BOOK III. V. 39-42 



more glorious, to unite scattered empires, to make 

 manners gentle, to draw together in converse 

 by community of language the jarring and uncouth 

 tongues of so many nations, to give mankind civihsa- 

 tion, and in a word to become throughout the world 

 the single fatherland of all the races. But what am 

 I to do ? The great fame of all its places — who 

 could touch upon them all ? — and the great renoA\Ti 

 of tlie various things and peoples in it give me pause. 

 In that Hst even the city of Rome alone, a . . . coun- Rome. 

 tenance and one worthy of so glorious a neck, what 

 elaborate description it merits ! In what terms to rhysieai 

 describe the coast of Campania taken by itself, with ^anrciinmte 

 its bhssful and heavenly lovehness, so as to manifest "/^'"'J'- 

 that there is one region where nature has been at 

 work in her joyous mood! And then again all that 

 invigorating healthfulness all the year round, the 

 cHmate so tempcrate, the plains so fertile, the hills 

 so sunny, the glades so secure, the groves so shady ! 

 Such wealth of various forests, the breezes from so 

 many mountains, the great fertihty of its corn and 

 vines and oHves, the glorious fleeces of its sheep, the 

 stuidy necks of its bulls, the many lakes, the rich 

 supply of rivers and springs flowing over all its surface, 

 its many seas and harbours and the bosom of its 

 lands oflering on all sides a welcome to commerce, 

 the country itself eagerly running out into the seas as it 

 were to aid mankind. I do not speak of the character 

 and customs of its people, its men, the nations that 

 its language and its might have conquered. The 

 Greeks themselves, a people most prone to gushing 

 self-praise, have pronounced sentence on the land by 

 conferring on but a very small part of it the name of 

 Great Greece ! The truth is that in this part of my 



33 



