A picture, in every point of view the reverse of this, is presented to us by the _Agreste Latium_. The ancient Italian mode of life was almost entirely agricultural and rural; and with exception, perhaps, of the Etruscans, none of the Italian states were in any degree maritime or commercial. Italy was well adapted for every species of agriculture, and was most justly termed by her greatest poet, _magna parens frugum_. Dionysius of Halicarnassus(2), Strabo(3), and Pliny(4), talk with enthusiasm of its fertile soil and benignant climate. Where the ground was most depressed and marshy, the meadows were stretched out for the pasturage of cattle. In the level country, the rich arable lands, such as the Campanian and Capuan plains, extended in vast tracts, and produced a profusion of fruits of every species, while on the acclivities, where the skirts of the mountains began to break into little hills and sloping fields, the olive and vine basked on soils famed for Messapian oil, and for wines of which the very names cheer and revive us. The mountains themselves produced marble and timber, and poured from their sides many a delightful stream, which watered the fields, gladdened the pastures, and moistened the meads to the very brink of the shore. Well then might Virgil exclaim, in a burst of patriotism and poetry which has never been surpassed,— “Sed neque Medorum sylvæ, ditissima terra, Nec pulcher Ganges, atque auro turbidus Hermus, Laudibus Italiæ certent; non Bactra, neque Indi, Totaque thuriferis Panchaia pinguis arenis. Hic ver assiduum, atque alienis mensibus æstas; Bis gravidæ pecudes, bis pomis utilis arbor. * * * * Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus(5)!”