What Befell at Baiae I Cornelia was at Baiae, the famous watering-place, upon the classic Neapolitan bay,--which was the Brighton or Newport of the Roman.

Here was the haunt of the sybarites, whose gay barks skimmed the shallow waters of the Lucrine lake; and not far off slumbered in its volcanic hollow that other lake, Avernus, renowned in legend and poetry, through whose caverns, fable had it, lay the entrance to the world of the dead.

The whole country about was one city of stately villas, of cool groves, of bright gardens; a huge pleasure world, where freedom too often became license; where the dregs of the nectar cup too often meant physical ruin and moral death.
Cornelia had lost all desire to die now.

She no longer thought of suicide.

Lentulus's freedmen held her in close surveillance, but she was very happy.