The Historians' History of the World 05

The testimony of language has been accepted as proving that the Romans were Aryans, but that term itself has come to have a somewhat doubtful meaning, as we have already seen. The affinity of their language seems to make it clear that the Romans were more closely allied to the Greeks than to any other of their known contemporaries, and it has been assumed as proven that the ancestors of these two peoples remained in contact with each other long after their separation from the primitive Aryan swarm. But the problem in its entirety deals with many questions that are obscure in the extreme: just when or just how these supposititious Aryans migrated into Italy; what manner of people—what race even—they found there; to what extent they commingled ethnically with the races which they there met and conquered; these are all questions to which authentic history can give but the vaguest answers.a

THE LAND OF ITALY

It is difficult in attempting a geographical sketch for the purpose of elucidating Roman history, to determine where we ought to begin and where to end. For during a long period we are hardly carried out of sight of the Capitol; and at the close of that period we are hurried with startling rapidity into the heart of every country, from the Atlantic to the mountains of Asia Minor, from the ridges of the Alps to the plains that lie beneath Mount Atlas. But since the origin and composition of the people we call Roman depend upon the early state and population of Italy at large, and since in course of time all Italians became Romans, it will be well to follow the usual custom, and begin with a geographical sketch of the Italian peninsula.

This peninsula, the central one of the three which stretch boldly forward from the southern coasts of Europe, lies nearly between the parallels of north latitude 38° and 46°. Its length, therefore, measured along a meridian arc, ought to be about 550 miles. But since, unlike the other two Mediterranean peninsulas, it runs in a direction nearly diagonal to the lines of latitude and longitude, its real length, measured from Mont Blanc to Cape Spartivento, is somewhat more than seven hundred miles.

To estimate the breadth of this long and singularly shaped peninsula, it may conveniently be divided into two parts by a line drawn across from the mouths of the Po to the northern point of Etruria. Below this line the average breadth of the leg of Italy does not much exceed one hundred miles. Above this line both coasts trend rapidly outwards, so that the upper portion forms an irregularly shaped figure, which lies across the top of the leg, being bounded on the north and west by the Alpine range from Illyria to the mouth of the Var, on the south by the imaginary line before drawn, and on the east by the head of the Adriatic Sea. The length of this figure from east to west is not less than 350 miles; while from north to south it measures, on the average, about 120 miles.

The surface of the whole peninsula, including both the leg of Italy and the irregular figure at the top, is estimated at about ninety thousand square miles, or an area nearly equal to the surface of Great Britain and Ireland. But a very large proportion of this surface is unproductive, and a great part even incapable of tillage.