Chap. 6.] 
ACCOUNT OF COTJNTEIES, ETC. 
181 
wliom we have Etmria, Umbria, Latium, where the mouths of 
the Tiber are situate, and Eome, 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. Lea^ng Bruttiurn 
we come to the coast of [Magna] Graecia, then the Salentini, 
the Pediculi, the Apuli, the Peligni, the Frentani, the IVIar- 
rucini, the Yestini, the Sabini, the Picentes, the Galli, the 
Umbri, the Tusci, the Veneti, the Carni, the lapydes, the 
Histri, and the Liburni. 
I 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-chikP and the parent of all lands ; chosen by the pro- 
vidence of tlie Grods 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 I feel myself quite 
fiideration when we proceed, in c. 7, to a more mmute description of 
Italy. 
^ This passage is somewhat conftised, and may possibly be in a corrupt 
etate. He here speaks of the Apemiine Alps. By the " Imiata jnga" 
he means the two promontories or capes, which extend east and west 
respectively. 
^ This seems to be the meaning of " alumna," and not " nurse" or 
*' foster-mother," as Ajaisson'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 th^ world" would be tame indeed ! 
' ^ By adding its deified emperors to the number of its divinities. After 
what PHny has said in his Second Book, tliis looks very much hke pure 
adulation. 
