GENERAL DESCRIPTION of the MITHRAEUM at PONZA In
CHAPTER ONE GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE MITHRAEUM AT PONZA In 1950 Father L. M. Dies 1 published a little guide to the isle ofPonza. This island, known as Pontiae 2 in Antiquity, is situated in the Tyrrhenean Sea opposite Terracina. Like Monte Circeo,3 Gaeta and especially Sper longa,4 Ponza "the pearl of Rome" has in the past century been connected with the wanderings of Odysseus, the most famous of heroes. Hence the comparison of Ponza "I'isola lunata, isoletta graziossissima" where "la donna e evoluta, distinta, agiata, sensibiIe al bello, che in lei si trans fonde dal mare, del cielo, dal panorama luminoso che la circonda" and where the full-bodied wines are the "buoni testimoni delle segrete forze del suolo e degli aromi delle nostre marine" 6 with the isle where the sorceress Circe lived which was described by the poet (Od., IC 195) as : ... , I I " ',L' V7JUOV, T7JV 1TEP& 1TOVTOS a1TE'p&TOS EO'TE't'aVWTa&. Yet, life on this marvellous isle was not always as pleasant as most authors describe it. Boccacio refers to it in the Decameron as the land of oblivion, because he knew that in the early Imperial period it served 1 L. M. Dies, Ponza, perla dl Roma, Roma 1950, at present the most recent survey. Earlier publications: G. B. Fortis, Osservazionl litografiche su I'isole di Ventotene e Ponza, Padova 1793; G. C. Tricoli, Monografia per le lsole del gruppo Ponzlano, Napoli 1855; M. Bieber, Die Ponza lnsel im Tirrenischen Meer, Berlin 1925; For more recent finds: L.
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