Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 3 -- Roman Encyclopedists
What we quote is reasonably correct, but doesn't move to reasons. Had Vitruvius cited a
principal such as gravity, for example, subsequent natural philosophers might have had more
doubt about a route from the sea to the feet of mountains.
Strabo (63 BC-24 AD), master of Greek literature, traveler and philosopher, is best known for his
17-volume Geographia, a geographical compilation from works that largely have not survived.
Strabo attributed the fire of Mt. Etna and of the volcanic island Thermessa to combustion because
when the winds die, so do the flames. The wind is in turn fueled by evaporation from the sea.
Incorrect, we might judge, but at least there's a hint of the type of causality espoused by the
natural philosophers from whom he was drawing.
Strabo reported “the Cave of the Sibyl” within the Phlegraean Fields in the sulfurous caldera of
Mt. Vesuvius near modern Naples, exactly the type of clue that fuels archeologists. Discovery in
the 1960s of a hewn tunnel descending 40 meters in hot rock to an artificial channel going
nowhere may have resolved the question. The layout conforms to Virgil's description in the
Aeneid of Aeneas' journey to the underworld. Quoting from the Smithsonian.com October 1,
2012 feature, "The Unsolved Mystery of the Tunnels at Baiae,"
[The tunnel system may have] been constructed by priests
to mimic a visit to the Greeks’ mythical underworld. In this
interpretation, the stream represented the fabled River
Styx, which the dead had to cross to enter Hades; a small
boat, the explorers speculated, would have been waiting at
the landing stage to ferry visitors across. On the far side
these initiates would have climbed the stairs to the hidden
sanctuary.
The tunnels.... might have been constructed to allow priests
to persuade their patrons -- or perhaps simply wealthy
travelers–that they had traveled through the underworld.
The scorching temperatures below ground and the thick
drifts of volcanic vapor would certainly have given that
impression. And if visitors were tired, befuddled or perhaps
simply drugged, it would have been possible to create a
powerfully otherworldly experience capable of persuading
even the skeptical.
We'll have more to say about Leonardo da Vinci's and Athanasius Kircher's interest in Mount
Vesuvius in Chapter 9 (Thermodynamic Engines).
Strabo was the recorder of many “lost river” accounts, among them, the loss of the Timavus east
of Trieste in a cavern and its reappearance at the coast -- a river we'll travel in Chapter 72,
Underground and Balkanized. Other lost rivers include,
Erasmus which now flows underground from the Stymphalian Lake and issues forth into the
Argive country, although in earlier times it had no outlet, since the berethra [pits] which the
Arcadians call "zerethra" were stopped up and did not admit of the waters being carried off.
Those who would have the river Inopus to be a branch of the Nile flowing to Delos, exaggerate
this kind of marvel to the utmost.
There is even a story [from Pausanias] that the Nile itself is the Euphrates, which disappears
into a marsh, rises again beyond Ethiopia and becomes the Nile.
A lost river story rejected by Strabo is one in which "the mouth of the river empties into the sea in
full view and there is no mouth [whirlpool] on the transit, which swallows it up."
Although Strabo noted what were said to be lost rivers, his encompassing geographical
compilation -- his lasting contribution -- showed none.
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