districts of Germany, whence the coast is covered with firs, and was called _ager macerrimus_ by Fabius Maximus.[5] South of Ostia the coast gradually rises and becomes a down connecting Latium with cape Circaeum, the high promontory of Circe. This hill belongs to the Apennines, and it is impossible to say how it may have become attached to Latium; it must, however, originally have been separated from it by an inland sea. Into this sea behind the downs, the river Ufens and several others poured their waters from the hills; and the mud carried down by them has formed the Pontine marshes, the nature of which was distinctly recognised even by the ancients as a πρόσχωσις, that is, a filling up of a place which was once a part of the sea, but they were mistaken as to the period when this happened. Lessing justly observes that many an error consists in merely mistaking the time; I know from my own experience, that even when you entertain a sound and correct view of a thing, you may often err in regard to time: you are anxious at once to fix the time, and commit a blunder. Such is the case also in ancient history. Pliny is one of those men who, by immense industry, have made themselves dull; he is originally not deficient in intelligence and judgment. Many people carry reading and writing to excess; Heyne, for example, would have become a good philologer, had he not undertaken too much, and had he not thereby been obliged to cut many a knotty point instead of solving it. It is possible, therefore, that his name will not be remembered by posterity. In some chapters Pliny does not show his usual manner; many things are treated of with a real love of his subject and with great success, and his history may even have been beautiful and genial. But he thought he was able to produce a work, the extent of which, as he fixed it in his own mind, was beyond the grasp of man, unless he had given up everything else in order to be able to complete it. He dictated, and had a person to read to him even when he was taking his bath or his meals, and by this means all kinds of materials were accumulated without discrimination. It is possible that he may have passed the Pontine marshes a hundred times; but Mucianus had recorded the erroneous opinion, that at one time twenty-three towns had existed there, and Pliny copied it; he states however, in the same breath, that a lake had covered the same country as late as the time of Theophrastus. The latter indeed speaks of islands, but had not seen them himself. The marshes can never have been a high country in which towns existed. The high-road of Trajan was several feet below the present level of the marsh, and it is still constantly rising. The downs continue, but between Terracina and Circeii they leave an opening for the Ufens and other waters so far as they flow out of the marshes. TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME.