[107]
But
Enna, where those things which I am
speaking of are said to have been done, is in a high and lofty situation, on the top
of which is a large level plain, and springs of water which are never dry. And the
whole of the plain is cut off and separated, so as to be difficult of approach.
Around it are many lakes and groves, and beautiful flowers at every season of the
year; so that the place itself appears to testify to that abduction of the virgin
which we have heard of from our boyhood. 1
Near it is a cave turned towards the north, of unfathomable depth, where they say
that Father Pluto suddenly rose out of the earth in his chariot, and carried the
virgin off from that spot, and that on a sudden, at no great distance from
Syracuse, he went down beneath the
earth, and that immediately a lake sprang up in that place; and there to this day
the Syracusans celebrate anniversary festivals with a most numerous assemblage of
both sexes
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1 We have the same advantage as, or rather greater advantages than Cicero in this respect, for we have heard the story from our boyhood told far more beautifully than any Sicilian ever imagined it. See Ovid Fasti, iv. 419.
M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, literally translated by C. D. Yonge. London. George Bell & Sons. 1903.
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