one
running down its whole extent from north to south. The extreme length
of the peninsula from the Alps to the Straits of Messina is 700 miles.
The breadth of northern Italy is 350 miles, while that of the southern
portion is on an average not more than 100 miles. But, till the time of
the Empire, the Romans never included the plain of the Po in Italy. To
this country they gave the general name of GALLIA CISALPINA, or Gaul on
this (the Roman) side of the Alps, in consequence of its being inhabited
by Gauls. The western-most portion of the plain was peopled by Ligurian
tribes, and was therefore called LIGURIA, while its eastern extremity
formed the Roman province of VENETIA.

The name ITALIA was originally applied to a very small tract of country.
It was at first confined to the southern portion of Calabria, and was
gradually extended northward, till about the time of the Punic wars it
indicated the whole peninsula south of the Rivers Rubicon and Macra, the
former separating Cisalpine Gaul and Umbria, the latter Liguria and
Etruria. Italy, properly so called, is a very mountainous country, being
filled up more or less by the broad mass of the Apennines, the offshoots
or lateral branches of which, in some parts, descend quite to the sea,
but in others leave a considerable space of level or low country.
Excluding the plain of the Po, it was divided into the following
districts:[1]

1. ETRURIA, which extended along the coast of the Lower Sea from the
River Macra on the north to the Tiber on the south. Inland, the Tiber
also formed its eastern boundary, dividing it first from Umbria,
afterward from the Sabines, and, lastly, from Latium. Its inhabitants
were called Etrusci, or Tusci, the latter form being still preserved in
the name of _Tuscany_. Besides the Tiber it possesses only one other
river of any importance, the Arnus, or Arno, upon which the city of
_Florence_ now stands. Of its lakes the most considerable is the Lacus
Trasimenus, about thirty-six miles in circumference, celebrated for the
great victory which Hannibal there gained over the Romans.

2. UMBRIA, situated to the east of Etruria, and extending from the
valley of the Tiber to the shores of the Adriatic. It was separated on
the north from Gallia Cisalpina by the Rubicon, and on the south by the
AEsis from Picenum, and by the Nar from the Sabines.

3. PICENUM extended along the Adriatic from the mouth of the AEsis to
that of the Matrinus and inland as f