OLD CAPRI

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 47, 18 May 1927, Page 14

OLD CAPRI

As the traveller walks along the coast near Naples he catches sight of a great silhouette rising out of the golden haze, like a huge sphinx resting on the sea.

It is Capri, the bewitching island which preserves in her ruins among the olive trees, the vineyards, and the blossoming lemons, the secret of the ancient Roman splendours. The Paris Salon has awarded one of its prize.' for a wonderful reconstruction of the island as it was.

A very ancient colony, Capri still belonged to the Greeks when the Emperor Augustus became attracted to the beautiful place and bought it Perched on a rocky eminence, so far little known and undisturbed, Capri enjoyed her tranquility. She lay there as a ship might lie moored in a peaceful harbour. Then, under Augustus, she became the queen of the Medr.erranean Sea, with her gorgeous tempi? to Jove; and later, under Tiberius.

who built for himself twelve villas on the island, she was turned into a centre of luxury and dissolute life.

Let us go back through the centuries and suppose that we are living in those ancient times.

Night has fallen; the rocks of the island rise sharp and gigantic in the clear moonlight. All is ablaze at the palace on high, where it looms vigilant and monumental out of the summer

night. We stand at the opening of the famous grotto hollowed out of the rock, which one can often enter only by lyinc flat in a little boat, so low is its mouth. This grotto, the most celebrated of all the caves which mark the island shores, was lost to fame after Roman times until its re-discovery early in the nineteenth century. The sheet of water is transparent, intensely blue. It is one of the emperor’s favourite bathingplaces. But a legend whispers that one day, in an evil humour, and bored by the unchanging blue of the water. Tiberius had twentj' people slain and thrown into it in order to alter the colour of his bath. Let us hope that legend speaks false. A winding path, an exquisite little alley deep green in shade, leads up k a vast arena, in the centre of which is enthroned the figure of the emperor in gold. On the right a triumph* arch, surmounted by an equestrian statue, gives access to the stadium where Tiberius presides over the gam?= and combats. On the left stand the baths, and under the trees the open-air theatre. Then the place widens toward the gate of the imperial palace Beyond is Jove’s temple, bordered with terraces like giant steps made lor a god. Close by stands the lighthouse, one of the most powerful of the tirocrushing with its mass the sombre prisons below, where, forgotten ano doomed to a lingering death, lie unhappy men from whom the favour has been withdrawn, perhaps

for some trifling or unjust reason. Here is another entrance of palace, opening into the secret apart' ments of Caesar. What is the mysteu of those rooms? What is the myW"' of Tiberius himself? The tyrant la - under dread of a tragic death. On ce tain days, when the terror is strong • than usual, he takes refuge in tne» gloomy chambers that have no opt ings, but are closed by brass doors, a communicate by secret stairs with derground cells, the thick walls which alone are able to quiet his i Which of all his subjects would w* ingly change places with himBut let us come, by intricate pa>. ages, winding corridors, and s ' stairs, to the imperial dwelling 1 - ( ... with its immense hall sumptuo • adorned with marbles, mosaics, sta J- ti and torch-holders, flanked grottoes where nymphs disport t « * selves. In the middle of the haUr?*a marble pedestal on to which TiD - clad in gold, has himself raised to I ceive the homage of his peopleone end is the banqueting haU. j to the colonnaded balcony ana tn . & j races overlooking the Bay of > jv! Here Tiberius spends long hours, slaves throw themselves 1I^ tjinUgabyss to relieve for him the te ness of slow'-passing time. a u And what remains nowadays , that gorgeous splendour of tne p Ruin; nothing but ruin. The sunshine, the trees, the perfume®, there; but Rome and her spl £ ug ht are gone. Excavations have to light mosaics and carved jn y A peasant ploughing his vineyar of unearth a bronze figure or a t 0 pottery. Fishermen will P° int . nts t»i the traveller half-buried monuro , oin old times. But Life lias retir Capri, leaving Nature in contro • moving finger writes, and, having moves un.