7. LATIUM was used in two senses. It originally signified only the land of the Latini, and was a country of small extent, bounded by the Tiber on the north, by the Apennines on the east, by the sea on the west, and by the Alban Hills on the south. But after the conquest of the Volscians, Hernici, AEquians, and other tribes, originally independent, the name of Latium was extended to all the country which the latter had previously occupied. It was thus applied to the whole region from the borders of Etruria to those of Campania, or from the Tiber to the Liris. The original abode of the Latins is of volcanic origin. The Alban Mountains are a great volcanic mass, and several of the craters have been filled with water, forming lakes, of which the Alban Lake is one of the most remarkable. The plain in which Rome stands, now called the _Campagna_, is not an unbroken level, but a broad undulating tract, intersected by numerous streams, which have cut themselves deep channels through the soft volcanic tufa of which the soil is composed. The climate of Latium was not healthy even in ancient times. The malaria of the Campagna renders Rome itself unhealthy in the summer and autumn; and the Pontine Marshes, which extend along the coast in the south of Latium for a distance of thirty miles, are still more pestilential. 8. CAMPANIA extended along the coast from the Liris, which separated it from Latium, to the Silarus, which formed the boundary of Lucania. It is the fairest portion of Italy. The greater part of it is an unbroken plain, celebrated in ancient as well as in modern times for its extraordinary beauty and fertility. The _Bay of Naples_--formerly called Sinus Cumanus and Puteolanus, from the neighboring cities of Cumae and Puteoli--is one of the most lovely spots in the world; and the softness of its climate, as well as the beauty of its scenery, attracted the Roman nobles, who had numerous villas along its coasts. 9. SAMNIUM was an inland district, bounded on the north by the Marsi and Peligni, on the east by the Frentani and Apulia, on the west by Latium and Campania, and on the south by Lucania. It is a mountainous country, being entirely filled with the masses of the Apennines. Its inhabitants, the Samnites, were of Sabine origin, as has been already mentioned, and they settled in the country at a comparatively late period. They were one of the most warlike races in Italy, and carried on a long and fierce struggle with the Romans. 10. APULIA extended along the coast of the Adriatic from the Frentani on the north to Calabria on the south, and was bounded on the west by the Apennines, which separated it from Samnium and Lucania. It consists almost entirely of a great plain, sloping down from the Apennines to the sea.