262 Geological Gleanings. 



" The level below the water of the Mediterranean of the old 

 mosaic pavement must correspond pretty accurately with that of 

 the base of the columns of the submerged " Temple of the Nymphs' 

 in the neighbouring bay. Did this submergence take place at 

 the time of the great eruption of Vesuvius which overwhelmed 

 Pompeii and Herculaneum, a.d. 79 ? 



" Statius was born a.d. 61, and was therefore about nineteen at 

 the time of the eruption of 79. As a native of Naples he may be 

 presumed to have been conversant with all the phenomena which 

 then took place. His lines on the subject of the destruction of 

 the cities are very striking. 



" Hsec ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam 

 Littoribus, fractas ubi Vesvius egerit iras, 

 iEmula Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis. 

 Mira fides ! credetne virum ventura propago, 

 Cum segetes iterum, et jam hasc deserta virebunt, 

 Infra urbes, populosque premi ? proavitaque toto 

 Eura abiisse mari ? necdum letale minari 

 Cessat apes " 



" The latter part of this passage seems to me to mean " lands 

 tilled by our ancestors (proavita) have disappeared in the body of 

 of the sea" (toto mari). The commentator in the Variorum 

 edition (Lugd. Bat. 1671) appears to understand the word "pro- 

 avita" as referring to the restoration of these districts hereafter 

 " proavita elicit respectu futurse posteritatis" — which seems to me 

 absurd. How were posterity to get the lands out of the sea 

 again ? Such is not the use of the word when applied to Hector : — 

 "Pugnantem pro se, proavitaque regna tuentem." 

 Ovid. Metamorph. xiii. 416. 



" I infer from the expressions of Statius that considerable tracts 

 of land had been sunk in the sea by some sudden depression of 

 the ground. 



" May not this have been the time when the Temple of the 

 Nymphs, and the first baths or temple of Serapis, were covered 

 with shallow water ? Is it not possible that between this convul- 

 sion and the time when Pausanias wrote the inhabitants of 

 Pozzuoli may have made the island in the sea (cheiropoieton), and 

 have erected on it a second temple — the one of which the ruins 

 still puzzle the geologist ? 



" It may be worth while adding, that there exist three frag- 

 ments of Latin verse, by a certain Regianus (or Eegilianus), whose 



