Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/218

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184 plikt's natueal history. [Book III. The circuit of the whole, from the Yarus to the Arsia, is 3059 miles ^ As to its distance from the countries that surround it — Istria and Liburnia are, in some places', 100 miles from it, and E})irus and lUyricum 50 ; Africa is less than 200, as we are informed by M. Varro ; Sardinia^ is 120, Sicily IJ, Corsica less than 80, and Issa"* 50. It extends into the two seas towards the southern parts of the heavens, or, to speak with more minute exactness, between the sixth^ hour and the first hour of the winter solstice. "We will now describe its extent and its different cities ; in doing which, it is necessary to premise, that we shall fol- low the arrangement of the late Emperor Augustus, and adopt the division which he made of the whole of Italy into eleven districts ; taking them, however, according to their order on the sea-line, as in so hurried a detail it would not be possible otherwise to describe each city in juxtaposition with the others in its vicinity. And for the same reason, in de- scribing the interior, I shall follow the alphabetical order which has been adopted by that Emperor, pointing out the colonies of which he has made mention in his enumeration. Nor is it a very easy task to trace their situation and origin ; for, not to speak of others, the Ingaunian Ligurians have had lands granted to them as many as thirty different times. CHAP. 7. or THE NINTH^ EEGIOTf OF ITALY. To begin then with the river Yarns ; we have the town of Nicsea, founded by the Massilians, the river Paulo ^, the Alps 1 This distance is overstated : the circuit is in reality about 2500 miles. 2 For instance, from Pola to Ravenna, and from ladera to Ancona. 3 Sardinia is in no part nearer to Italy than 140 miles. "* Issa, now Lissa, is an island of the Adinatic, off the coast of Libur- nia ; it is not less than eighty miles distant from the nearest part of the coast of Italy. ° That is to say, the south, which was so called by the Homans : the meaning being that Italy extends in a south-easterly direction. ^ Italy was divided by Augustus into eleven districts ; the ninth of which nearly corresponded to the former repubhc of Genoa 7 The modern Nizza of the Italians, or Nice of the French. 8 Now the Paghone,