Letters from a Stoic

by Seneca

I can’t give you any accurate information about the house itself. I only know the front of it and the parts in view, the parts that it displays even to passers-by. There are two artificial grottoes, considerable feats of engineering, each as big as the most spacious hall, one of them not letting in the sun at all, the other retaining it right up until its setting. There is a grove of plane trees through the middle of which runs a stream flowing alternately, like a tide-race, into the sea and into the Acherusian Lake, a stream capable of supporting a stock of fish even if constantly exploited; it is left alone, though, when the sea is open: only when bad weather gives the fishermen a holiday do they lay hands on this ready supply. But the most advantageous feature of the house is that it has Baiae next door; it enjoys all the amenities of that resort and is free from its disadvantages. I can speak for these attractions from personal knowledge, and I am quite prepared to believe, too, that it is an all-the-year-round house, since it lies in the path of the western breeze, catching it to such an extent as to exclude Baiae from the benefit of it. Vatia seems to have been no fool in choosing this place as the one in which he would spend his retirement, sluggish and senile as that retirement had become.

try dalle