Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/201

 LIGURIA. served to us, we find perpetually recurring notices of campaigns against the Ligurians; and while the Eo- inan arms were overthrowing the powerful empires of Macedonia and Syria in the East, one, and some- times both, of the consuls were engaged in petty and inglorious hostilities with the hardy mountaineers of Liguria. But the annual records of these cam- paigns for the most part throw little light on the true state of the case or the progress of the Roman arms. It is evident, indeed, that, notwithstanding the often repeated tales of victories, frequently cele- brated at Kome by triumphs, and often said to have been followed by the submission of the wiiole Ligu- rian nation, the struggle was really an arduous one, and it was long before the Romans made any real progress in the reduction of their territory. One of the most formidable and powei-ful of the Ligurian tribes was that of the Apuani, who in- habited the lofty group of mountains bordering on Etruria, and appear to have occupied the valleys of the Macra and Ausar (^Magra and Serchio), while they extended eastwards along the chain of the Apennines to the frontiers of the Arretines and the territory of Mutina and Bononia. To oppose their inroads, the Romans generally made Pisae the head-quarters of one of their armies, and from thence carried their arms into the heart of the mountains : but their successes seldom effected more than to compel the enemy to disperse and take refuge in their villages and castles, of which the latter were mountain fastnesses in which they were generally able to defy the Roman arms. It was not till b. c. 180 that the first eil'ectual step was taken for their reduction, by the consuls Cornelius and Baebius, who, after having compelled them to a nominal sub- mission, adopted the expedient of transporting the whole nation (to the number of 40,000, including women and children) to a distance from their own country, and settled them in the heart of Samnium, where they continued to exist, under the name of " Ligures Corneliani et Baebiani," for centuries after- wards. (Liv. xl. 38, 41.) The establishment of Eoman colonies at Pisae and Luca a few years after- wards tended to consolidate the conquest thus ob- tained, and established the Roman dominion per- manently as far as the Wacra and the port of Luna. (Id. xl. 43, xli. 13.) The F^l^'^ATEs, a tribe on tiie N. of the Apennines, near the sources of the Scultenna {Panaro), had been reduced to subjection by C. Flaminius in B.C. 187, and the obscure tribes of the Briniates, Garuli, Hercates, and Lapicini ap- pear to have been finally subdued in b. c. 175. (Id. xxxix. 2, xli. 19.) The Ingauni, one of the most powerful ■ tribes on the coast to the W. of Genua, had been reduced to nominal submission as early as B.C. 181. but appear to have been still very imperfectly subdued; and they, as well as their neighbours the Intemelii, continued to harass the territory of the Romans, as well as of their allies the Massilians, by piratical expeditions. (Liv. xl. 18, 2.0 — 28, 41.) In b. c. 173 the Statielli were reduced to subjection (Id. xhi. 8, 9) ; and the name of this people, which here appears for the first time, .shows that the Romans were gradually, though slowly, making good their advance towards the W. From the year 167 B.C., when we lose the guidance of Livy, we are unable to trace the Ligurian wars in any detail, but we find triumphs over them still re- peatedly recorded, and it is evident that they were .still imsubdued. In B.C. 154 the Romans for the first time attacked the Ligurian tribes cf the Osybii LIGURIA. 185 and Deciates, who dwelt V. of the Varus, and were therefore not included in Italy, according to its later limits. (Liv. Ejnt. xlvii.; Polyb. xxxiii. 7.) It was not till more than thirty years afterwards (b. c. 123 — 122) that two successive triumphs ce- lebrated the reduction of the more powerful tril)es of the Vocontii and Salluvii, both of them in the same neighbourhood. But while the Ligurian tribes W. of the Maritime Alps were thus brought gradually under the Roman yoke, it appears that the subjec- tion of those in Italy was still incomplete ; and in B. c. 117, Q. Marcius for the last tiirie earned a tri- umph " de Liguribus." {Fast. Caph.) Even after this, M. Aemilius Scaurus is said to have distin- guished himself by fresh successes over them ; and the construction by him (b. c. 109) of the Via Aemilia, which extended along the coast from Luna to Vada Sabbata, and from thence inland across the Apennines to Dertona, may be considered as marking the period of the final subjugation of Liguria. (Strab. V. p. 217; Aur. Vict, de Vir. Illustr. 72.) But a remarkable expression of Strabo, who say.s that, after eighty years of warfare, the Romans only succeeded in securing a space of 12 stadia in breadth for the free passage of public officers, shows that even at this time the subjection of the mountain tribes was but imperfect. (Strab. iv. p. 203.) Those which inhabited the Maritime Alps, indeed, were not finally reduced to obedience till the reign of Augustus, B. c. 14. (Dion Cass. liv. 24.) This had, however, been completely eflected at the time that Strabo wrote, and Liguria had been brought under the same system of administration with the rest of Italy. (Strab. I. c.) The period at which the Ligu- rians obtained the Roman franchise is unknown : it is perhaps probable that the towns obtained this privi- lege at the same time with those of Cisalpine Gaul (b. c. 89); but the mountain tribes, even in the days of Pliny, only enjoyed the Latin franchise. (Plin. iii. 20. s. 24.) In the division of Italy under Augustus, Liguria (in the more limited sense, as already defined) con- stituted the ninth region (Plin. iii. 5. s. 7), and its boundaries on the E. and W. appear to have con- tinued unchanged throughout the period of the Roman Empire: but the Cottian Alps, which in the time of Augustus still constituted a separate district under their own native chieftain, though dependent upon Rome, and, from the reign of Nero to that of Con- stantine, still formed a separate province, were incor- porated by Constantine with Liguria; and from this period the whole of the region thus constituted came to be known as the Alpes Cottiae, v/hile the name of Liguria was transferred (on what account we know not) to the eleventh region, or Gallia Trans- padana [Italia, p. 93]. Hence we find late writers uniformly speaking of Mediolanum and Ticinum as cities of Liguria, while the real land of the Ligurians had altogether lost that appellation, and was known only as " the province of the Cottum Alps." (^Lib. Provinc. ; P. Diac. Hist. Lang. ii. 15, 16; Jornand. Get. 30, 42; Procop. B.G.'i. 14; Biicking, ad Not. Dign. ii. pp. 442, 443.) It is evident that long before this change took place the Ligurians must have lost all traces of their distinct nationality, and become blended into one common mass with the other Italian subjects of Rome. Liguria is throughout the greater part of its ex- tent a mountainous countr}'. The Maritime Alps, which formed the western boundary, descend com- pletely to the sea in the neighbourhood of iYicc an^d