When the euboeans discovered <%=ischia%>, they called it Pithecusae

by Fabrizio Carbone

We try to imagine the trepidation and amazement of the Euboeans when they first landed on this island with smoke-filled, scent-laden air.

They saw it by the first light of dawn - dark against the almost white sky, rising out of a calm sea. An imposing, mountainous island with many inlets and a jagged coastline, sheer cliffs and a series of headlands linked by thin strips of sand. The ships had moved nearer during the calm, moonless night. For days a dead calm had brought all sailing to a halt, but now finally the long journey was ended. This was the place they had sought and dreamed of for so long.
When the sun revealed the outlines of the horizon, the sailors who had brought the ships safely to harbour realised they had arrived in an earthly paradise. They sang songs of joy and victory as if they had won the fiercest battle of all. This was to be their home - the island of deliverance, of their return to life. Men and women, old and young, they brought their knowledge of how to grow vines, olive trees and wheat and the art of modelling fine clay to make beautiful vases, beakers and plates - pottery on which to paint scenes from the stories of their gods.

They arrived in springtime, when the island was bright with flowers - the yellow of giant fennel, full of sweet nectar, and of scented broom, the red of poppies and wild anemones, the lilac of gladioli and orchids. High up in the sky thousands and thousands of birds arrived from the coasts of Africa, from the land of the Phoenicians. Little migrants in gaudy colours as well as hawks, birds of prey, storks and vultures.
A favourable sign, the one they were all waiting for. The settlers saw many pairs of seals swimming on the surface of the water. They blew out air from their wide nostrils and plunged underwater only to reappear further on, around the grottoes on the side of the island that dropped straight into the cobalt-blue sea.

When the wind began to blow again they rounded the cape to the south. Only then did they realise that the mainland was not far away and saw the outlines of green hills stretching as far as the eye could see. It all began to fall into shape. This place reminded them of their own island, the one they left many months before. The colonizers came from Euboea, the second largest Greek island after legendary Mycenean Crete. The seals all around the ships reminded them that nothing had changed, while the proximity of the mainland brought to mind how close their native Euboea was to Attica, where their Athenian rivals lived. Without being fully aware of it, these Greek settlers had reached the northernmost point of their wanderings. It was as if they had discovered America - maybe even more so.
All this happened eight hundred years before Christ was born, twenty-eight centuries ago. These sailors, women and children, awed witnesses gazing fixedly at the island now called <%=ischia%> and once known as Pithecusae, were colonizers from Calcides and Eretria. Great was their surprise when they discovered the island's more hidden and impressive aspects - it gave off smoke and a strong smell of sulphur, it boasted hot underground springs that gushed forth underwater, in grottoes, and flowed down the volcano they immediately named Epomeo. This mountain, almost 800 metres high, was covered with great chestnut trees, holm-oaks and cork-oaks. And more surprises were in store for the Greeks - the island was inhabited. Native peoples of Italic ethnic groups lived along the bays and close to the mountain. They bred goats and had a passion for wild honey. The Euboeans would have to reckon with them.
It was not very difficult - there were no wars or massacres. Once the settlers decided to leave their homeland forever they knew what they were facing. They had talked in detail to the men who sailed the Aegean and Ionian seas, traded with the Phoenicians and arrived in Sicily where they sheltered along the coasts of newly-conquered Magna Graecia. The sailors told the Euboeans of coasts further north, of volcanoes rising from the sea and of the land of the Etruscans, the greatest arms manufacturers of the time. The colonizers from Euboea began to venture further and further. They learned how to round the Peloponnese by night, navigating with the help of the stars and entering the open sea as far as the turbulent straits between Scylla and Carybdis. From then on, after the rocky columns that marked the entrance of an unknown, but fairly safe world, the journey became easier. And so they reached the island and chose it as their new home. In the days devoted to founding the colony of Pithecusae, the Euboeans climbed to the top of Mount Epomeo to sacrifice goats to their gods, of whom Apollo was certainly one. From its summit they learned to recognise landmarks on the vast horizon - the Lepini, Cilento and Aurunci mountains that still stand out on clear days when the north-west wind blows. In those days they could not have imagined that the great headland of white limestone far away to the north dominating a long strip of fine sand was the mythical refuge of Ulysses' Circe. They could not know that one day they would found Cumae, in the very middle of the Phlegraean Fields, and that Naples would be built at the foot of a volcano. Seven centuries later, the very same volcano destroyed two Roman towns, a mixture of poverty and luxury, where elegant villas painted red and adorned with friezes were built next to squalid brothels and taverns along the port. The inhabitants of Pithecusae were essentially farmers, not fishermen.

They developed the art of making pottery, to the extent that they came to rival the Etruscans themselves, famous for their black bucchero plates and vases. Painted pottery from Pithecusae became all the rage, though the only remaining trace is a celebrated skyphos known as Nestor's cup bearing the inscription: "I am the lovely cup of Nestor/ he who drinks from this cup/ will immediately be seized by desire for Aphrodite of the beautiful crown" - the oldest existing example of written Greek. Twenty-eight centuries later, <%=ischia%> is one of the many places in Italy with layer upon layer of history. Chronology's march through the ages provides us with countless anecdotes. In Roman times <%=ischia%>'s thermal baths, the most famous in all the Mediterranean, were frequented by a large part of society. Yet the island offers more than archaeological remains and the marvels described by the Greek geographer Strabo. <%=ischia%> is a concentration of historical events from all over the world - besides Saracen raids and medieval battles, <%=ischia%> was conquered and abandoned by the French, Spanish and English who had no qualms about bombarding it with cannons.

There were times of splendid social life. Visitors to <%=ischia%> included the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine and the Danish playwright Henrik Ibsen, who wrote the final chapters of Peer Gynt during his stay. <%=ischia%> was dear to Luchino Visconti and Angelo Rizzoli, who restored a medieval farm and turned it into Villa Arbusto, now an enchanting little archaeology museum. Yet <%=ischia%> has had its share of tragedies. The last and most violent earthquake happened at dawn on July 28, 1883, and totally destroyed the little town of Casamicciola, killing 1,784 people. By miracle, a then very young Benedetto Croce emerged unharmed from the ruins. A great wooden beam fell above him and stopped the walls and rubble from burying him. Just a few hundred metres away, in their holiday home, the entire Aliquò family was wiped out. The only survivor was little Anna in her cradle, paternal grandmother of the author of this story.

Fabrizio Carbone, journalist and writer, an expert on environmental issues