192 
PLII^x's NATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book III. 
miles from tlie city, separating the territory of Yeii from 
that of Crustuminum, and afterwards that of the Eidenates 
and of Latium from Yaticanum. 
Below its nnion 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 which 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 the 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 tinges, the Aborigines, 
to the Anio. The CrastTimini and the Fidenates probably occupied the 
southern part of the district about the river Alba. 
^ The Nera and the Tevcrone. The exact situation of the district of 
Yaticanum 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 modern 
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 quality. Considerable remains of it are still 
to be seen on the hiU called Monte di CitadeUa, about two miles from 
the sea. 
1 
