The simple fact is, that though the shrewd commercial Greek had seized on all the best harbours in the long, narrow peninsula, these harbours were all in the south coast, about the “heel” of Italy, or in the south-west coast, in the volcanic region of the modern Naples, which was itself one of these Greek settlements. The east coast north of the “heel” is almost harbourless, as will be realised by any one who takes the route by rail to Brindisi on his way to Egypt or India. _Italy is a mountainous country_—a fact never to be forgotten in Roman history—and its mountains, the long chain of the Apennines, have their spinal ridge much nearer the east than the west coast, and descend upon the sea so sharply on that side that for long distances road or railway only just finds a passage. All along this east coast there was nothing to tempt Greeks to settle, and as they rarely or never penetrated far inland from their settlements, their influence never spread into this mountainous region from the many seacoast towns of Magna Græcia, as their part of Italy was called. On the Bay of Naples they had, indeed, a better chance; here there was a rich fertile plain stretching away to the hills, which on this side come down less steeply than on the eastern; this we shall hear of again as the Plain of Campania, in which Greek influence was very strong and active, capable of penetrating beyond its limits northward. But north of this again they left no permanent settlements; good harbours are wanting, and such as there are were occupied about the eighth century B.C. by a people at that time as enterprising as themselves, the Etruscans. These, too, had been recent immigrants into the peninsula from the east, and together with the Greeks they formed the only obstacles to the growth of a native Italian power—a power, that is, belonging to the older races that had long been settled there. The Greeks were not likely to interfere with such a growth, as we have seen; whether the Etruscans were to do so we have yet to see.