CHAPTER XLV - TELAMONE—TELAMON

Summary

—dives opum Priami dum regna manebant;

Nunc tantum sinus, et statio malefida carinis.

Virgil.

South of Grosseto, the next place of Etruscan interest is Telamone, or Talamone, eighteen miles distant. For the first half of the way the road traverses a wide plain, crossing the Ombrone by a ferry. This, the Umbro of antiquity—non ignobile flumen—is a stream of no great width, and ought to be spanned by a bridge. In Pliny's time it was navigable; but for what distance we know not. Passing Alberese and its quarries, the road enters a wooded valley, with a range of hills on the right renowned as a favourite haunt of the wild-boar and roebuck—

Ubi cerva silvicultrix, ubi aper nemorivagus.

Hither accordingly the cacciaatori of Rome and Florence resort in the season, taking up their quarters at Collecchio,a way-side inn, twelve miles from Grosseto. Where this range sinks to the sea, a castle on a small headland, a few houses at its foot, and a vessel or two off the shore, mark the port of Telamone.

Telamone lies nearly two miles off the high road, and to reach it you have to skirt the sandy shores of the little bay, sprinkled with aloes, and fragments of Roman ruin.