year the Pentrians had the management of affairs. Other men did much, sacrificed everything, and dreaded nothing, but he alone had the power of saving his country. To what extent their country was ravaged, may be seen from the newly discovered fragments of Polybius, in which Pyrrhus, on entering Samnium, is described as terrified at the devastation of the country: the Romans had ravaged it in such a manner, that all traces of human habitations had disappeared: it was just what Peloponnesus is at present,[49] consisting of heaps of ruins and ashes, the villages were destroyed, trees were torn up, and not a trace of agriculture or the plough was left. All this the Samnites bore with inflexible determination; their desperate courage several times brought matters to a turning point, but they lacked the greatest of all things, the courage to sacrifice their prejudices and to change their constitution in such a manner as to adapt it to the circumstances of the time. Their descendants, in the Marsian or Social War, discovered their mistake, and adopted a new constitution; from the little we know of it, we must infer, that it was extremely well devised: it seems to have resembled that of the United States of America, concentrating the nation in regard to foreign enemies, but leaving the municipal sovereignty untouched. It is a pity that we do not know more about it; still, however, many things can be conjectured. Of all the towns in the country of the Sabines proper, CURES is most renowned in tradition. The country of the Sabines, beginning at the Anio, extends beyond Amiternum, and consists of several divisions. The portion between the Nera and Anio is a hilly country; it is most adapted to the cultivation of olives, which, if well taken care of, would produce there excellent oil; corn, too, can be grown there, but it is unfavourable to the cultivation of the vine, whence Sabine wine was considered bad by the ancients, and is so still. In the angle descending towards Rome, the ancients mention no important towns; but farther up, we come to REATE and INTERAMNA. Reate is said to have been a very ancient place of the Aborigines, that is, the Prisci, and to have been taken from them by the Sabines. Near Reate the olive-growing district rises tolerably high into the Apennines. Lake VELINUS is situated there in a very wide hollow; it is said formerly to have been several miles in circumference, like lake Fucinus. When Curius Dentatus conquered that district for the Romans (463), he executed one of the most magnificent works in the world. He drew off the water from the lake in such a manner as to gain thereby several square miles of the most beautiful land; and at the same time the beautiful waterfall of Terni was formed. The crater of the lake is shut up on one side by the lofty Apennines, and on the other by a ridge of rock, which confined the river. Curius, therefore, according to a statement in one of Cicero’s letters, cut through the ridge which