Cochin China. In Africa they knew little beyond lat. 10° N., and little of that perfectly, beyond the immediate coast of the Mediterranean and the banks of the Nile. The gradual extension of knowledge, even to this limited amount, has been already detailed in the preceding Introduction. In the west of Europe was Hispania or Spain; above it Gallia, including France, Belgium, and Switzerland. West of this the island of Britannia or Great Britain, with Hibernia or Ireland beyond it. East of Gallia was Germania or Germany, still further east Sarmatia. Above Germany was Scandinavia; below it Rhætia, Vindelicia, Noricum, Pannonia, and Illyricum, comprised in part of Bavaria, the Tyrol, and the Austrian provinces at the head of the Adriatic Gulf. Below Rhætia was Italy, with the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, to the west. To the east of Italy was Greece, the modern kingdom of that name. Above it Macedonia, Thrace, and Moesia in European Turkey, and still north Dacia, in parts of Turkey and Hungary. Italy, with its adjacent islands, will be first described as the seat of the most extensive empire. Then will follow the other countries of Europe, beginning from the west and thus passing on to Asia and Africa. CHAP. II. ITALIA ANTIQUA. A. G. Pl. I. VII. VIII. IX. * ITALY (Pl. I.) was called Hesperia by the Greeks, as being west of Greece. In poetry, it was sometimes called Enotria, from an Arcadian prince named Enotrus, son of Lycaon, who settled in Lucania; and Ausonia, from the Ausones †, a people of Latium. The epithet Saturnia‡ was applied to it as the fabled residence of Saturn, after his expulsion from heaven by Jupiter. Its common appellation of Italia was supposed by the natives to be derived from a prince named Italus; but this name was confined by the Greeks originally to a small district at the southern extremity of the country, and was by them gradually extended to the whole region. § * Est locus, Hesperiam Graii cognomine dicunt, Italiam dixisse, ducis de nomine, gentem. Virg. Æn. I. 534 t Nec non Ausonii, Troja gens missa, coloni. Virg. Georg. II. 385 ‡ Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus, Magna virum. Virg. Georg. II. 173. § Under the republic, Italia was bounded by the Rubicon on the east, and the Æsar on the west. Between this boundary and the Alps lay Gallia Cisalpina, which was ultimately admitted to the jus civitatis, or Roman franchise, by Cæsar. From henceforth we find the name applied generally to the whole region south of the Alps, by Cæsar, Cicero, and other writers. But it was not till the time of Augustus that the whole peninsula was included for administrative purposes under one title. Italia, in the most extended signification of the term, was the long and narrow peninsula projecting from the southern coast of Europe into the Mediterranean Sea, which it divides into two nearly equal parts. It was bounded on the north by the semicircular range of the Alps; on the west by the Mare Tyrrhenum or Inferum (Lower Sea); on the east by the Mare Hadriaticum or Superum (Upper Sea), now the Gulf of Venice; and on the south by the Mare Ionium (Grecian Sea), so called, because this sea washes on one side Greece itself, and on the other side the south of Italy, which, under the name of Magna Græcia, antiently contained many Greek colonies. Geographically, Italy may be divided into three regions, differing widely from each other in their general features. On the north, at the foot of the Alps and Apennines, lies the valley of the Padus or Eridanus (Po), including some outlying districts to the east, and the little peninsula of Istria at the head of the Adriatic. Surrounded on three sides by lofty mountains and a series of narrow gorges, the centre of this region is a broad plain, covered with alluvial deposits, which increase in depth and fertility towards the sea-coast. This territory was overrun by the Gauls from beyond the Alps in the sixth century B. C., and became filled with important settlements of that nation. It continued down to the latest period of Roman history to be one of the richest portions of the empire, and flourished, from its natural resources, at periods when the rest of Italy and the provinces in general were falling into decay. The Apennines, which spring from the southwestern extremity of the Alps, and run in a south-easterly direction through the centre of the peninsula to its extreme points, after skirting the Sinus Ligusticus, or Gulf of Genoa, make a bold semicircular sweep so as almost to touch the waters of the Adriatic on the east, while on the west they embrace a considerable breadth of territory be tween the river Macra and the promontory of Posidium. This region seems to be of volcanic origin. It includes several lakes, which apparently are the craters of extinct volcanoes; it abounds in sulphureous streams and fountains, and toward its southern extremity the isolated cone of Vesuvius still affords a vent for its subterranean fires. The remaining portion of Italy may be classed as a rude and hilly country, covered in many parts with extensive heaths and forests, but not rising in any place to any great elevation. The highest summits of the Apennines are about the centre of the peninsula. These mountains project into the Adriatic at the promontory of Garganus, and are lost in the Ionian Sea at Iapygium and the promontory of Hercules, the extreme points of Iapygia and Bruttium. Between these two limbs of Italy lies the Sinus Tarentinus (Gulf of Taranto). The western is separated by a narrow strait from the island of Sicily.* Politically Italy may conveniently be divided also into three regions: the northern being the Cisalpine Gaul, including Liguria, Venetia, and Histria; the central, or Italy Proper, stretching from sea to sea, and comprising, besides Etruria, Latium, and Campania, the mountain districts of Samnium and Sabellia, together with the tribes on the coast of the Adriatic from the Rubicon to Mount Garganus; and the southern, known by the general appellation of Magna Græcia. This last division includes the territories of Lucania, Apulia, Calabria, and the Ager Bruttiorum. Gallia Cisalpina (Pl. VII.) extended from the Maritime Alps and the river Varus, or Var, to the Athesis and the shores of the Adriatic, and was also called Gallia Togata, from the use of the Roman toga. It contained Liguria, * Lucan, in his second book, has a geographical description of Italy which may be studied with advantage.—II. 399. fol. on the coast, at the bend or knee of the boot to which Italy has been likened, where is Genua, now the territory and city of Genoa. Its inhabitants were called by the Greeks Ligyes and Ligystini. North-west of it were the Taurini, or Piedmontese, whose capital, Augusta, still retains the name of Turin, the Salassi, the Insubres, and the Cenomani, all nations of Gallic origin. North-east of Gallia Cisalpina are the Veneti and Carni, at the top of the Sinus Hadriaticus, and on the eastern coast of the gulf Histria or Istria, which still retains its name. The coast of the Veneti was formerly occupied by the Euganei, who were driven back by them, and settled about the head of the Lacus Benacus, or Lago di Garda. The principal mountains of Northern Italy are the Alps, which in various parts of their course received various denominations. Near the Varus, or Var, at the western extremity of Liguria, they were called the Alpes Maritimæ. Advancing in a northern direction, they were called the Alpes Cottiæ, from Cottius a king of that district, now Mount Genevre.* Still north, where they begin to turn to the east, Alpes Graiæ, now Little St. Bernard. Then Alpes Summæ or Penninæ (from Pen, a summit), now Great St. Bernard and St. Gothard. Still eastward were the Alpes Lepontiæ, which separates Italy from the Helvetii, or Swiss; Alpes Rhæticæ, which separate it from Rhætia and Vindelicia, now the country of the Grisons; and the Alpes Carnica and Juliæ, which separate it from Noricum and Pannonia, now the Tyrol, Carinthia, and Styria. The rivers in Gallia Cisalpina are, the Padus or Po, *This was once thought the most probable passage of Hannibal into Italy, but recent investigation gives it in favour of the Little St. Bernard. [The latest work on the subject by Mr. Ellis (1854) brings forward strong claims for the pass of M. Cenis.] |