182 pliny's natural history. [Book III. 



at a loss. The city of Eome alone, which forms a portion 

 of it, a face well worthy of shoulders so beauteous, how 

 large a work would it require for an appropriate description ! 

 And then too the coast of Campania, taken singly by itself! 

 so blest with natural beauties and opulence, that it is evident 

 that when nature formed it she took a delight in accumulating 

 all her blessings in a single spot — how am I to do justice to 

 it ? And then the climate, with its eternal freshness and so 

 replete with health and vitality, the sereneness of the weather 

 so enchanting, the fields so fertile, the hill sides so sunny, 

 the thickets so free from every danger, the groves so cool and 

 shady, the forests with a vegetation so varying and so luxu- 

 riant, the breezes descending from so many a mountain, the 

 fruitfulness of its grain, its vines, and its olives so transcend- 

 ent ; its flocks with fleeces so noble, its bulls with necks so 

 sinewy, its lakes recurring in never-ending succession, its 

 numerous rivers and springs which refresh it with their waters 

 on every side, its seas so many in number, its havens and the 

 bosom of its lands opening everywhere to the commerce of 

 all the world, and as it were eagerly stretching fortli into 

 the very midst of the waves, for the purpose of aiding as it 

 were the endeavours of mortals ! 



Por the present I forbear to speak of its genius, its man- 

 ners, its men, and the nations whom it has conquered by 

 eloquence and force of arms. The very Greeks themselves, 

 a race fond in the extreme of expatiating on their own praises, 

 have amply given judgment in its favour, when they named 

 but a small part of it ' Magna GrseciaV' But we must be 

 content to do on this occasion as we have done in our de- 

 scription of the heavens ; we must only touch upon some of 

 these points, and take notice of but a few of its stars. I 

 only beg my readers to bear in mind that I am thus hasten- 



^ Or "Great Greece." Tlais is a poor and frivolous argument used by 

 Pliny in support of his laudations of Italy, seeing that in all probabi- 

 lity it was not the people of Greece who gave this name to certain cities 

 founded by Greek colonists on the Tarentine Gulf, in the south of Italy ; 

 but either the ItaUan tribes, who in their simphcity admired their splen- 

 dour and magnificence, or else tlie colonists themselves, who, in using 

 the name, showed that they clung with fondness to the remembrance of 

 their mother-country ; wliile at the same time the epithet betrayed some 

 vanity and ostentation in wisliing thus to show their superiority to the 

 people of their mother-country. 



