Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1298

 1274 VEXETIA. 59. The period at which tlie Veneti acquired the Roman franchise is uncertain : we are only left to infer that they obtained it at the same time as the Transpadane Gauls, in b. c. 49. (Dion Cass, xli. 56.) Under the Roman Empire, Venetia (as already mentioned) was included, toijether with Istria, in the Tenth Region of Augustus. The land of the Carni (Carnorum regio, Piin. iii. 18. s. 22) was at this time considered, for administrative purposes, as a part of Venetia; though it is still described as dis- tinct by Ptolemy (iii. 1. §§ 25, 26): and there is no doubt that the two nations were originally separate. But as the population of both districts became thoroughly Romanised, all traces of this distinction were lost, and the names of Venetia and Istria alone remained in use. These two continued to form one province, aud we meet with mention, both in inscrip- tions and in the Notitia, of a " Corrector Venetiae et Histriae," down to the close of the Roman Empire. {Notit. Dign. ii. p. 65 ; Booking, ad loc. p. 4 41; Orell. Inscr. 1050, 3191.) The c'iipital of the united provinces was Aquileia, which rose under the Roman Empire to be one of the most flourishing cities of Italy. Its importance was derived, not from its wealth and commercial prosperity only, but from its situ- ation at the very entrance of Italy, on the highroad which became the great means of comiuunication between the Eastern and Western Empires. The same circumstance led to this part of Venetia be- coming the scene of repeated contests for power between rival emperors. Thus it was before Aquileia that the Emperor JIaximin perished in a.d. 238; it was on the banks of the river Alsa (^Avsa^ that the younger Constantine was defeated and slain, in a.d. 340; again, in 388. the contest between Maximus and Theodosius the Great was decided in the same neighbourhood ; and in 425, that between the usurper Joannes and the generals of Theodosius II. [Aquileia.] Finally, in a. d. 489, it was on the river Sontius (^Isotizo) that Odoacer was defeated by the Gothic king Theodoric. (^Hist. Miscell. xvi. p. 561.) It seems cert.ain that Venetia had become under the Roman Empire a very opulent and flourishing province: besides Aquileia, Patavium and Verona were provincial cities of the first class; and many other towns such as Concordia, Altinum, Forum Julii, &c., whose names are little known in history, were nevertheless opulent and considerable ntunicipal towns. But it suffered with peculiar severity from the inroads of the barbarians before the close of the Empire. The passage across the Julian Alps from the valley of the Save to the plains of Aquileia, which presents few natural difficulties, became the high- way by which all the barbarian nations in succession descended into the plains of Italy; and hence it was Venetia that felt the first brunt of their fury. This was especially the case with the invasion of Attila in A. D. 452, who, having at length reduced Aquileia after a long .'■lege, razed it to the ground; and then, advancing with fearful rapidity, devastated in like manner the cities of Concordia, Altinum, Patavium, Vicentia, Verona, Brixia, and Bergomum, not one of which was able to oppose any effectual resistance. (^Hist. Miscell. sv. p. 549.) The expression of the chronicler that he levelled these cities with the ground is probably exaggerated ; but there can be no doubt that they suffered a blow from which three of them at least, Concordia, Altinum, and Aquileia, never recovered. In the midst of this devastation VENETIA. many fugitives from the ruined cities took refuge in the extensive lagunes that bordered the coasts of Venetia, and established themselves on some small islands in the midst of the waters, which had pre- viously been inhabited only by fishermen. It was thus that the refugees from Aquileia gave origin to the episcopal city of Gi-ado, while those from Pata- vium settled on a spot then known as Rivus Altus, in the midst of the lagunes formed by the Jleduacus, where the new colony gradually grew up into a wealthy city and a powerful republic, which retained the ancient name of the province in that of Venezia or Venice. " This emigration (observes Gibbon) is not attested by any contemporary evidence ; but the fact is proved by the event, and the circumstances might be preserved by tradition." (^Decl. and Fall, ch. 35, note 55.) A curious letter of Cassiodorus ( Var. xii. 24), written in a. d. 523, describes the islands of Venetia as inhabited by a population whose sole occupation and resource was derived from their fisheries : and it is remarkable, that he already ap- pears to confine the appellation of Venetia to these islands, an usage which had certainly become pre- valent in the time of Paulus Diaconus, who says, in speaking of the ancient province, "Venetia enim non solum in panels insulis, quas nunc Veneiias dicimtts, constat" (ii. 14). It is clear, therefore, that the transfer the name of the province to the island city, which has continued ever since, was established as early as the eighth century. The original land of the Veneti, as already ob- served, was almost entirely a plain. Tlie underfiills of the Alps, and the hills that skirt the foot of that range, were for the most part inhabited by tiibes of mountaineers, who were of the saiue race with the Iihaetians and Eui^aneans, with whom, so far as we can discover, the Veneti themselves had nothing in common. But a portion of this district was com- prised within the limits of the province of Venetia, as this came to be marked out under Augustus; so that the boundary line between Venetia and Rhaetia was carried apparently from the head of the Lake Benacus {Lago di Garda) across the valley of the Athesis {^Adige) to the ridge which separates the valley of the Plavis from that of the Meduacus, so as to exclude the Val Sugana, while it included the whole valley of the Piuve (Plavis), with the towns of Feltria and Belunum, both of which are ex- pressly ascribed by Pliny to the Tenth Region. Thence the boundary seems to have followed the ridge which divides the waters that fall into the Adriatic from the valleys of the Drave and Gail, both of which streams flow eastward towards the D: ube, and afterwards swept round in a semicircle, till it nearly touched the Adriatic near Trieste (Tergeste). Within these limits, besides the underfalls of the Alps that are thrust forward towards the plain, there were comprised two distinct groups of hills, now known as the Colli Euganei and Monti Berici, both of them wholly isolated from the neighbouring ranges of the Alps, and, in a geological sense, uncon- nected with them, being both clearly of volcanic origin. The name of the Euganean hills, applied to the more southerly of the two groups, wldch ap- proaches within a few miles of Patavium (Pof/oro), is evidently a relic of the period when that people possessed the greater part of this country, and is doubtless derived from a very early time. The ap- pellation is not noticed by any ancient geographer, but the name of Euganeus Collis is given by Lucan