Nobody would
believe how nobly I struggle, day and night, against its evil
suggestions. A man's worst enemy is his own empty stomach. None knew it
better than Horace.
And yet he declared that lettuces and such-like stuff sufficed him. No
doubt, no doubt. "Olives nourish me." Just so! One does not grow up in
the school of Maecenas without learning the subtle delights of the
simple life. But I would wager that after a week of such feeding as I
have now undergone at his native place, he would quickly have remembered
some urgent business to be transacted in the capital - Caesar Augustus,
me-thinks, would have desired his company. And even so, I have suddenly
woke up to the fact that Taranto, my next resting-place, besides
possessing an agreeably warm climate, has some passable restaurants. I
will pack without delay. Mount Vulture must wait. The wind alone, the
Vulturnus or south-easterly wind, is quite enough to make one despair of
climbing hills. It has blown with objectionable persistency ever since
my arrival at Venosa.
To escape from its attentions, I have been wandering about the secluded
valleys that seam this region. Streamlets meander here amid rustling
canes and a luxuriant growth of mares' tails and creepers; their banks
are shaded by elms and poplars - Horatian trees; the thickets are loud
with songs of nightingale, black-cap and oriole. These humid dells are a
different country from the uplands, wind-swept and thriftily cultivated.
It was here, yesterday, that I came upon an unexpected sight - an army of
workmen engaged in burrowing furiously into the bowels of Mother Earth.
They told me that this tunnel would presently become one of the arteries
of that vast system, the Apulian Aqueduct. The discovery accorded with
my Roman mood, for the conception and execution alike of this grandiose
project are worthy of the Romans. Three provinces where, in years of
drought, wine is cheaper than water, are being irrigated - in the teeth
of great difficulties of engineering and finance. Among other things,
there are 213 kilometres of subterranean tunnellings to be built; eleven
thousand workmen are employed; the cost is estimated at 125 million
francs. The Italian government is erecting to its glory a monument more
durable than brass. This is their heritage from the Romans - this talent
for dealing with rocks and waters; for bridling a destructive
environment and making it subservient to purposes of human
intercourse. It is a part of that practical Roman genius for
"pacification." Wild nature, to the Latin, ever remains an obstacle to
be overcome - an enemy.
Such was Horace's point of view. The fruitful fields and their hardy
brood of tillers appealed to him; [Footnote: See next chapter.]
the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His
love of nature was heartfelt, but his nature was not ours; it was nature
as we see it in those Roman landscapes at Pompeii; nature ancillary to
human needs, in her benignant and comfortable moods.
