11:39
I've come to the heart of the Campi Flegrei to the Roman town of Baia for my very own introduction to the underworld. In ancient Roman times, this was known as the agora or the workplace of Hephaestus or Vulcan, the god who worked with fire and lava to create the great weapons of the gods themselves. Hercules was supposed to have come here and defeated the Titans. And you can imagine them seeing this all around them, boiling lakes of mud at over 200° C, sulfur extreme spewing into the air. This was where the Romans came to get just as close as one would ever want to do to the underworld. I'm working with a team of speleologists. They're going to take me into a man-made tunnel that when it was discovered in the 1960s
was thought to be the mythical entrance leading to the river Styx. I'm quite looking forward to this journey into the underworld. In the ancient Greek and Roman myths and stories, it's only the mad, the bad, and the utterly heroic that decide to make this journey. It's the fact that this is not only going into the earth, into the hillside, but it's going down at the same time, isn't it? You really do feel like you're traveling down into the center of the earth. It does feel like being in somebody's armpit. I'm now having to go definitely with much bended knee and bended back. This really does feel like it could go on forever. And the temperature is definitely rising.
The geothermal energy of this incredible area of the world, so seismically active, so on the edge of tectonic forces that have shaped this landscape. We're going down at the same time. Down, down, down. But who knows who is waiting for us at the end. You really want to let a sleeping giant lie. You don't want to be the one who wakes it up. Well, here we are. Finally arriving at the River Styx. A chance to put my hand in the waters. I hope it isn't the fabled River Forgetfulness of the Underworld.
Ah. Tepid here and you can see that the water stretches far back. They dived this when they first discovered it in the '60s and found the hot thermal springs that turned this water into a very warm well, 60° back then, but nowadays it's more in the high 20s. You can understand coming here why people would have thought in ancient times that this might be one of the routes into the Underworld. But in reality, I think there's a much more simple, but also satisfying explanation. The ancients thought it was easy to get into the Underworld, but much more tricky to get out. So, I'm relieved to make it back to the surface.
