The Greek Heritage chapter
The fountain Cavallina in Genzano of today, it was very likely an amphitheatre under the Roman rules at the beginning of Genzano history. So, we wonder if this is where the Christian martyr of Secondo and Donato took place?
The Greek Heritage chapter
Welcome to our page (32) now called, the heritage chapter.
Dear readers, in
our last article we were talking about wine making the old way, which is also
some sort of heritage that we have inherited from our previous generations;
therefore, when we talk about heritage it is obvious that we are looking for
things that have come from the past, the word heritage has many uses, but here
we are using it to tell you about the ways we used to live and some historic
events of my native town; we all know that when we look at any place in the
world we know that it has got a history of its own, so, we wonder what has
happened in that part of the world and what are the sign left of the past that
we can use to tell its history, of course there are also things that are still
there and this is the heritage of that place. Now, in this article we are going
to discuss about some heritage and the history of Genzano di Lucania, therefore
we are going to mention what sort of heritage we inherited in Genzano, from
some ancient people that once lived there.
We would like also
to mention here, or perhaps we should say remind you briefly the heritage of
the name of Genzano: the name of the town of Genzano it is believed that comes
from the legend of Ian and San and the name is virtually the two lover names
put together, of course there are also other theories about the name of this
town, but, I believe that we have mentioned it already at length somewhere
else, so there is no need to repeat that in full here, so let us talk about the
other heritage that we wanted to talk about.
In Genzano di
Lucania, there is a chasm called the Greek chasm, and perhaps we should have
called this article, Genzano Greek chasm heritage chapter, to be more specific,
but anyhow, let us discuss here and now about this chasm called the Greek
chasm, which is the other chasm on the western side of the old town of Genzano;
for the readers that have not read our previous hubs I repeat here, that the
old town of Genzano was built between two chasms and in our last article we
have talked about Saint Antuon or Saint Michael chasm, this is a chasm on the
eastern side of the old town of Genzano where most of the Genzanesi make wine
in the caves dug in the walls of the chasm below the town, but here today we
are going to talk about what the local call the Greek chasm, which as I have
said, it is on the other side of the town and below the town fountain called la
Cavallina.
So, let us try to
explain the name of this Greek chasm first; some writers that have written
about Genzano history lately all seem to admit that a very long time ago the
Greek were living here in this part of southern Italy, and therefore in the
chasm that we are going to talk about as well, and that is the reason why it is
called the Greek chasm even today from the elders of Genzano.
There are reasons
to believe that it is so if one keeps in mind how the human race migrated from
the Middle East to Europe; and also history tells us that 700 BC or there about
Greece had colonies in southern Italy, which might have lasted until the Romans
took over. So let us assume that the Greeks were there anyhow, because what is
going to follow later on is only going to reinforce this assumption. As there
is also another story about this Madonna of Genzano that we are going to tell
you in our future articles, we can only say here that this Madonna effigy is
very much like the effigies that the Greek people were making about the Roman
times, so they might indeed been there in this chasm.
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The town history and heritage
Looking at old
history books, we have to admit that there is not much written about Genzano di
Lucania town history in the distant past. However the myth says that Genzano is
very old and it was named from a legend that tells us that a young guy called
Iens (yens) fell in love and eloped with a young princes called San, they went
to live in the caves that were in the chasm, which today are below the town of
Genzano, and then, they started to build a small castle, where the old town of
Genzano is now, the name is virtually the two name of the lovers put together
Iens-san (yensan, or jenzan) I am saying this because I know that in strict
dialect of the town even today it is pronounced Yenzan with no G at the
beginning and no O at the end. I know that I have already mentioned this before
in this article, but I had to explain it a bit more to make sense.
(For those people that can read Italian, I am going to paste here a
couple of links that modern writers have written about the history of Genzano
di Lucania: One of this is Ettore Lorito, and here is a link that may get you
to see his writing works,Scrittori e poeti, another writer
has these two link, here,Arch. Pietrapertosa - Storia e dintorni - Genzano
di Lucania, this writer has two links and both are very interesting,
http://ass-gentius.blogspot.it/ , let us hope they
work)
Now let us talk for
a moment about more recent history that a recent write has discovered in the
archive of Potenza; this writer is Ettore Lorito and you can find his writings,
if you follow the link of (scrittori e poeti, (as shown above)) one of the
first times that Genzano is mentioned in the archives is that of two brothers
Secondo and Donato who were Christian martyr in the year 258 AD, as they were
beheaded in Genzano ordered from council Valeriano, which I guess was a Roman
council for that part of Italy. This seems to be the oldest written record
found written about Genzano history and not much else; so, let us go back to
the Greek chasm story.
Because in this hub
we would like to tell or describe to you the chasm on the other side of Genzano
that we call the Greek chasm, we have to say that this chasm starts about fifty
meter from the fountain Cavallina, or perhaps I should say that at the
beginning of the Greek chasm is where the fountain Cavallina is, then suddenly
the chasm becomes very deep and a real chasm that is hard to go into it, and
nobody goes there, unless you have to go there and know the way how to get
there; anyhow this part of Genzano is called the Greek chasm, so, by this very
name it is understood that a very long time ago there must have been a colony
of Greek people living there, and perhaps also in the surrounding country side.
About the Greek
people and whatever happened to them nobody seems to know today, as there is no
trace of them and there are no records to check with. So one is forced to
assume that very likely that there was a war, or something of that sort and
they were driven out. Or perhaps they just mixed with the rest of the
inhabitants of Genzano and nobody remembers; or perhaps, as time went by lots
of other things happened that changed the shape of the chasm, so, it became
impossible for them to live in the chasm, because of the erosion and other
natural factors which slowly changed the shape of the chasm, and the use of the
chasm, there might be other factors as well, but let us now talk about the more
recent history of this place.
Recent history of Genzano’s Greek chasm
We all know that
how time passes lots of things slowly change, as we have already mentioned here
above, this has also happened to the Greek people and their chasm; so, nowadays
the Greek chasm has been deserted from the people of Genzano for a long while,
because most of the people would be afraid to go into this chasm as it is
today; you see, today there is only a small part that can still be used and a
track or road that can take you around to the other chasm. Now let us see the
reasons why this has happened:
This Greek chasm, apart
that it can be dangerous because of the abrupt drops in the level of the land,
it can also be unsanitary as lots of rubbish used to be dumped into this chasm,
and this would include also the human excrement that used to come out at the
bottom of the chasm, when there was no proper sewer laid in town; and plus most
of the men that lived in the old town when they had to go, they used to go and
squat on the shoulders of the chasm and do it there, in order to save their
women folks the extra sanitary work that they had to carry out: And this
unpleasant task I am going to write later on how it was done, from the young
women that lived in those times. (Now that I think about it, to live in
those time was much harder than today.)
In the Greek chasm
nowadays there are only a few good caves that can still be used, and most of
the rest have been abandoned because it is impossible to get at them, since the
erosion has made the chasm deeper, so now some caves are left exposed halfway
up the vertical cliff of the chasm.
I believe that the
erosion became worse in this chasm because: there is the fountain Cavallina
upstream at the very beginning of the chasm, and also because, as the town grew
larger most of the town’s storm water drainage was diverted into this chasm,
and together with this drainage they built also a simple and effective sewerage
system for the town of those days. The dunghill masonry was built all
underground, except for the opening where they used to drop the dung, and it
was connected through a drain which came out at the bottom of the chasm. All
this may seem ridiculous today, but I am sure that in those times was seen as a
great improvement.
Now at this point I
would like to point out to you that there are some large masonry works in this
chasm, because across the chasm there are two massive masonry walls, and one of
them is so massive that seems as if it wants to hold the banks of the chasm
apart. These two walls have been built for several purposes in mind, and the
most important one would be to prevent any landslide which would endanger this
old part of the town, and to stop the erosion that could undermine this part of
the town, and also to hide the drainage and sewer system. So the only thing
that could be seen of the sewer system was only a large barred opening about
three feet square at ground level, which was situated a short walking distance
from the town’s fountain Cavallina; and this archaic but effective old sewer
system was still being used when I was young. Not from my family, because we
were lucky enough, as we were connected to the modern sewer system long before
I was born. But it still was used only from those less fortunate people in the
community, which for some reasons of their own had not been able to connect to
the modern town’s sewer yet, so they had to use the old system as it was done
in the old days, this must have been the most hated job of them all that the
young less fortunate women had to do during their lives, so let me write about
it even though I hate doing it, because it is so hateful and at the same time
necessary, in order to explain how the people were living in the past. After
all here we are trying to write a bit of Genzano history,, so, let us see how
the most hated job of them all was done, in those times.
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The most hated job
Before we start to
tell you about the most hated job of them all that the women folks of Genzano
had to do in those times; we would like to point out to the modern generation
to compare those times and the ways that even the best people had to make do,
in order to live a decent life then, as there was no other ways available; We
know that for the younger generation of today all this may seem crazy even to
talk about it, but in those times that was how most things were done, because
there was no other way.
Now looking back at
the time when I was young, I still remember how the unspeakable job was done,
from the women folks of those last unfortunate families that were still using
the old sewer system; they had to do this horrible job two or three times a
week, and they would feel so ashamed while they were doing it, because this
would expose them in a mental way about lack of privacy, so they felt ashamed
and what a shame it was compared to nowadays privacy and living standard.
Now, there is more
to tell about this happening, because in those times young people sometimes
were almost cruel and they would enjoy to see the funny part of it all without
thinking that their actions would greatly upset the other party; now that I am
older and wiser I would have felt sorry for those women that had to use the old
sewer system: But then as a young man; I and my teenager male friends thought
that it was very funny, when we would see in the evening just before dusk, a
couple of women per household come out of their houses with their own dung
balanced on their head so to speak. One of them would carry this round and wide
rimmed ceramic container balanced on her head, the other would be carrying a
bucket and a sort of little broom which was a sort of brush with a long handle.
They would be
coming out of their houses, and they would try to go the back ways as much as
they could, and try to be invisible if they could as they didn’t want to be
seen. Can you just imagine some teenager girls doing this low and unspeakable
service, while some teenager boys would be prying on them from a distance? What
a shame! Those girls must have felt terrible to say the least, only because
they were doing the most hated job of them all, which was to dispose of their
own human excrement; but, it was necessary and inevitable.
Anyhow when they
reached the square opening of the sewer, they would help each other to bring
the contains down from their heads and would throw the dung down the square
hole; and then the one with the bucket would go to the fountain and bring a
bucket of water to wash the ceramic container. And finally return to their
homes relieved that their dirty job was done, and they would be all right for a
few more days.
Can you just
imagine any young girls that are living today to do such a shameful job, I have
nothing else to say but just compare it. So, when old people say that today
generations are better off and lucky to be born now and not then, they are
telling us the truth, because I am pretty sure that there is no one that would
volunteer to do that hateful job. Here we could say a lot more and compare the
youths of today with the youths of the past and see what has changed since
then, but we will refrain from doing that, as it is not my life story and I
intend to continue with my life story and the history of my native town.
So, see you next
time, where we are going to tell you about the Madonna of Genzano story
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