It must not be forgotten that almost the whole of the coast line described in this chapter, from the river Magra to Civita Vecchia, belonged to that mysterious and, not so long since, almost unknown people, the Etruscans. Indeed, at one time their sway extended for a considerable distance north and south of these limits. Even now there is much dispute as to their origin, but they were a powerful and civilized race before Rome was so much as founded. They strove with it for supremacy in Italy, and were not finally subdued by that nation until the third century before our era. "Etruria was of old densely populated, not only in those parts which are still inhabited, but also, as is proved by remains of cities and cemeteries, in tracts now desolated by malaria and relapsed into the desert; and what is now the fen or the jungle, the haunt of the wild boar, the buffalo, the fox, and the noxious reptile, where man often dreads to stay his steps, and hurries away from a plague-stricken land, of old yielded rich harvests of corn, wine and oil, and contained numerous cities mighty and opulent, into whose laps commerce poured the treasures of the East and the more precious produce of Hellenic genius. Most of these ancient sites are now without a habitant, furrowed yearly by the plough, or forsaken as unprofitable wilderness; and such as are still occupied are, with few exceptions, mere phantoms of their pristine greatness, mere villages in the place of populous cities. On every hand are traces of bygone civilization, inferior in quality, no doubt, to that which at present exists but much wider in extent and exerting far greater influence on the neighboring nations and on the destinies of the world."[3]