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Readings in Ancient History: Rome and the West
Readings in Ancient History Rome and the West Author:William S. Davis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of self-immolation for the common weal which was one of the noblest features of the life of early Rome. 1. Description Of Italy Pliny the Elder, " Natural His... more »tory," book III, chap. 6. Bohn translation The natural advantages of the Italian peninsula are here set forth by an enthusiastic Roman writer. The Italians were — and are—justified in the praise of their country; it is in every respect the queen of the southern European lands — vastly superior in every way to Spain with its few harbors and uplands and plains; . and again with far greater resources than picturesque but rocky and restricted Greece. On the whole, it is the most favored land bordering the Mediterranean, if not — area considered — in the entire world. When we come to Italy, we begin with the Ligures [in the Northwest], after whom we have Etruria, Umbria, Latium, where the mouths of the Tiber are situate, and Rome the " Capital of the World," sixteen miles distant from the Sea. We then come to the coasts of the Volsci and Campania, and the districts of Picennm, of Lucania and of Bruttium, where Italy extends the farthest in a southerly direction, and projects into the [two] seas with the chain of the Alps,1 which there forms pretty nearly the shape of a crescent. Leaving Bruttium we come to the coast of [Magna] Graecia, then the Apuli, Peligni, Sabini, Picentes, Galli, the Umbri, the Tusci, the Venetes [and other peoples]. I am quite aware that I might be justly accused of ingratitude and indolence, were I to describe thus briefly and in so cursory a manner the land which is at once the foster-child and the parent of all lands: chosen by the providence of the Gods to render even heaven itself more glorious, to unite the scattered empires of the earth, to bestow a pol- 1 This, of course, refers to the...« less