AQUILEIA, the extreme town of Italy, was a Roman colony planted for the purpose of securing Venetia, of offering resistance to the Noricans and extending the Roman dominion against them, of protecting the Roman supremacy in the Adriatic, and of keeping up the communication by land with Istria. The town, favoured by its situation, gradually increased, and became an emporium for the commerce with the northern countries, no doubt, even with the interior of Germany, to which the products of the south, wine, oil, and the like were exported. It cannot be said with certainty whether Aquileia was also a military colony. Under the emperors, it was one of the largest cities, and was carefully fortified as a place of arms for all Italy against the northern nations and the Getae. Italy extended in the north as far as Istria; but a part of Istria, as far as Pola, was united in the division of Augustus with Italy; this was founded upon the correct view that, according to the course of the mountains, the frontier was formed by the highest ridge of the Julian Alps and their whole continuation down to the southern point of Istria. In this manner Istria was divided into two parts. LIGURIA. The part of the continent of Italy which remains to be considered, was probably not regarded by Polybius as belonging to Italy, or at least only partially. Liguria, in the widest sense, extended as far as Gaul, nay, as far as the frontier of Spain; but Italian Liguria, in the sense in which Augustus made it a part of Italy (not in the later sense in which it signified the territory of Milan), comprised the Genoese Alps, the continuation of the Alps forming the southernmost part of Piedmont, and the hilly country about Turin, with Alessandria, and a part of the territory of Montferrat. The Genoese Alps, that is, the range of the Alpes Maritimae as far as Briançon and mount Cenis, are among the highest and wildest parts of the Alps, while the more northern slopes of the mountains as far as the Po and the Ticinus belong to the most splendid and fertile parts of northern Italy. It is not a plain, like the territory of Milan and the country on the lower Po, which is evidently, like Egypt, an ancient bay of the sea, filled up in the course of time; but it is a hilly country. Its population in ancient times was altogether Ligurian, and the Salassi, in the valley of Aosta, are the only tribe, mentioned in after times, regarding which it is uncertain whether they were Ligurians or Celts; the Taurini were, in my opinion, Ligurians. Although the language is changed in modern times, still the fact of French being spoken by the inhabitants of the valley of Aosta, and not Italian, is of some significance in connection with their origin: they have changed their language in a manner analogous to their origin. There is little resemblance between the French and the ancient Celtic, there being only some analogy in grammar, but not in words; in the