Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy, Robert Sallares [reading a book TXT] 📗

the only places where malaria occurred; they were simply the areas with the greatest intensity of malarial transmission and infection. This point becomes clear when the evidence of the medical writers, from Asclepiades to Galen, is considered (see Ch. 8 below). The medical writers show that P. falciparum malaria was common in at least some districts of the city of Rome itself even though Strabo does not mention the city of Rome as one of the unhealthy areas. The districts listed by Strabo correspond to the areas of Latium which were the most severely affected by malaria in 1782, but Bonelli’s map shows that malaria was not confined to those coastal areas but occurred all over Lazio at that time, except at high altitude. Similarly the reports of the Florentine health magistrates in the first half of the seventeenth century show that malaria (especially P. vivax) occurred in many inland parts of Tuscany, besides the Maremma where P. falciparum malaria was intense.⁴⁸

Cicero described the Pontine region as ‘neither pleasant nor healthy’ and did not show any appreciation whatsoever of this with malaria, of whose fatal influence the countenances of the inhabitants bear a melancholy proof’.

⁴⁶ Strabo 5.3.5.231C: ‹pasa d’ ƒst≥n eÛda≤mwn ka≥ pamfÎroß pl¶n øl≤gwn cwr≤wn t0n kat¤ t¶n paral≤an, Òsa ‰l*dh ka≥ noser3, oÍa t¤ t0n !rdeat0n ka≥ t¤ metaxŸ !nt≤ou ka≥

Lanou≤ou mvcri Pwment≤nou ka≤ tinwn t[ß Sht≤nhß cwr≤wn ka≥ t[ß per≥ Tarrak≤nan ka≥ tÏ

Kirka∏on.

⁴⁷ Strabo 5.3.12.239C: ƒfex[ß d’ ƒst≥ ped≤a, t¤ m†n prÏß t¶n <R*mhn sun3ptonta ka≥ t¤

pro3steia aÛt[ß, t¤ d† prÏß t¶n q3lattan: t¤ m†n oˆn prÏß t¶n q3lattan ¬ttÎn ƒstin Ëgiein3, t¤ d† £lla eÛ3gwg3 te ka≥ paraplhs≤wß ƒxhskhmvna. One possible example of a healthy inland plain was that occupied by the Roman town of Privernum, constructed on the plain of the upper Amaseno river valley, separated from the Pontine plain by hills (Cancellieri (1997) ). The modern town of Priverno lies on the slope of a hill adjoining the plain.

A canalized, covered waterway ran right through the centre of the Roman city, which was clearly subject to flooding. The ground level has risen by 2.5 metres since antiquity. The construction of the town on a plain may imply that the plain was thought to be healthy then.

⁴⁸ Cipolla (1992: 49–51, 68–70, 79–80).

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fascinating environment.⁴⁹ Silius Italicus also described the Pontine Marshes as pestilential, and mentioned the huge amount of allu-vium which was being brought down by the river Ufente.⁵⁰ Virgil also described the river Ufente.⁵¹ Nero had the idea of driving a canal through to lake Avernus from the Tiber delta, connecting all the lakes along the coast of Latium. Of course it was a complete failure.⁵² Quintilian, as part of his advice on oratory, described the question of whether the Pontine Marshes could be drained as a matter of conjecture. He was not sure that it could be done.⁵³ Pliny the Elder, in the course of a wild attack on Asclepiades for his handling of herbal remedies, described the Pontine Marshes as land that was lost to Rome.⁵⁴ Juvenal shows that by the first century  the thinly populated Pontine Marshes already had the reputation as a haven for brigands and highwaymen which it possessed in the early modern period.⁵⁵ Nevertheless the Romans never gave up. Even in the twilight of late antiquity they still kept on trying to drain the Pontine Marshes, an enormous task which was often reduced in practice to the more restricted aim of keeping open the Via Appia, upon which the marshes continuously encroached. Cassiodorus records one final attempt by the patrician Decius on behalf of king Theodoric in  507/11.⁵⁶

⁴⁹ Cicero, de oratore 2.290: Pomptinum . . . neque amoenum neque salubrem locum.

⁵⁰ Silius Italicus, Punica 8.379–82: et quos pestifera Pomptini uligine campi, | qua Saturae nebulosa palus restagnat, et atro | liventes coeno per squalida turbidus arva | cogit aquas Ufens atque inficit aequora limo (and the Pontine Marshes which emit pestilential vapours, where the misty swamp of Satura inundates the land, and the Ufens forces its waters, discoloured by dark mud, over neglected fields, and dyes the sea with mud).

⁵¹ Virgil, Aeneid 7.801–2: qua Saturae iacet atra palus gelidusque per imas | quaerit iter vallis atque in mare conditur Ufens (where the black marsh of Satura is situated and the cold Ufens makes its way through the bottoms of the valleys and reaches the sea).

⁵² Tacitus, Annals 15.42; Le Gall (1953: 125–6); Quilici (1979: 66).

⁵³ Quintilian 3.8.16: cum autem de hoc quaeritur, coniectura est . . . an siccari palus Pomptina.

⁵⁴ Pliny, NH 26.9.19: siccentur hodie meroide Pomptinae paludes tantumque agri suburbanae reddatur Italiae (Let the Pontine Marshes be drained today by the plant merois and so much land near the city be recovered for Italy.) Merois is an unidentified plant that was supposed to have magical properties from the Kingdom of Meroe in Sudan.

⁵⁵ Juvenal, Sat. 3.305–8. There is even a museum in the area today devoted to this subject, the Museo del Brigante at Fienili di Sonnino, cf. Staccioli (1996).

⁵⁶ The inscriptions CIL X.6850–1 provide further evidence for this attempt to drain the Pontine Marshes, giving the usual misleading impression that it was a complete success; cf. Cassiodorus, Variae 2.21 for similar activity at Spoleto. Nicolai (1800: 101–4) discussed Theodoric’s bonifications. Marshes in general were regarded as suitable places for rubbish disposal (see e.g. Tacitus, Histories 4.53 for disposing of the ruins of an old temple, and Annals 15.43 for disposing of rubbish from the great fire of Rome in  64, in the marshes around Ostia.

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The magnificent patrician Decius . . . has promised to drain the marsh of Decemnovium, which devastates the vicinity like an enemy, by opening up channels. That notorious desolation of the age, through a long period of neglect, has established itself