chap, xxxvi] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 57 toils of the Punic war, they were attracted by the beauties and the pleasures of Campania ; and the country house of the elder Scipio at Liternum exhibited a lasting model of their rustic simplicity. 137 The delicious shores of the bay of Naples were crowded with villas ; and Sylla applauded the masterly skill of his rival, who had seated himself on the lofty promontory of Misenum, that commands, on every side, the sea and land, as far as the boundaries of the horizon. 138 The villa of Marius was purchased, within a few years, by Lucullus, and the price had increased from two thousand five hundred to more than four- score thousand pounds sterling. 139 It was adorned by the new proprietor with Grecian arts, and Asiatic treasures ; and the houses and gardens of Lucullus obtained a distinguished rank in the list of Imperial palaces. 140 When the Vandals became formidable to the sea-coast, the Lucullan villa, on the promon- tory of Misenum, gradually assumed the strength and appella- tion of a strong castle, the obscure retreat of the last emperor of the West. About twenty years after that great revolution it was converted into a church and monastery, to receive the bones of St. Severinus. They securely reposed, amidst the broken trophies of Cimbric and Armenian victories, till the beginning of the tenth century ; when the fortifications, which might afford a dangerous shelter to the Saracens, were de- molished by the people of Naples. 141 137 See the eloquent Declamation of Seneoa (epist. lxxxvi.). The philosopher might have recollected that all luxury is relative ; and that the elder Scipio, whose manners were polished by study and conversation, was himself accused of that vioe by his ruder contemporaries (Livy, xxix. 19). 138 Sylla, in the language of a soldier, praised his peritia castrametandi (Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 7). Pheedrus, who makes its shady walks (laeta viridia) the scene of an insipid fable (ii. 5), has thus described the situation : — Csesar Tiberius quum petens Neapolim In Misenensem villam venisset suam Quae monte summo posita Luculli manu Prospectat Siculum et prospicit [leg. despicit] Tusoum mare. 139 From seven myriads and a half to two hundred and fifty myriads of drachmas. Yet even in the possession of Marius, it was a luxurious retirement. The Romans derided his indolence : they soon bewailed his activity. See Plutarch, in Mario, torn. ii. p. 524 [o. 34]. 140 Lucullus had other villas of equal, though various, magnificence, at Baiaa, Naples, Tusculum, &c. He boasted that he changed his climate with the storks and cranes. Plutarch, in Lucull. torn. iii. p. 193 [39]. 141 Severinus died in Noricum, a.d. 482. Six years afterwards, his body, which scattered miracles as it passed, was transported by his disciples into Italy. The devotion of a Neapolitan lady invited the saint to the Lucullan villa, in the place of Augustulus, who was probably no more. See Baronius (Annal. Eccles. a.d. 496, No. 50, 51) and Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. torn. xvi. p. 178-181) from the
