This hopeless occupation, without a moment's
respite, for an hour or more; nothing would induce it to proceed a step
further; it had plainly made up its mind to find shelter here from the
burning rays, or die. And of shelter there was none.
What would not this pig (I now thought) have given to be transported
into the lizard's cool aquatic paradise; and the lizard, into that
scorching sunlight!...
It was not to muse upon the miseries of the animal creation that I have
revisited these shores. I came to puzzle once more over the site of that
far-famed Athene temple which gave its name to the whole promontory.
Now, after again traversing the ground with infinite pleasure, I fail to
find any reason for changing what I wrote years ago in a certain
pamphlet which some scholar, glancing through these pages and anxious to
explore for himself a spot of such celebrity in ancient days, is so
little likely to see that he may not be sorry if I here recapitulate its
arguments. Others will be well advised to pass over what follows.
Let me begin by saying that the temple, in every probability, stood at
the Punta Campanella facing Capri, the actual headland of the Sorrentine
peninsula, where - apart from every other kind of evidence - you may pick
up to this day small terra-cotta figures of Athene, made presumably to
be carried away as keepsakes by visitors to the shrine.
Now for alternative suggestions.
Strabo tells us that the temple was placed on the akron of the
promontory; that is, the summit of Mount San Costanzo where we are now
standing. (He elsewhere describes it as being "on the straits.") This
summit is nearly 500 metres above the sea-level, and here no antique
building seems ever to have been erected. No traces of old life are
visible save some fragments of Roman pottery which may have found their
way up in early Byzantine days, even as modern worshippers carry up the
ephemeral vessels popularly called "caccavelle" [18] and scatter them
about. With the exception of one fragment of white Pentelic marble, no
materials of an early period have been incorporated into the masonry of
the little chapel or the walls of the fields below. It is incredible
that no vestige of a structure like the Athene temple should remain on a
spot of this kind, so favourably situated as regards immunity from
depredations, owing to its isolated and exalted position. The
rock-surface around the summit has not undergone that artificial
levelling which an edifice of this importance would necessitate; the
terrace is of mediaeval construction, as can be seen by its supporting
walls. No doubt the venerable Christian sanctuary there has been
frequently repaired and modified; on the terrace-level to the south can
be seen the foundations of an earlier chapel, and the slopes are
littered with broken bricks, Sorrentine tufa, and old battuto floors.
But there is no trace of antique workmanship or material, nor has the
rocky path leading up to the shrine been demarcated with chisel-cuts in
the ancient fashion.
