I Breakfasted (The Only
Thing Tolerable Being The Wine), And We Set Forth.
It was a walk of some two or three miles, by a cart road, through
fields just being ploughed for grain.
All about lay a level or
slightly rolling country, which in winter becomes a wilderness of
mud; dry traces of vast slough and occasional stagnant pools showed
what the state of things would be a couple of months hence. The
properties were divided by hedges of agave - huge growths, grandly
curving their sword-pointed leaves. Its companion, the spiny cactus,
writhed here and there among juniper bushes and tamarisks. Along the
wayside rose tall, dead thistles, white with age, their great
cluster of seed-vessels showing how fine the flower had been. Above
our heads, peewits were wheeling and crying, and lizards swarmed on
the hard, cracked ground.
We passed a few ploughmen, with white oxen yoked to labour.
Ploughing was a fit sight at Metapontum, famous of old for the
richness of its soil; in token whereof the city dedicated at Delphi
its famous Golden Sheaf. It is all that remains of life on this part
of the coast; the city had sunk into ruin before the Christian era,
and was never rebuilt. Later, the shore was too dangerous for
habitation. Of all the cities upon the Ionian Sea, only Tarentum and
Croton continued to exist through the Middle Ages, for they alone
occupied a position strong for defence against pirates and invaders.
A memory of the Saracen wars lingers in the name borne by the one
important relic of Metapontum, the Tavola de' Paladini; to this my
guide was conducting me.
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