Chap. 6.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTEIES, ETC. 181 



whom we have Etniria, 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 of Campania, and the districts of 

 Picenum, 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', which there forms 

 pretty nearly the shape of a crescent. licaving Bruttium 

 we come to the coast of [Magna] Grajcia, then the Salentini, 

 the Pediculi, the Apuli, the Peligni, the Frentani, the Mar- 

 rucini, the Vestini, the Sabini, the Picentes, the Galli, the 

 Umbri, the Tusci, the Veneti, the Cami, the lapydes, the 

 Histri, and the Liburni. 



1 am by no means unaware 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 pro- 

 vidence of tliC Gods to render even heaven itself more glori- 

 ous^, to unite the scattered empires of the earth, to bestow a' 

 polish upon men's manners, to unite the discordant and un- 

 couth dialects of so many different nations by the powerful 

 ties of one common language, to confer the enjoyments of 

 discourse and of civilization upon mankind, to become, in 

 short, the mother-country of all nations of the Earth. 



But how shall I commence this undertaking ? So vast is 

 the number of celebrated places (what man living could 

 enumerate them all?), and so great the renown attached 

 to each individual nation and subject, that 1 feel myself quite 



Bideration when we proceed, in c. 7, to a more minute description of 

 Italy. 



^ This passage is somewhat confused, and may possibly be in a corrupt 

 state. He here speaks of the Apennine Alps. By the " lunata juga" 

 he means the two promontories or capes, which extend east and west 

 respectively. 



2 Tliis seems to be the meaning of "alumna," and not "nm-se" or 

 "foster-mother," as Ajasson's translation has it. Phny probably im- 

 phes by this antithesis that Rome has been " twice blessed," in receiving 

 the bounties of all nations of the world, and in being able to bestow a 

 commensurate retm-n. Compared with this idea, " at once the nurse and 

 mother of the world" woidd be tame indeed ! 



3 By adding its deified emperors to the number of its divinities. After 

 what Phny has said in his Second Book, this looks very much hke pure 

 adulation. 



