Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/198

 GALLIA CIS. ^^olybinron this occasicD states a cnnottB fact about the GalDc swords: they were nuule only for catting, and were so bad that they were bent by the first heavy blow, and coold not be nsed again till the men had straightened them on the groond by means of their feet The Roman sword was pointed and fitted for a throst. In the following year (b. c. 222) the consuls M. Claudius Marcellus and Cn. Cornelius Scipio continued the war against the Insnbrra, who sent for a fresh body of Gaesati to help them. The Romans took Aoerrae on the Addna, and Mediolanum, the chief town of the Insubres, by storm. This ended the war; and the Insubres submitted without terms. Marcellus (b. a 221) had a triumph in whidi he carried the Spolia Opima, having killed with his own hand a Gallic prince, Virdomarus. (Pint. MareeUuSjS.) In b. a 218 theBomans planted two Latin colonies in their new conquests, each of 6000 men, — Placentia {Piacensd) on the south side of the Po, and Cremona near the north bank of the river a little lower down. The Italian Galli, though beaten, were not disposed to remain quiet, and it was in the hope of rousing this formidable people against the Romans that Hannibal determined to invade Italy through thar country (b. c. 218). He hoped with the aid of the GaUi to destroy the Roman empire. When Polybius began his history of the Second Punic War, he wrote as an introduction to it his historical sketch of the history of the Cisalpine Galli down to b. c. 2 18, which has ofken been referred to here. But as he well knew the value of a geo- graphical description of a country which is the scene of historical events (ill 36), he prefixed to his his- torical sketch of the Cisalpine Galli an outline of the geography of the country which they occupied (ii. 14, &c). This is the first attempt that we find at a geographical description that deserves the name. Polybius (iL 14) compares Italy to a triangle, the apex of which is at the south, in the promontory which he calls Cocynthus. [Cocinthus. J The base of this triangle is the hill country along the foot of the Alps (4i rmy 'AAwcaiy irap«|p€(a), which, beginning from Massalia {ManeHle) and the parts above the Sardifiian sea, extends without interruption to the innermost recess of the Adriatic ; but it does not quite reach the Adriatic, fbr it stops short, and leaves a small intervening space. At the base of this hill country, on the south, lie the most northern plains of Italy, which were ^e seat of the Gallic peoples. These plains also form a triangular figure, the apex of which is at the junction of the Alps and Apennines, not far from the Sardinian sea above Massalia. The northern side of this triangle, which is formed by the Alps, is 2200 stadia long; and the southern, which is formed by the Apennines, is 3600 stadia long. The sea-coast of the Adriatic forms the base of the triangle, which from the city Sena to the northern extremity of the Adriatic is 2500 stadia long. Conse- quently, the text says, the whole circuit of these plains is not far short of 10,000 stadia. The Ligustini (Ligures) inhabit the Apennines, from the place where they commence above Massalia and their junc- tion with the Alps. They inhabit both the slope towards the Tyrrhenian sea and the slope towards the plains; along the coast as far as Pisae, the most western city of the Tyrrheni, and inland as far as Arretium {Arezzo), where the Tyrrheni begin. Next to them, the Umbri occupy both slopes of the Apennines. At the place where the Apennines are about 500 stadia from the Adriatic, they turn to the right and rue through the middle of Italy. The GALLIA CIS. 939 remainder of this side of the triangle bielongs to the plain country, and extends to the sea and the city Sena. The Po, famed by the poets under the name of Eridanus, has its sources in the Alps, about Uie apex of the triangle described above, and it descends to the pliuns by a southern course. Having reached the plain country, the river turns to the east, and fiowing through it, enters the Adriatic by two montha The greater part of the plain country, which is di- vided into two parts by the Po, lies on the side towards the Alps and the northern part of the Adriatic. The junction of the Alps and Apennines is an arbitrary point [Apesnihub.] There is no branch of the Po which answers the description of Polybius, except the Duria Mi^or (Dora Baltea); and if he means this branch, he makes the Apennines extend as fiur north as the LUtle St, Bernard. This may seem to explain why he gives so large an extent (3600 stadia) to the Apennines, from the point of junction with the Alps to the latitude of Sena. But a place so remote from the Sardinian sea and from Massalia does not agree with the rest of his descrip- tion, which would apply better to the branch of the Po which rises in Mons Vesulus {Monte VUo). But this branch runs north before it turns to the east. His choice of Massalia as a pmnt of reference is not exact; but it was the best loiovm place on the coast between the Var and the Rhone. The conclusion iin, that his knowledge of the western part of the basin of the Po was not very exact; but his general de- scription of the great plain is correct, and, with such means and maps as he had, it is good. [Alpes.] This basin of the Po consists of a hill country, which lies at the base of the highest ranges, and of a plain country, a fact which Polybius had observed in h'ts travels; far he says, " On each side of the Alps, the side to the Rhodanus, and the side to the pUous, the hilly and earthy (not rocky) parts, those towards the Rhone and the north, are inhabited by the Transalpine Galatae, and those towards the plains by the Taurisci and Agones, and several other barbaric peoples." The northern slope of the Apen« nines is formed by lateral branches, which run down from the axis of the mountfun to the plain. The direction of these branches is shown by the nume- rous river valleys, from the Stura in the west, which flows into the Tanarus, which flows into the Po, to the streams which enter the sea about Ravenna, which town may be considered near the southern limit of the basin of tiie Po. The streams that flow frcun the Apennines south of Ravenna as far as the Aesis, which is a little south of Sena, run into the Adriatic, and are beyond the basin of the Po. The boundary between the plain and the hill country in the eastern part of the Po is marked pretty nearly by the road from Ariminum through Modena to Parma. On the north side of tfie Po, the valleys which lie within the hill country (ti vapAptta) along the base of the Alps have a general southern direction, as the course of the rivers shows by which they are drained. In several of ^ese valleys there are deep, longi- tudinal depressions, into which the rivers flow at the north, and, filling them up, flow out from the south- em extremity through the plain to the Po. The de- pressions filled with water are the lakes of the sub- Alpine region, — Verbanus (Lago Maggiort)^ Larius {Lake of Como), Sebinus {Logo dheo), Benacua {Logo di Gardd), and some smaller liikes. The southern end of these lakes marks in a general way the limit of the hill countiy, and south of this limit