Pomptinae

(or Pontīnae) Palūdes (Ποντίναι Λίμναι). The Pontine Marshes. The name of a low, marshy plain on the coast of Latium, between Circeii and Terracina, said to have been so called after an ancient town Pontia, which disappeared at an early period. The marshes are formed chiefly by a number of small streams, which, instead of finding their way into the sea, spread over this plain. The miasmas arising from these marshes are exceedingly unhealthful in the summer. At an early period they either did not exist at all or were confined to a narrow district. We are told that originally there were twenty-three towns in this plain; and in B.C. 312 the greater part of it must have been free from the marshes, since the censor Appius Claudius constructed the celebrated Via Appia in that year through the plain, which must then have been sufficiently strong to bear the weight of this road. In the time of Augustus there was a navigable canal running alongside of the Via Appia from Forum Appii to the grove of Feronia, which was intended to carry off a portion of the waters of the marshes. Horace embarked upon this canal on his celebrated journey from Rome to Brundisium in B.C. 37. Juvenal (iii. 307) speaks of the marshes as the haunt of highway robbers. See Roma.