I have little to say about the towns in the country of the Sabines proper. The most important among them are REATE and AMITERNUM, neither of which has a history of any consequence. It is said that there still exist considerable ruins of Amiternum, but I have not seen them. It was the birth-place of the historian Sallust. The fact that, during the seventh and eighth centuries, Roman authors arose in this as in the Oscan districts, is a proof how easy the transition from their language into the Latin must have been; not one Roman author arose in Etruria. The other parts of the Sabine country are high and mountainous; they have a true Alpine character, with all the peculiar vegetation of the Alps; even Icelandic moss grows there. As to the constitution of the Sabines and their union into one state, nothing is known. PICENUM. The north of the country of the Sabines was occupied by the Sabellian tribe of the Picentians in the Marca Ancona, between Abruzzo, the frontier of the Sabines and Marrucinians, and the Aesis. Their country begins at the heights on the other side of the Apennines, and slopes down to the Adriatic, being one of the most beautiful hilly countries; but it has already something of the character of northern Italy, and the air is not southern; olives, however, still grow there, though not of the same beauty, and they are of a different type. The air and atmosphere are nearly the same as in Lombardy. Picenum forms the boundary between Central and Northern Italy. According to tradition, this country was originally inhabited by Pelasgians, and was taken possession of by the Sabellians at a later period, through a _ver sacrum_. Such emigrations took place in consequence of a vow made either in times of distress, or during the calamities of war; but sometimes also they were the consequence of over-population. The emigrants were always guided by divine signs, concerning which there existed special legends. The Cumaeans related that their ancestors had been guided by a dove flying before their ships; others were led by a bull (as Cadmus to Thebes), the Hirpinians by a wolf (_hirpus_), and the Picentians by a woodpecker (_pica_) which flew before them. Traces of a longer continuance of the earlier population in the country may still be distinctly recognised. In other respects those districts are obscure to us, because the history of the times in which they acted a part is so obscure, or rather is entirely lost to us. This is the case, e.g., with the Picentian war, which was related in the thirteenth book of Livy, and with the expeditions of Cn. Pompeius Strabo during the Social War.