he mountain of
fire; and the last syllables of Mongibello are a relic of the Saracenic
name. A mountain near Palermo is still called Gibel Rosso--the red
mountain; and names may not unfrequently be found in the immediate
neighbourhood of Etna which are partly, or sometimes even entirely,
composed of Arabic words; such, for example, as _Alcantara_--the river
of _the bridge_. Etna is also often spoken of distinctively as _Il
Monte_--the mountain _par excellence_; a name which, in its capacity of
the largest mountain in the kingdom of Italy, and the loftiest volcano
in Europe, it fully justifies.

Etna is frequently alluded to by classical writers. By the poets it was
sometimes feigned to be the prison of the giant Enceladus or Typhon,
sometimes the forge of Hephaistos, and the abode of the Cyclops.

It is strange that Homer, who has so minutely described certain portions
of the contiguous Sicilian coast, does not allude to Etna. This has been
thought by some to be a proof that the mountain was in a quiescent state
during the period which preceded and coincided with the time of Homer.

Pindar (B.C. 522-442) is the first writer of antiquity who has described
Etna. In the first of the Pythian Odes for Hieron, of the town of Aitna,
winner in the chariot race in B.C. 474, he exclaims:

... "He (Typhon) is fast bound by a pillar of the sky, even by snowy
Etna, nursing the whole year's length her dazzling snow. Whereout pure
springs of unapproachable fire are vomited from the inmost depths: in
the daytime the lava-streams pour forth a lurid rush of smoke; but in
the darkness a red rolling flame sweepeth rocks with uproar to the wide
deep sea.... That dragon-thing (Typhon) it is that maketh issue from
beneath the terrible fiery flood."[1]

[1] Translated by Ernest Myers, M.A., 1874.

AEschylus (B.C. 525-456) speaks also of the "mighty Typhon,"
(_Prometheus_ V.):

. . . . . "He lies
A helpless, powerless carcase, near the strait
Of the great sea, fast pressed beneath the roots
Of ancient Etna, where on highest peak
Hephaestos sits and smites his iron red hot,
From whence hereafter streams of fire shall burst,
Devouring with fierce jaws the golden plains
Of fruitful, fair Sikelia."[2]

[2] Translated by E. Myers.

Herein he probably refers to the eruption which had occurred a few years
previously (B.C. 476).

Thucydides (B.C. 471-402) alludes in the last lines of