" DIANA'S LOOKING-GLASS."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9304, 3 August 1908, Page 2

" DIANA'S LOOKING-GLASS."

THE TREASURES OF A LAKE. (•'< St James's Budget,") Under the waters of the beautiful lake of Ncmi, called by the ancients "Diana's looking-glass," and situated in one of the most picturesque of the villages in the near neighbourhood of Rome, known as the Castelli Romani, are submerged two great ships that formed the celebrated, floating palaces of the Emperors Tiberius and Caligula. With the exception of some Tory interesting and valuable animals' .heads and other bronze objects that were brought up during investigations that were made in the year 1895, and which, are now to bo found in the National Museum of the Bathe of Diocletian, it is believed that nothing has been, removed from the great vessels, which were probably left neglected until they sank to the bottom of the lake. As the ships must have been full of ! objects of art and decorations belonging to the best Roman period, the treasure trove now buried in the mud of the lake bottom may be of inestimable value. Suetonius tells us that they carried porticoes with marble colonnades and balconies ; doors inlaid with ivory, walls of cedar wood, decorated with finelycarved marbles; they contained bathrooms, a library, and hanging gardens ; ; there were- also little temples dedicated to Venus and Bacchus, surrounded by | columns with capitals of bron?e, and all I the interior decorations were of the ut- ' most magnificence. One of the vessels I is to be found about twenty-two yards from the shore of the lake, and is about I twenty or thirty feet below the level of tho wator ; the other is much further from the shore, and is fifty or sixty feet under water. Tho ships are respectively 70ft and 80ft in length. Various plans have been suggested for recovering the vessels, but the commission lately appointed to investigate the project has decided that, in consequenco of the enormous # expense, it would be impossible to bring the ships to tho surface, and the present idea is oither temporarily to lower the water level, or to divert the entire waters of the lako for a time. Even this would cost from £12,000 to £18,000; but it is hoped that so epon as the question of the proprietorship of the excavation has been settled with Don Enrico Ruspoli, the present owner of the lake, it will be possible definitely to begin the work of restoring to the modern, world these wonderful relics of the pomp and luxury of Imperial Rome.