Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/465

 

BRUTTII, a people who inhabited the southern extremity of Italy, from the frontiers of Lucania to the Sicilian Straits and the promontory of Leucopetra. Both Greek and Latin writers expressly tell us that Bruttii was the name of the people: no separate designation for the country or province appears to have been adopted by the Romans, who almost universally use the plural form, or name of the nation, to designate the region which they inhabited. Thus Livy uses "Consentia in Bruttiis," "extremus Italiae angulus Brattii," "Bruttii provincia," &c.: and the same usage prevailed down to a very late period. (Treb. Poll. Tetricus, 24; Notit. Dign. ii. pp. 10, 120.) The name of, to designate the province or region, though adopted by almost all modern writers on ancient geography appears to be unsupported by any classical authority: Mela, indeed, uses in one passage the phrase "in Bruttio," but it is probable that this is merely an elliptic expression for "in Bruttio agro," the term used by him in another passage, as well as by many other writers. (Mela, ii. 4, 7; In Flor. iii. 20. § 13, Bruttium is also an adjective.) The Greeks, however, used for the name of the country, reserving  for that of the people. (Pol. ix. 7, 25, xi. 7; Strab. vi. p. 255.) Polybius, in more than one passage, calls it (i. 56, ix. 27).

The land of the Bruttians, or Bruttium (as we shall continue to designate it, in accordance with modern usage), was bounded on the N. by Lucania, from which it was separated by a line drawn from the river Laus near the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Crathis near the Gulf of Tarentum. On the W. it was washed by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and on the S. and E. by that known in ancient times as the Sicilian Sea, including under that appellation the Gulf of Tarentum. It thus comprised the two provinces now known as Calabria Citra and Calabria Ultra with the exception of the northernmost portion of the former, which was included in Lucania. The region thus limited is correctly described by Strabo (l. c.) as a peninsula including within it another peninsula. The breadth from sea to sea, at the point where its frontier joins that of Lucania, does not exceed 300 stadia, or 30 Geog. miles; it afterwards widens out considerably, forming a mountainous tract of above 50 Geog. miles in breadth, and then again becomes abruptly contracted, so that the isthmus between the Terinaean Gulf and that of Scyllacium is less than 17 Geog. miles in width (Strabo calls it 160 stadia, which is very near the truth). The remaining portion, or southernmost peninsula, extending from thence to the promontory of Lencopetra (Capo dell' Armi), is about 60 miles long by 37 in its greatest width. The general form of the Bruttian peninsula may be not inaptly compared to a boot, of which the heel is formed by the Lacinian Promontory near Crotona, and the toe by that of Leucopetra. It is traversed throughout its whole extent by the chain of the Apennines, to which it owes its entire configuration. This range of mountains enters the Bruttian territory on the confines of Lucania, and descends along the western coast of the province as far as the Terinaean Gulf. Throughout this extent the central chain approaches very close to the shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea, while the great outlying mountain mass of the Sila (to the E. of the main chain, from which it is partly separated by the valley of the Crathis, though at the same time closely connected with the same mountain system)fills up the whole centre of the peninsula, and sends down its ridges to the Ionian Sea, where they form a projecting mass that separates the Gulf of Tarentum from that of Scylladum. The extreme angles of this mass are formed by the Punta dell' Alice (the ancient ) and the more celebrated Promontory. South of this, the coast is deeply indented on each side by two extensive bays: the one known in ancient times as the Terinaean or Hipponian Gulf (now the Golfo di Sta Eufemia) on the W.; that of Scyllacium (still called Golfo di Squillace) on the E. Between the two occurs the remarkable break in the chain of the Apennines, already noticed in the description of those mountains [], so that the two seas are here separated only by a range of low hills of tertiary strata, leaving on each side a considerable extent of marshy plain. Immediately S. of this isthmus, however, the Apennines rise again in the lofty group or mass of mountains now called Aspromonte, which completely fill up the remaining portion of the peninsula, extending from sea to sea, and ending in the bold headland of Leucopetra, the extreme SW. point of Italy. The peninsula thus strongly characterized by nature was the country to which, according to Antiochus of Syracuse, the name of Italy was originally confined. (Antioch. ap. Dionys. i. 35; Arist. Pol. vii. 10.) [.] It is evidently the same to which Plutarch applies the name of "the Rhegian peninsula" (, Crass. 10).

The natural characters of the land thus constituted result at ones from the physical confirmation. The two great mountain groups of the Sila and the Aspromonte, have formed in all times wild and rugged tracts, covered with dense forests almost impenetrable to civilization. On the western coast, also, from the river Laus to the Terinaean Gulf, the Apennines approach so dose to the sea that they leave scarely any space for the settlement of considerable towns; and the line of coast throughout this extent affords no natural harbours. The streams which flow down from the mountains to the sea on other side have for the most part a very short course, and are mere mountain torrents: the only considerable valley is that of the, which has a northerly course from the neighbourhood of Consentia for near 20 miles, separating the forest-covered group of the Sila on the E. from the main chain of the Apennines on the W., until at length it emerges through a narrow gorge into a rich alluvial plain, through which it flows in an easterly direction to the sea. There is also a considerable tract of alluvial marshy plain on the shores of the Terinaean Gulf, and another, though of less extent, on the opposite side of the isthmus, adjoining the Gulf of Scyllacium. A plain of some extent also exists on the banks of the river Mesima, near its mouth; but with these few exceptions, the whole tract from sea to sea is occupied either by the mountain ranges of the Apennines, or by their less elevated offsets and underfalls. The slopes of these hills towards the sea are admirably adapted for the growth both of olives and vines; and modern travellers speak with great admiration of the beauty and fertility of the coasts of Calabria. But these advantages are limited to a small portion of the country; and it is probable that even when the Greek settlements on the coast were the most flourishing, neither culture nor civilization had made much progress in the interior. The mountain tract of the Sila was celebrated for its forests, which produced both timber and pitch of the highest value for