pozzuoli e cumathe lake averno type:archaeological/landscape interest:
The place that Romans considered to be the entrance to the Hades, is now a crater lake of small size. The sulphur exhalations, characteristic of the Campi Flegrei, made this place dreaded and consecrated it to the netherworld deities. Averno, in fact, derives from the Greek àornos, meaning “birdless”, referring to the belief that birds flying over the lake would drop dead from the poisonous fumes that it emitted. In 37 BC, the Roman general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa converted the lake into a naval base named the Portus Julius after Julius Caesar. It was linked by a canal to a nearby lake (Lucrinus Lake) and from there to the sea. This great work also included an underground passage known as Cocceio’s Cave that linked the Lake Averno with the harbour of Cumae. This tunnel, about one kilometer long, was entirely dug in the tuff to overcome the presence of Monte Grillo. After the realization of the new military harbour in Miseno, the lake Averno was often used as a place of entertainment for nobles and merchants, where were performed naumachie, that is to say naval battles, and it also hosted a thermal bath, now recognizable by the ruins of frigidarium that were wrongly identified with a Temple of Apollo. On the side that looks to Monte delle Ginestre, it was found a cave that some archaeologists identified as the Sibyl’s Cave. Though the researches have not led to decisive conclusions, it is known that Ottavianus ordered the construction of the tunnel for a rapid link with the sea, without passing through the Lucrinus Lake. As regards the so-called Sibyl’s Lavacrum, that is to say a pool of warm water inside the cave, some archaeologists think that it was a thermal bath realized during the Middle Age.
