These are the rugged walls and windows of a monastery, not old enough to possess much interest, and, on the crowning height, the heavy remnants of a Norman castle, with one fine doorway still intact.

Bitterly I deplored the gloomy sky which spoiled what would else have been a magnificent view from this point of vantage--a view wide-spreading in all directions, with Sila northwards, Aspromonte to the south, and between them a long horizon of the sea.
Looking down upon Squillace, one sees its houses niched among huge masses of granite, which protrude from the scanty soil, or clinging to the rocky surface like limpet shells.

Was this the site of Scylaceum, or is it, as some hold, merely a mediaeval refuge which took the name of the old city nearer to the coast?
The Scylaceum of the sixth century is described by Cassiodorus--a picture glowing with admiration and tenderness.

It lay, he says, upon the side of a hill; nay, it hung there "like a cluster of grapes," in such glorious light and warmth that, to his mind, it deserved to be called the native region of the sun.

The fertility of the Country around was unexampled; nowhere did earth yield to mortals a more luxurious life.