It Goes By The Name Of "Fontana
Rotta." The Other, The "Fontana Del Fico," Lies On The High Road To
Spinazzola; The Water Spouts Out Of Seven Mouths, And Near At Hand Is A
Plantation Of Young Sycamores.
The basin of this fount was also rebuilt
about ten years ago at no little expense, and has now a thoroughly
modern and businesslike aspect.
But I was told that a complicated
network of subterranean pipes and passages, leading to "God knows
where," was unearthed during the process of reconstruction. It was
magnificent masonry, said my informant, who was an eye-witness of the
excavations but could tell me nothing more of interest.
The problem how far either of these fountains fulfils the conditions
postulated in the last verse of Horace's ode may be solved by every one
according as he pleases. In fact, there is no other way of solving it.
In my professorial mood, I should cite the cavern and the "downward
leaping" waters against the hypothesis that the Bandusian Fount stood on
either of these modern sites; in favour of it, one might argue that the
conventional rhetoric of all Roman art may have added these embellishing
touches, and cite, in confirmation thereof, the last two lines of the
previous verse, mentioning animals that could hardly have slaked their
thirst with any convenience at a cavernous spring such as he describes.
Caverns, moreover, are not always near the summits of hills; they may be
at the foot of them; and water, even the Thames at London Bridge, always
leaps downhill - more or less.
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