The Old Greek City, He Conjectured, Must Have Been Largely Built Of Bricks Made From Their Clay, Which Is Once More Being Utilized For This Purpose.

How else account for its utter disappearance? Much of the finer buildings were doubtless of stone, and these have been worked into the fort, the harbour and palazzi of new Cotrone; but this would never account for the vanishing of a town nearly twelve miles in circumference.

Bricks, he said, would explain the mystery; they had crumbled into dust ere yet the Romans rebuilt, with old Greek stones, the city on the promontory now occupied by the new settlement.

The modern palaces on the rising ground of the citadel are worthy of a visit; they are inhabited by some half-dozen "millionaires" who have given Cotrone the reputation of being the richest town of its size in Italy. So far as I can judge, the histories of some of these wealthy families would be curious reading.

"Gentlemen," said the Shepherd, "if you have designs of Trading, you must go another way; but if you're of the admired sort of Men, that have the thriving qualifications of Lying and Cheating, you're in the direct Path to Business; for in this City no Learning flourisheth; Eloquence finds no room here; nor can Temperance, Good Manners, or any Vertue meet with a Reward; assure yourselves of finding but two sorts of Men, and those are the Cheated, and those that Cheat."

If gossip at Naples and elsewhere is to be trusted, old Petronius seems to have had a prophetic glimpse of the dessus du panier of modern Cotrone.

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