Читать книгу The Natural History of Pliny (Vol. 1-6) - Pliny the Elder - Страница 145

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Istria projects in the form of a peninsula. Some writers have stated its length to be forty miles, and its circumference 125; and the same as to Liburnia which adjoins it, and the Flanatic Gulf1903, while others make it 2251904; others again make the circumference of Liburnia 180 miles. Some persons too extend Iapydia, at the back of Istria, as far as the Flanatic Gulf, a distance of 130 miles, thus making Liburnia but 150 miles. Tuditanus1905, who subdued the Istri, had this inscription on his statue which was erected there: “From Aquileia to the river Titus is a distance of 1000 stadia.”

The towns of Istria with the rights of Roman citizens are Ægida1906, Parentium, and the colony of Pola1907, now Pietas Julia, formerly founded by the Colchians, and distant from Tergeste 100 miles: after which we come to the town of Nesactium1908, and the river Arsia, now1909 the boundary of Italy. The distance across from Ancona to Pola is 120 miles. In the interior of the tenth region are the colonies of Cremona, Brixia in the territory of the Cenomanni1910, Ateste1911 belonging to the Veneti, and the towns of Acelum1912, Patavium1913, Opitergium, Belunum1914, and Vicetia; with Mantua1915, the only city of the Tuscans now left beyond the Padus. Cato informs us that the Veneti are descendants of the Trojans1916, and that the Cenomanni1917 dwelt among the Volcæ in the vicinity of Massilia. There are also the towns of the Fertini1918, the Tridentini1919, and the Beruenses, belonging to the Rhæti, Verona1920, belonging to the Rhæti and the Euganei, and Julienses1921 to the Carni. We then have the following peoples, whom there is no necessity to particularize with any degree of exactness, the Alutrenses, the Asseriates, the Flamonienses1922 with those surnamed Vanienses, and the others called Culici, the Forojulienses1923 surnamed Transpadani, the Foretani, the Nedinates1924, the Quarqueni1925, the Taurisani1926, the Togienses, and the Varvari. In this district there have disappeared—upon the coast—Iramene, Pellaon, and Palsatium, Atina and Cælina belonging to the Veneti, Segeste and Ocra to the Carni, and Noreia to the Taurisci. L. Piso also informs us that although the senate disapproved of his so doing, M. Claudius Marcellus1927 razed to the ground a tower situate at the twelfth mile-stone from Aquileia.

In this region also and the eleventh there are some celebrated lakes1928, and several rivers that either take their rise in them or else are fed by their waters, in those cases in which they again emerge from them. These are the Addua1929, fed by the Lake Larius, the Ticinus by Lake Verbannus, the Mincius by Lake Benacus, the Ollius by Lake Sebinnus, and the Lambrus by Lake Eupilis—all of them flowing into the Padus.

Cælius states that the length of the Alps from the Upper Sea to the Lower is 1000 miles, a distance which Timagenes shortens by twenty-two. Cornelius Nepos assigns to them a breadth of 100 miles, and T. Livius of 3000 stadia; but then in different places. For in some localities they exceed 100 miles; where they divide Germany, for instance, from Italy; while in other parts they do not reach seventy, being thus narrowed by the providential dispensation of nature as it were. The breadth of Italy, taken from the river Var at the foot of these mountains, and passing along by the Vada1930 Sabatia, the Taurini, Comum, Brixia, Verona, Vicetia, Opitergium, Aquileia, Tergeste, Pola, and Arsia, is 745 miles.