1887.] Mr. T. Hodghin on Aqiiileia, the Precursor of Venice. 175 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, June 10, 1887. 



Henry Pollock, Esq. Treasurer and Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Thomas Hodgkin, Esq. D.C.L. 



Aqidleia, the Precursor of Venice. 



Aquileia, or Aglar, is now a little village, or rather a cluster of little 

 villages, at the head of the Adriatic, just within the Austrian frontier, 

 and with a population of about 2000. But it was at the time of the 

 Christian era one of the chief cities of the Emj)ire, covering an area 

 of not less than 16 square miles, and with a population which cannot 

 have been less than 100,000, and may have greatly exceeded that 

 figure. 



It was founded as a Eoman colony 181 B.C., in order to keep the 

 Gaulish tribes upon the north-east frontier of Italy in check and to 

 prevent the clanger of an alliance between them and the hostile king 

 of Macedonia. The three Commissioners (Triumviri) for the settle- 

 ment of the colony were Publius Scipio Nasica, Caius Flaminius, and 

 Lucius Manlius Acidinus. The territory allotted to the new Colonia 

 was 180 square miles in extent and it was occupied by 3000 foot- 

 soldiers and some cavalry whose numbers are not stated. The place 

 chosen for the city was about seven miles from the sea, on the banks 

 of the river Natiso, which has, however, since changed its course and 

 does not now flow near to the ruins of the city. 



The name of the new city was derived either from the north wind 

 (Aquilo), or according to another account, from an eagle, which on 

 the day of the inauguration of the colony was seen suddenly to fly 

 past the right hand of the statue of Jupiter, a most auspicious omen. 



Somewhere about fifty years from the foundation of the colony its 

 prosperity was enormously increased by the discovery of gold mines 

 in the country of the Taurisci, a short distance to the north of it. 

 Aquileia may thus be considered as, in a sense, the Melbourne of the 

 Eoman State. Seated too in the centre of a vast net-work of roads, 

 she was admirably adapted to be the entrejpot of the commerce of 

 Italy and Illyricum, of the Adriatic, and the rivers which flow into 

 the Danube. On the west she was connected with Verona and Padua. 

 On the north the two passes of the Pontebba and the Predil com- 

 municated with the Tyrol and Carinthia. Eastward the great roads 

 to Laybach and to Trieste went forth to the long valley of the Save 

 and the palace-bordered peninsula of Istria. 



Aquileia was honoured in the year 11 B.C. by a visit from the 



