192 plutt's nattjeal histoet. [Book in. 



miles from tlie city, separating the territory of Yeii from 

 that of Crustuminum, and afterwards that of the Fidenates 

 and of Latium from Vaticanum. 



Below its union with the Glanis from Arretinum the Tiber 

 is swollen by two and forty streams, particularly the Nar^ 

 and the Anio, which last is also navigable and shuts in 

 Latium at the back ; it is also increased by the numerous 

 aqueducts and springs which are conveyed to the City. Here 

 it becomes navigable by vessels of any burden w^hich may come 

 up from the Italian sea ; a most tranquil dispenser of the 

 produce of all parts of the earth, and peopled and embellished 

 along its banks with more villas than nearly all the other 

 rivers of the world taken together. And yet there is no 

 river more circumscribed than it, so close are its banks shut 

 in on either side ; but still, no resistance does it offer, although 

 its waters frequently rise with great suddenness, and no part 

 is more liable to be swollen than that which runs through 

 the City itself. In such case, however, the Tiber is rather 

 to be looked upon^ as pregnant with prophetic warnings to 

 us, and in its increase to be considered more as a promoter 

 of religion than a source of devastation. 



Latium^ has preserved its original limits, from tlie Tiber 

 to Circeii"*, a distance of fifty miles : so slender at the be- 

 ginning were the roots from which this our Empire sprang. 

 Its inhabitants have been often changed, and different 

 nations have peopled it at different times, the Aborigines, 



to the Anio. The Crustumini and the Fidenates probably occupied the 

 Bouthem part of the district about the river Alba. 



^ The Nera and the Tevcrone. The exact situation of the district of 

 Vaticanum has not been ascertained with exactness. 



2 As not so much causing mischief by its inundations, as giving 

 warning thereby of the wrath of the gods and of impending dangers ; 

 which might be arrested by sacrifices and expiatory rites. — See Horace, 

 Odes, B.i. 2. 29. 



3 The frontier of ancient Latium was at Circeii, but that of modem 

 Latium extended to Sinuessa. 



"* A town of Latium, situate at the foot of the Mons Circeius, now 

 Monte Circello. It was used as a place of retirement, and Tiberius and 

 Domitian had villas there. The Triumvir Lepidus was banished thither 

 by Octavius after his deposition. It was also famous for its oysters, 

 which were of the finest quahty. Considerable reraams of it are still 

 to be seen on the hill called Monte di Citadella, about two miles from 

 the sea. 



