trains and no more about it, but for the invaluable companion provided by Messieurs Hachette. If only England were as well equipped!

Still, when you have worked your hardest, luck remains outside the net; but there are times when it comes tumbling in, and I take for example and encouragement two cases from a

short wandering last vintagetime.

I was on my way from Dijon to Semur, and I must get off at Les Laumes. The name meant nothing; and the railway guide told me I must wait some time before a train would take me on. Then I looked up the Guide Bleu, and behold, Alesia, where Cæsar forced the surrender of Vercingetorix, is only a couple of miles from Les Laumes.

All this hilly but traversable country which stretches west from the Côte d'Or to the Morvan is full of ancient camps,

By Stephen Gwynn

From The Spectator, London Conservative Weekly

first Gaulish and then Roman; but the associations of Alesia were too dramatic to be neglected. So, having lunched excellently at a civil little Hôtel de la Gare, I set out along two kilometres of dull road which finally mounted to the village of Alise Sainte Reine, beautified by an eighteenth-century brick-built hospital. Near the hospital I passed a museum; two or three hundred yards further on in the long street, and two or

three hundred feet higher up, was another museum - which seemed excessive. Higher still, a steep path led between vineyards to the long flight of steps which gives access to the camp, and the colossal statue of Vercingetorix, set up by order of Napoleon the Third. You may see it on your left as you go from Dijon to Paris.

I do not go into the history which tells how Vercingetorix here entrenched him

self and how Cæsar drew other lines round him to prevent escape, and was himself again surrounded by Gaulish levies, till finally the Roman won. I cannot tell the reason, though I should like to know, why there are two tiny museums in the village, one maintained by the 'Municipality,' the other by a society with its headquarters at Semur: I cannot describe the diggings for relics which are still in progress, because I turned lazy there. But

one thing sticks in my mind: a display of selected skeletons in the upper museum. Three or four great, raw-boned Gauls hang there, with lower aws like a gorilla's, and thigh bones like those of the traditional Scot; three or four Romans with small delicate skulls (what right had a man with a head like that to go near Donnybrook Fair? as the coroner's jury said) and small delicate bones and a total height perhaps a foot short of their adversaries: and it was the small-boned men who won, not by the use of machine guns or any such contrivance. Yet a Frenchman said to me that all the same, you come back to superior armament; the Gaulish claymores which hang there too are four feet long, the Romans' swords not three feet; but while the Gaul was swinging his pointless weapon to split his enemy down, the Roman

Courtesy of Frederick Keppel & Company lunged in with the point.

RUE POSTE AUX LIONS, DIJON FROM AN ETCHING BY ROBERT LOGAN

There were, of course, heaps of interesting relics. How like

the Gaulish sculpture was to that which the Gael, eight or nine centuries later, was doing at Monasterboice and other places in Ireland. And the Normans, even Henry II.'s Normans, when they came to Ireland, brought nothing with them that showed a culture so elaborate, so over-refined, as some of the little Greco-Roman images that survive among débris from the place where the bigboned Northern had finally to go under to little men from the South.

Then I went on to Semur. It was luck, too, that brought me there sentiment for the memory of Mrs. Oliphant who wrote about the lovely place, but, so far as I could judge, either never saw it or forgot what she saw. Still, that does not count though anyone is lucky who sees Semur in a fine autumn. The luck I write of came in again on my next stage, from Semur to Chablis. I went back to the main line, and changed at Tonnerre, where, once again, the Guide Bleu told me not to miss my chance. As usual, the railway station is on the plain, some distance from the old town, which as usual is on a hill, with a church set high up. There were two churches indeed, both of them worth more than a glance; yet what pleased me more was the view from the

top over the long straight valley of the Armançon with long straight lines of poplars traversing the vista: Turner has suggested the like again and again in his studies of French rivers, and again and again the beauty itself in France recalls the beauty that a great painter distilled from it. Which is the echo, which the voice?

The upper church, St. Pierre, was poised on the edge of a cliff and one looked down to the clustering roofs, among which were Tonnerre's two chief glories, the Hospital and the Fosse Dionne.

The hospital is a hospital still; but Margaret of Burgundy, sister-in-law to St. Louis, who founded it seven centuries ago, had views that were larger than ours. Its patients to-day are sheltered in modern buildings; a hospital ward as Margaret planned it was over a hundred yards long by twenty yards wide, stone floored. How it can floored. How it can ever have been heated passes conception, and it has been for centuries only a place for interment, not for convalescence. Margaret is buried there herself, under the single span of that vast roof: and Louvois, Louis XIV's Minister, has a magnificent tomb in a side chapel. This florid monu

ment, set up originally in Paris, and brought here I know not why, had no charms for me, and Margaret's tomb has been reconstructed. But in a side chapel to the south, steps lead to a vaulted room where is a sculptured group of the Maries and the disciples laying Christ's body in the grave. Jean Michel and Georges de la Sonnette were the sculptors in 1453. The Mother in the centre, looking straight out, did not move me like the other two Maries one with head dropped on the breast, and the eyes felt rather than seen under the projecting headdress; the Magdalen, with box of spikenard in her hand, a half-swooning figure drenched and drunken with grief. Nowhere else in Burgundy did I see a group of sculpture equal to this.

And yet, perhaps because I had looked at too many similar things, and partly because I could not stay long enough in that chilly crypt, I do not keep visual memory of it so clear as I could wish; while the other sight that Tonnerre showed me in a glory of sunshine will not easily fade out of recall.

The Fosse Dionne is a great spring breaking out from the cliff, and its name Divona shows that the Gauls worshiped it. I went along the level street under the cliff, turned up a lane between old houses, and came out on to a space almost filled by a bowl of transparent water a bowl of cut stone some thirty feet across. The color of the water against the brown stone was startling. I have seen green becks in and about Ullswater, and there is a great lake in Mayo which looks like emerald on a clear day, and like jade when the sky is gray: but this water was blue-green like the sea. Beyond the circle of it, a semi-circle of wall had been built into the cliff, and from this projected a semi-circular penthouse of timber with tiled roof; under this shelter, some thirty women of Tonnerre were on their knees washing - and yet did not soil the water. The spring was led into the bowl by a lower inlet, while a wide opening in the bowl on the cliff side allowed the overflow to escape into a circular stone