speaking of the road which led to his villa, he represents it as being "here confined and straitened between contiguous woods, there expanding and stretching away across meadows of very great extent❞—an alternation of woodland and pasture corresponding exactly with what we still observe along the whole line of coast from Ostia to the Circean promontory.

It was with a view to raise agriculture from the low estimation into which it had fallen, that Augustus imposed upon Virgil the task of writing the Georgics; and hence we hear the poet lamenting the forlorn appearance of the country, in consequence of the peasantry having forsaken the fields for the camp-" Squalent abductis arva colonis."

We know, too, that Italy, notwithstanding the natural fertility of its soil, did not grow corn enough for the supply of its inhabitants. A great portion of the corn consumed in the capital was imported from Sardinia, Africa, and Sicily, especially the latter, upon which, according to Cicero, the Roman people placed their chief dependence. Suetonius tells us, that, in the reign of Augustus, Egypt was considered as the granary of Rome. That emperor employed his troops in repairing the canals that border on the Nile, in order to facilitate the transport of grair from thence to Ostia. Under such circumstances, considering the rude state of navigation at the time, we cannot wonder that a stormy winter, or the prevalence of contrary winds, should have raised the most lively apprehensions, and sometimes have incited the populace to acts of violence. It was upon an occasion such as this,

that the emperor Claudius was assaulted in the Forum. "It appeared," says Tacitus, who indignantly notices the circumstance, "that there remained no more food than was sufficient to supply the city for fifteen days; and it was only through the mildness of the winter, and the great mercy of the gods, that it was preserved from extremities. Yet, by Hercules, time was when Italy exported corn to the most remote of her provinces. Nor is she sterile even now; but we chose rather to bestow our labour upon Africa and Egypt, and trust the existence of the Roman people to accident and a ship."―(Annal. vii. 43).

"The barrenness of the Campagna has been attributed," says Mathews, "to the national indolence, which will not be at the pains to cultivate it. But, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, not that the Campagna is barren, because it is not cultivated, but that it is not cultivated because it is barren. The Roman soldiers, before the time of Hannibal, in comparing their own country with that of the Capuans, argued thus:- An æquum esse dedititios suos illâ fertilitate atque amoenitate perfrui; se, militando fessos, in pestilenti atque arido circa urbem solo luctari.'"

Such are the arguments advanced by those who contend that the Campagna is now what it ever was. Something, however, may be said on the other side of the question, but this I reserve for the next chapter.

MALARIA.

Nec sævior ulla

Pestis et ira Deûm Stygiis sese extulit undis.-VIRG.

It is contended by many, that, whatever may have been the state of the Campagna in Hannibal's time, it appears, during the empire, to have been salubrious compared with what it is at present, and to have owed this advantage to population and tillage. During that period, the public ways, according to their account, were lined with houses from the city to Aricia, to Tibur, to Ocriculum, to the sea. This opinion receives some confirmation from Dionysius and Pliny. "Whoever," says the former, (Lib. iv.) "would ascertain the size of Rome, would be led into error, from having no certain mark to decide how far the city reaches, or where it begins not to be city; the country being so interwoven with the town, that the latter wears the appearance of a city indefinitely extended." Pliny also says, (Lib. iii. c. 5), "so thickly are the houses scattered around that they have added many cities;" meaning, probably, that with little or no intermission there were houses lining the roads leading from Rome to various neighbouring towns. Florus expressly calls Tibur a suburb of Rome (Lib. i. c. ii.); and Nero projected a third circuit of walls, which was to take in half the Campagna. At this period, when,

as we have seen, the town and country were so interwoven that it was hard to say where the one ended or the other began, "the bad air infected but a small part between Antium and Lanuvium, nor did it desolate these; for Antium grew into magnificence under different emperors, and Lanuvium was surrounded with the villas of the great.

"At length," continues Forsyth, "when a dreadful succession of Lombards, Franks, and Saracens, destroyed the houses, pavements, drains, crops, plantations, and cattle, which had protected the Campagna from mephitism, it then returned to its own vicious propensity; for both the form of its surface and the order of its soils promote the stagnation of water. Some lakes, lodged in ancient craters, can never be discharged; but they might be deepened and circumscribed, marshes might be drained into some, and aquatic vegetation extirpated or shorn. Here, too, in the variety of earths peculiar to volcanic ground, some subterranean pools have found a hard stratum for their bed, and a loose one for their cover. retired from his reach, those invisible enemies attack man with exhalations which he cannot resist."

Thus

These circumstances, added to the clearing of the woods of Nettuno-which acted as a screen against the sea-vapours, and were therefore held sacred by the ancients and the tyrannous operation of the annona laws, have been deemed amply sufficient to account for the present unhealthiness of the Campagna.

After all, however, it must be admitted, that there are

other unascertained causes of malaria. For, however truly we may impute the unhealthiness of the country around Rome to its own annona*, yet we cannot attribute that of the Tuscan Maremma to the same cause, for there the law against the exportation of corn exists no longer. And yet, besides the intermittent fever, the usual concomitant of malaria, the Maremma is so notorious for producing liver complaints, that they who frequent it are proverbially big-bellied:-" Ci si va," "Ci si va," say the Tuscan peasants, in allusion at once to the want which drives them thither, and the disease which they bring back, "Ci si va con la pancia vuota, e si torna con la pancia piena."

No doubt the fatal effects of the Maremma are greatly

* The Roman Maremma-a tract about thirty leagues long by ten or twelve broad-is in the hands of not more than twenty-four farmers, called Mercanti di Tenuti, traders in land: in fact, they are rather merchants than farmers. They all live in Rome, take their measures in concert, and manage the land by Fattori who live on the spot. Chateauvieux, who visited one of these farms, styled the Campo Morto, tells us it contained about 6000 arpents of arable land, or land that was occasionally in tillage-the arpent being to the English acre as 5 to 4. The uncultivated part was of about the same extent; and was stocked with cows and swine. The 6000 arpents, which are arable, are divided into nine nearly equal portions, of which one is fallow, another wheat, and the remaining seven pasture. On these seven were fed 4000 sheep, 400 horses, and 200 oxen; a portion of it being also cut for hay. In the uncultivated part were 700 cows, and sometimes 2000 swine; and the general rent, yielded by the whole, might be estimated at 18 francs the arpent, or 15s. the acre. The whole rent of the farm is accordingly calculated at 5000 piastres, besides an interest of 57. per cent. on the gross capital employed in the farm.