CAMPANIA IN THE FLAVIAN POETIC IMAGINATION

The region of Campania with its fertility and volcanic landscape was greatly influential on the Roman cultural imagination.

The Bay of Naples was a centre outside the city of Rome, a place of otium, leisure and quiet, repose and literary productivity.

And yet this is also a place of danger: Vesuvius inspires the inhabitants with fear and awe and, in addition to the majestic presence of the mountain, the Phlegraean Fields evoke the story of the gigantomachy, whilst sulphurous lakes invite entry to the Underworld.