Agnano & the Grotto of the Dog

I was sure when I read that passage that MT was wrong about the lake. There was no Lake Agnano! Hmph! Sage of Hannibal, indeed.

I was outraged and triumphant at the same time! Oops...(speaking of critical imbeciles), I missed it by a century and a bit, but at the time MT was there, there was indeed a Lake Agnano. It was not one of the myth-shroud lakes of ancient times (such as Lake Averno) but had been around only since about 1100 AD when seismic shenanigans created it in the middle of the Agnano basin. The lake was circular and about 4 miles around. It swamped up over the centuries and was finally drained in 1870, about a year after MT was there. It had turned into a vast snake- and frog-infested, foreboding place. Emptying the lake/swamp was part of the land reclamation in the south by the new united (since 1861) Italy; the waters were piped south through nearby Bagnoli to the sea. But, indeed, the many tales over the last few centuries from travelers who visited the noxious dog-killing cave on the shores of Lake Agnano are accurate.

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The photos