Feeling very hungry, I went into the
room at the end of the passage, where I had seen a
Tablecloth; a
wretched lamp burned on the wall, but only after knocking, stamping,
and calling did I attract attention; then issued from some
mysterious region a stout, slatternly, sleepy woman, who seemed
surprised at my demand for food, but at length complied with it. I
was to have better acquaintance with my hostess of the Concordia
before I quitted Cotrone.
Next morning the wind still blew, but the rain was over; I could
begin my rambles. Like the old town of Taranto, Cotrone occupies the
site of the ancient acropolis, a little headland jutting into the
sea; above, and in front of the town itself, stands the castle built
by Charles V., with immense battlements looking over the harbour.
From a road skirting the shore around the base of the fortress one
views a wide bay, bounded to the north by the dark flanks of Sila (I
was in sight of the Black Mountain once more), and southwards by a
long low promontory, its level slowly declining to the far-off point
where it ends amid the waves. On this Cape I fixed my eyes,
straining them until it seemed to me that I distinguished something,
a jutting speck against the sky, at its farthest point. Then I used
my field-glass, and at once the doubtful speck became a clearly
visible projection, much like a lighthouse. It is a Doric column,
some five-and-twenty feet high; the one pillar that remains of the
great temple of Hera, renowned through all the Hellenic world, and
sacred still when the goddess had for centuries borne a Latin name.
"Colonna" is the ordinary name of the Cape; but it is also known as
Capo di Nau, a name which preserves the Greek word naos
(temple).
I planned for the morrow a visit to this spot, which is best reached
by sea. To-day great breakers were rolling upon the strand, and all
the blue of the bay was dashed with white foam; another night would,
I hoped, bring calm, and then the voyage! Dis aliter visum.
A little fleet of sailing vessels and coasting steamers had taken
refuge within the harbour, which is protected by a great mole. A
good haven; the only one, indeed, between Taranto and Reggio, but it
grieves one to remember that the mighty blocks built into the
sea-barrier came from that fallen temple. We are told that as late
as the sixteenth century the building remained all but perfect, with
eight-and-forty pillars, rising there above the Ionian Sea; a guide
to sailors, even as when AEneas marked it on his storm-tossed
galley. Then it was assailed, cast down, ravaged by a Bishop of
Cotrone, one Antonio Lucifero, to build his episcopal palace. Nearly
three hundred years later, after the terrible earthquake of 1783,
Cotrone strengthened her harbour with the great stones of the temple
basement. It was a more legitimate pillage.
Driven inland by the gale, I wandered among low hills which overlook
the town. Their aspect is very strange, for they consist entirely -
on the surface, at all events - of a yellowish-grey mud, dried
hard, and as bare as the high road. A few yellow hawkweeds, a few
camomiles, grew in hollows here and there; but of grass not a blade.
It is easy to make a model of these Crotonian hills. Shape a solid
mound of hard-pressed sand, and then, from the height of a foot or
two, let water trickle down upon it; the perpendicular ridges and
furrows thus formed upon the miniature hill represent exactly what I
saw here on a larger scale. Moreover, all the face of the ground is
minutely cracked and wrinkled; a square foot includes an
incalculable multitude of such meshes. Evidently this is the work of
hot sun on moisture; but when was it done? For they tell me that it
rains very little at Cotrone, and only a deluge could moisten this
iron soil. Here and there I came upon yet more striking evidence of
waterpower; great holes on the hillside, generally funnel-shaped,
and often deep enough to be dangerous to the careless walker. The
hills are round-topped, and parted one from another by gully or
ravine, shaped, one cannot but think, by furious torrents. A
desolate landscape, and scarcely bettered when one turned to look
over the level which spreads north of the town; one discovers
patches of foliage, indeed, the dark perennial verdure of the south;
but no kindly herb clothes the soil. In springtime, it seems, there
is a growth of grass, very brief, but luxuriant. That can only be on
the lower ground; these furrowed heights declare a perpetual
sterility.
What has become of the ruins of Croton? This squalid little town of
to-day has nothing left from antiquity. Yet a city bounded with a
wall of twelve miles circumference is not easily swept from the face
of the earth. Bishop Lucifer, wanting stones for his palace, had to
go as far as the Cape Colonna; then, as now, no block of Croton
remained. Nearly two hundred years before Christ the place was
forsaken. Rome colonized it anew, and it recovered an obscure life
as a place of embarkation for Greece, its houses occupying only the
rock of the ancient citadel. Were there at that date any remnants of
the great Greek city? - still great only two centuries before. Did
all go to the building of Roman dwellings and temples and walls,
which since have crumbled or been buried?
We are told that the river AEsarus flowed through the heart of the
city at its prime. I looked over the plain, and yonder, towards the
distant railway station, I descried a green track, the course of the
all but stagnant and wholly pestilential stream, still called Esaro.
Near its marshy mouth are wide orange orchards.
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