§ 19. The CLIMATE of Italy, like its physical structure, is extremely different in the northern and in the southern part of the Peninsula. In the valley of the Po the winters are often extremely severe, so that towards the close of the last century all the olive-trees in that district were killed by the frost. On the south of the Apennines the climate is much milder in the winter, though in spring the winds are often very cold. Snow is rarely seen in the Campagna di Roma, or in the neighbourhood of Naples at the present day; though in the times of the ancients it seems to have been not uncommon. Italy is in general a healthy country. The men are active, vigorous, and well-grown; the women, in their youth, handsome. Some parts, however, are afflicted by pestilential air (malaria), especially the lower part of Tuscany, and the Campagna di Roma, of which countries a more particular account will be found in a later page. Parts of Calabria also are extremely unhealthy, and all the southern side of the Apennines suffers from the south wind, called the Sirocco, which comes charged with suffocating heat from the plains of Africa. § 20. The productions are those of the Temperate Zone in their highest perfection. Wherever there is a sufficiency of soil and water, as in the valleys leading to the plain of Lombardy, or descending to the sea from either side of the Apennines, grain of all kinds is produced in great abundance. In ancient days, the plain of Lombardy, now so highly cultivated, was thickly covered with oak forests, which furnished food to countless herds of swine. Many parts of the Apennines are still well clothed with chestnut-trees, and the inhabitants of the Fertur in arva furens cumulo, camposque per omnes Cum stabulis armenta tulit."-VIRG., Æn. ii. 496; cf. Georg. i. 322, sq. While this unskilful mode of preventing the overflowing of the Po was followed in the north, a most ingenious method has been pursued in redeeming from the Arno those marshes in which Hannibal was attacked by ophthalmia, and lost part of his army. The philosopher Torricelli (about 1550 A.D.) suggested that the stream should be allowed freely to flood the surface within certain limits, and to deposit within these limits its fertilising mud. This experiment has been tried with signal success. Strong embankments are formed, with sluices and flood-gates, to admit the river at will over a confined surface. Here all its deposit is spread; and after a number of years the pestilent marshes of the Upper Arno (the Val Chiana) have been raised by a depth of not less than eight feet of fertile alluvial soil. When one district had been raised, the same process was repeated with that next adjoining, and so the But upland valleys live on their fruit during the winter. modern ingenuity and industry have reclaimed many of these districts by the help of artificial irrigation. On the southern slopes of the Apennines olives flourish; and the vine is cultivated largely in all parts of the Peninsula. For this last purpose the sunny terraces of the limestone mountains are especially suited. But want of care in the treatment of the plant, or rather in the manufacture of the wine, makes the wines of Italy very inferior in quality to those of France or of the Spanish Peninsula, though in ancient times the vineyards of northern Campania enjoyed a high reputation. Every schoolboy knows the names of the Massic and Falernian hills, of the Calene and Formian vineyards. In the southern parts the date-palm is found in gardens, though this and other tropical plants are not natural to the climate, as in the south of the Spanish Peninsula, which lies about two degrees nearer to the region of the vertical sun. The plains of Apulia, where the tertiary strata sink towards the gulf of Tarentum, were chiefly given up to pasturage,—a custom which continues to the present day. whole surface of the marshes has been raised. See Simond's Tour in Italy and Sicily, p. 129. The same plan is now being pursued with the marshes formed by the Ombrone in the Maremma of Tuscany. See Capt. Baird Smith's Irrigation of Italy, i. p. 76, sqq. The woods have been cleared, and a skilful system of irrigation imparts fertility to the district. No less than 1-5th of the whole productive area of Lombardy is irrigated at the present day. But, nearer the mountains, nearly all the land is watered; between the Ticino and the Adda not less than 9-10ths; between the Adda and the Oglio, about 2-10ths; between the Oglio and the Adige, about 1-7th or 1-8th."-Capt. Baird Smith's Irrig. of Italy, i. p. 205. This irrigation is almost entirely modern. The practice was known to antiquity, as appears from Virgil's well-known line (Ecl. iii. 11): "Claudite jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt." But that it was rude appears from the beautiful description in Georg. i. 106, sqq.: "Deinde satis fluvium inducit, rivosque sequentes: Et quum exustus ager morientibus æstuat herbis, Elicit: illa cadens raucum per levia murmur Saxa ciet, scatebrisque arentia temperat arva." It may, indeed, be observed that this description is partly borrowed from Iliad . 257, sqq. This is connected with historical facts to which we shall have to call attention hereafter. § 21. The natural beauty of Italy is too well known to need many words here. The lovers of the sublime will find no more magnificent mountain-passes than those which descend through the Alps to the plains of Lombardy. In the valley of the Dora Baltea, from its source under Mont Blanc to Aosta and Ivrea, all the grandeur of Switzerland is to be found, enriched by the colours and warmth of a southern sky: the cold green and gray of the central chain here passes into gold and purple. In the same district is found the most charming lake scenery in the world, where the sunny hills and warm hues of Italy are backed by the snowy range of the towering Alps. Those who prefer rich culture may gratify their utmost desires in the lower vale of the Po about Lodi and Cremona, or across the Apennines in the valley of the Arno and in Campania. If we follow the southern coast, probably the world presents no lovelier passages than meet the traveller's eye as he skirts the Maritime Alps where they overhang the sea cornice-like, between Nice and Genoa; or below Campania, where the limestone of the Apennines, broken by volcanic eruptions, strikes out into the sea between the bays of Naples and Salerno. The Romans, who became lords of all Italy and of the civilised world, sprang up in one of the least enviable portions of the whole Peninsula. The attractions of Modern Rome are less of nature than of association. The traveller would little care to linger on the banks of the Tiber, if it were stripped of its buildings and its history. i Chapt. xlix. § 9 sqq. SECTION II. EARLY POPULATION OF ITALY. § 1. Constant invasions of Italy, notwithstanding Alpine barrier. § 2. Its subdivision among numerous tribes. § 3. Signification of the name ITALY in Roman times. § 4. Roman Italy occupied by at least six distinct races. § 5. Pelasgians. § 6. Opicans or Oscans. § 7. Umbrians. § 8. Sabellians. § 9. Etruscans. § 10. Greeks. § 11. Romans a compound race. § 12. Evidence of Tradition. § 13. Evidence of Language:-Roman language akin to the Greek in structure, being probably Pelasgian, mixed with Oscan, with Sabine vocabulary added. § 14. Comparison between Romans and English in respect to origin. § 15. Sources of early Roman History. a § 1. IT is a common remark, that mountains are the chief boundaries of countries, and that races of men are found in their purest state when they are separated by these barriers from admixture with other tribes. Italy forms an exception to this rule. It was not so much the "fatal gift of beauty," of which the poet speaks, as the richness of its northern plain, that attracted successive tribes of invaders over the Alps. From the earliest dawn of historic knowledge, we hear of one tribe after another sweeping like waves over the Peninsula, each forcing its predecessor onward, till there arose a power strong enough to drive back the current, and bar aggression for many an age. That power was the Roman Empire, which forced the Gauls to remain on the northern side of the Apennines, and preserved Italy untouched by the foot of the foreigner for centuries. No sooner was that power weakened, than the incursions again began; and at the present day the fairest provinces of the Peninsula are subject to foreign rule. § 2. But if the northern barriers of the Peninsula failed to check the lust of invaders, its long straggling shape, intersected by mountains from top to bottom, materially assisted in breaking it up into a number of different nations. Except during a The stanzas of Filicaja are well known from their version in Childe Harold, "Italia, oh Italia! would thou wert less lovely, or more powerful," &c. the time when the Roman Empire was in its strength, Italy has always been parcelled out into a number of small states. In the earliest times it was shared among a number of tribes differing in race and language. Great pains have been taken to investigate the origin and character of these primæval nations. But the success has not been equal to the labour, and it is not our purpose to dwell on intricate questions of this kind. We will here only give results so far as they seem to be established. § 3. It is well known that it was not till the close of the Republic, or rather the beginning of the Empire, that the name of Italy was employed, as we now employ it, to designate the whole Peninsula, from the Alps to the Straits of Messina. The term Italia, borrowed from the name of a primæval tribe who occupied the southern portion of the land, was gradually adopted as a generic title in the same obscure manner in which most of the countries of Europe, or (we may say) the Continents of the world, have received their appellations. In the remotest times the name only included Lower Calabria : from these narrow limits it gradually spread upwards, till about the time of the Punic Wars, its northern boundary ascended the little river Rubicon (between Umbria and Cisalpine Gaul), then followed the ridge of the Apennines westward to the source of the Macra, and was carried down the bed of that small stream to the Gulf of Genoa. When we speak of Italy, therefore, in the Roman sense of the word, we must dismiss from our thoughts all that fertile country which was at Rome entitled the provincial district of Gallia Cisalpina and Liguria, and which was nearly equivalent to the territory now subject to the crowns of Sardinia and Austria, with the Duchies of Parma and Modena, and the upper portion of the States of the Church. It will be seen that this political division nearly coincides with the physical division noticed in the foregoing chapter. § 4. But under Roman rule even this narrower Italy wanted that unity of race and language which, in spite of political severance, we are accustomed to attribute to the name. Within the boundaries just indicated there were at least six distinct Properly only the toe of Italy, from the Bay of Squillace to that of S. Eufemia (see Sect. i. § 13), Arist. Polit. vii. 10. |