In my professorial mood, I should cite the cavern and the "downward
leaping" waters against the hypothesis that the Bandusian Fount stood on
either of these modern sites; in favour of it, one might argue that the
conventional rhetoric of all Roman art may have added these embellishing
touches, and cite, in confirmation thereof, the last two lines of the
previous verse, mentioning animals that could hardly have slaked their
thirst with any convenience at a cavernous spring such as he describes.
Caverns, moreover, are not always near the summits of hills; they may be
at the foot of them; and water, even the Thames at London Bridge, always
leaps downhill--more or less. Of more importance is old Chaupy's
discovery of the northerly aspect of one of these springs--"thee the
fierce season of the blazing dog-star cannot touch." There may have been
a cave at the back of the "Fontana del Fico"; the "Fontana rotta" is
hopelessly uncavernous.

For the rest, there is no reason why the fountain should not have
changed its position since ancient days. On the contrary, several things
might incline one to think that it has been forced to abandon the high
grounds and seek its present lower level. To begin with, the hill on
which the village stands is honeycombed by hives of caves which the
inhabitants have carved out of the loose conglomerate (which, by the
way, hardly corresponds with the poet's _saxum);_ and it may well be
that a considerable collapse of these earth-dwellings obstructed the
original source of the waters and obliged them to seek a vent lower down.

Next, there are the notorious effects of deforestation. An old man told
me that in his early days the hill was covered with timber--indeed, this
whole land, now a stretch of rolling grassy downs, was decently wooded
up to a short time ago. I observed that the roof of the oldest of the
three churches, that of Saint Anthony, is formed of wooden rafters (a