Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/155



the history of the nations of antiquity a gradual dawn ushered in the day; and in their case too the dawn was in the east. While the Italian peninsula still lay enveloped in the dim twilight of morning, the regions of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean had already emerged into the full light of a varied and richly developed civilization. It falls to the lot of most nations in the early stages of their development to be taught and trained by some rival sister-nation; and such was destined to be in an eminent degree the lot of the peoples of Italy. The circumstances of its geographical position, however, prevented this influence from being brought to bear upon the peninsula by land. No trace is to be found of a resort in early times to the difficult route by land between Italy and Greece. There were, indeed, in all probability from time immemorial, tracks for purposes of traffic, leading from Italy to the lands beyond the Alps; the oldest route of the amber trade from the Baltic joined the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Po (on which account the delta of the Po appears in Greek legend as the native country of amber), and that route was joined by another leading across the peninsula and over the Apennines to Pisse; but from these regions no elements of civilization could come to the Italians. It was the seafaring nations of the East that brought to Italy whatever foreign culture reached it in early times.

The oldest civilized nation on the shores of the Mediterranean, the Egyptians, were not a seafaring people, and therefore they exercised no influence on Italy. But the