Chap. 6.] ACCOUNT OF COXJXTEIES, ETC. 183 



ing on for the purpose of giving a general description of 

 everything that is known to exist throughout the whole earth. 

 I may premise by observing that this land very much re- 

 sembles in shape an oak leaf, being much longer than it is 

 broad ; towards the top it inclines to the left\ while it termi- 

 nates in the form of an Amazonian buckler^, in which the spot 

 at the central projection is the place called Cocinthos, while it 

 sends forth two horns at the end of its crescent-shaped bays, 

 Leucopetra on the right and Lacinium on the left. It ex- 

 tends in length 1020 miles, if we measure from the foot of 

 the Alps at Prsetoria Augusta, through the city of Eome and 

 Capua to the town of Khegium, which is situate on the 

 shoulder of the Peninsula, just at the bend of the neck as it 

 were. The distance would be much greater if measured to 

 Lacinium, but in that case the line, being drawn obliquely, 

 would incline too much to one side. Its breadth is variable ; 

 being 410 miles between the two seas, the Lower and the 

 Tipper^, and the rivers Varus and Arsia^ : at about the middle, 

 and in the vicinity of the city of Rome, from the spot where 

 the river Aternus^ flows into the Adriatic sea, ti the mouth 

 of the Tiber, the distance is 136 miles, and a little less from 

 Castrum-novum on. the Adriatic sea to Alsium^ on the Tus- 

 can ; but in no place does it exceed 200 miles in breadth. 



* The comparison of its shape to an oak leaf seems rather fanciful ; 

 more common-place observers have compared it to a boot : by the top 

 (cacumen) he seems to mean the southern part of Calabria about Bnm- 

 disium and Tarentum ; which, to a person facing the south, wovdd in- 

 cHne to the coast of Epirus on the left hand. 



2 The ' Parma ' or shield here alluded to, would be one shaped like a 

 crescent, with the exception that the inner or concave side woiild be 

 formed of two crescents, the extremities of which join at the central pro- 

 jection. He says that Cocinthos (now Capo dx Stilo) would in such 

 case form the central projection, while Lacinium (now Capo delle Colonne) 

 would form the horn at the extreme right, and Leucopetra (now Capo 

 dell' Armi) the horn on the extreme left. 



3 The Tuscan or Etrurian sea, and the Adriatic. 



* The Varus, as already mentioned, was in GraUia Narbonensis, while the 

 Arsia, now the Arsa, is a small river of Istria, which became the boundary 

 between Italy and lUyricum, when Istria was annexed by order of Au- 

 gustus to the former country. It flows into the Elanaticus Sinus, now 

 Golfo di Quamero, on the eastern coast t)f Istria, beyond the town of 

 Castel Nuovo, formerly Nesactium. ^ Now the Pescara. 



^ Now Palo, a city on the coast of Etniria, eighteen miles from Portus 

 Augusti, at the mouth of the Tiber. 



