Giulio
Iasolino
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The
thermal waters of the island of Ischia have been famous and used since
olden times. As shown by the numerous archaeological findings discovered
on the site of Pithecusa and conserved at the Archaeological Museum
of Villa Arbusto in Lacco Ameno, the first Euboean colonists, (VIII
century B.C.), appreciated and used the thermal spring waters of Ischia.
In fact, the Greeks used the thermal waters to strengthen the spirit
and the body and as a remedy for the consequences of war wounds, (in
the pre-antibiotic era), attributing supernatural powers to the waters
and vapours that gushed out of the earth; it was not by coincidence
that temples dedicated to divinities, such as the one dedicated to
Apollo at Delfi, could be found at each thermal resort.
Strabone, the Greek historian and geographer cites the Island of Ischia
and the virtues of its thermal springs in his monumental geographic
work (Geograph. Book V). If the Greeks were the first to discover
the power of thermal waters, the Romans exalted them as a curing and
relaxing instrument through the creation of public Thermae and by
using the numerous island springs safely and profitably and without
any ostentatious ceremonies (as shown in the votive tablets found
at the Spring of Nitrodi at Barano d'Ischia, where a small temple
was dedicated to Apollo and the nymph Nitrodie, guardians of the waters);
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reliefs in 'marmo lunense', (a type of marble) from the Nymph
shrine in Nitrodi (Barano) II century, A.D. Archaeological
Museum of Pithecusae. |
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