AVERNUS

(Lat.) A lake of Italy 10 miles west of Naples, celebrated in antiquity as the entrance to the infernal regions. Strabo's description of this lake was well fitted to impre the minds of the " profanum vulgus " with superstitious awe. " Its steep and perilous banks were studded with mighty oaks that stretched their boughs over the watery aby and excluded every ray of wholesome light; mephitic vapours ascending from the hot bowels of the earth floated along the surface of the lake in poisonous mist, while the dark and savage practices of the neighbouring people enhanced the horrors of the gloomy scene." A cave adjoining the lake is represented by Virgil as the habitation of the Cumaean sybil: — " Spelunca alt a fuit, vastoque hnmanis hiatu, Scrupea, tut a lacu nigro nemorumque tenebris; Quam super haud ullae poterant impune volantes Tendere iter pennis: talis sese halitus atris Faucibus eftundens super a ad convex a ferebat; \put birdsm Unde locum Graii dixerunt nomine Avernum." (««gvflj, tvHhThis place continued to be the favourite haunt of superstition till the time of August us, who violated its sanctity, and dispelled the impenetrable darkne in which it had hitherto been enshrouded, by cutting down the surrounding wood, and connecting it with the Lucrine lake, then an arm of the sea. This lake still exists under the name Lago d'Averno; it is about a mile and a half in circumference, and in many places 190 feet deep. Averni is a generic name for certain lakes or other places that infect the atmosphere with pestilential vapours, called also Mephites. [s. 124]