Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/94

 7S ITALIA. banks of the Padus ; so that Ariminum (^Rimini), where their lowest slopes first descend to the sea- shore, is distant nearly 60 geog. miles from the mouth of that river, and it is almost as much more from thence to the foot of the Alps. It is this vast plain, together with the hill-country on each side of it, formed by the lower slopes of the mountains, that constituted the country of the Cisalpine Gauls, to which the Romans gave the name of Gallia Cisal- PINA. The westernmost part of the same tract, including the upper basin of the Po, and the exten- sive hilly district, now called the MonJ'errato, which stretches from the foot of the Apennines to the south bank of the Po, was inhabited from the earliest periods by Ligurian tribes, and was included in Ligukia, according to the Roman use of the name. At the opposite e.tremity, the portion of the great plaiu E. and N. of the Adlge (Athesis), as well as the district uow called the Friuli, was the land of the Veneti, and constituted the Roman province of Veneti.. The Romans, however, appear to have occasionally used the name of Gallia Cisalpina, in a more lax and general sense, for the whole of Northern Italy, or everything that was not comprised within the limits of Italy as that name was understood prior to the time of Augustus. At the present day the name of Lombardy is frequently applied to the whole basin of the Po, including both the proper Gallia Cisalpina, and the adjacent parts of Liguria and Venetia. The name of Northern Italy may be con- veniently adopted as a geographical designation for tiiB same tract of country; but it is commonly under- stood as comprising the whole of Liguria, including the sea-coast ; though this, of course, lies on the S. side of the dividing ridge of the Apennines. In this sense, therefore, it comprises the provinces of Liguria, Gallia Cisalpina, Venetia and Istria, and is limited towards the S. by the JIacra {Magra) on the V. coast, and by the Rubicon on that of the Adriatic. In like manner, the name of Central Italy is frequently applied to the middle portion, comprising the northern half of the peninsula, and extending tilong the W. coast from the mouth of the ]Iacra to that of the Silarus, and on the E. from the Rubicon to the Frento : while that of Southern Italy is given to the remaining portion of the peninsula, including Apulia, Calabria, Lucania, and Bruttium. But it must be boi-ne in mind that these names are merely geographical distinctions, for the convenience of description and reference, and do not correspond to any real divisions of the country, either natural or political. '2. Central Italy. — The country to which this name is applied differs essentially from that which lies to the N. of the Apennines. While the latter presents a broad level basin, bounded on both sides by mountains, and into which the streams and rivers converge from all sides, the centre of the Italian peninsula is almost wholly filled up by the broad mass of the Apennines, the offsets and lateral branches of which, in some parts, descend quite to the sea, in others leave a considerable intervening space of plain or low country : but even the largest of these level tracts is insignificant as compared with the great plains of Northern Italy. The ch.ain of the Apennines, which from the neighbourhood of Ariminum assumes a generally SE. direction, is very far from being uniform and regular in its character. Nor can it be regarded, like the Alps or Pyrenees, as forming one continuous ridge, from which there ITALIA branch off lateral arms or ranges, separated by deep intervening valleys. This is, indeed, the case, with tolerable regularity, on the eastern side of the mountains, and hence the numerous rivers which descend to the Adriatic pursue nearly parallel courses at right angles to the direction of the main chain. But the central mass of the mountains, which comprises all the loftiest summits of the Apennines, is broken up and intersected by deep longitudinal valleys, sometimes separated only by narrow ridges of moderate elevation, at others by rugged ranges rising abruptly to a height equal to that of the loftiest summits of the chain. The number of these valleys, occurring in the very heart of the Apennines, and often almost entirely enclosed by the mountains, is a feature in the physical geography of Italy which has in all ages exercised a material influence on its fortunes. The upland valleys, with their fine summer pasturages, were a necessary resource to the inhabitants of the dry plains of the south; and the peculiar configuration of these valleys opened out routes through the heart of the mountain districts, and fecilitated mutual communication between the nations of the jieninsula. It is especially in the southern part of the district we are now considering that the Apennines assume this complicated and irregular structure. Between the parallels of 44° and 42° 30' N. lat. they may be regarded as foiTiiing a broad mountain chain, which has a direction nearly parallel with the line of coast of the Adriatic, and the centre of which is nowhere distant more than 40 geog. miles from the shore of that sea, while it is nearly double the same distance from that of the Tyrrhenian. Hence there remains on the W. side of the mountains an extensive tract of country, constituting the greater part of Etruria and the S. of Umbria, which is wholly distinct from the mountain regions, and consists in part of fertile plains, in part of a hilly, but still by no means mountainous, district. The great valleys of the Arno and the Tiber, the two principal rivers of Central Italy, which have their sources very near one another, but flow the one to the W. the other to the S., may be considered as the key to the geo- graphy of this part of the peninsula. Between them lies the hilly tract of Etruria, which, notwithstand- ing the elevation attained by some isolated smiimits, has nothing of the character of a mountain country, and a large part of which, as well as the portions of Uinbria bordering on the valley of the Tiber, may be deservedly reckoned among the most fertile dis- tricts in Italy. South of the Tiber, again, the broad volcanic plains of Latium expand between the Apen- nines and the sea; and though these are interrupted by the isolated group of the Alban hills, and still more by the ragged mountains of the Volsciaiis, which, between Terracina and Gaeta, descend quite to the sea-shore, as soou as these are passed, the mountains again recede from the sea-coast, and leave a considerable interval which is filled up by the luxu- riant plain of Campania. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast presented by different parts of the countries thus comprised under the name of Central Italy. The snow still lingers in the upland pastures of Samnium and the Abruzzi, when the corn is nearly ripe in the jJaiiis of the Roman Campagna. The elevated districts of the Peligni, the Vestini, and the Marsi, were always noted for their cold and cheerless climate, and were better adapted for pasturage than the growth of corn. Even at Carseoli, only 40 miles