Young Folks' History of Rome

ITALY.

I

am going to tell you next about the most famous nation in the world.

Going westward from Greece another peninsula stretches down into the

Mediterranean. The Apennine Mountains run like a limb stretching out of

the Alps to the south eastward, and on them seems formed that land, shaped

somewhat like a leg, which is called Italy.

Round the streams that flowed down from these hills, valleys of fertile soil

formed themselves, and a great many different tribes and people took up

their abode there, before therewas any history to explain their coming. Putting

together what can be proved about them, it is plain, however, that most of

them came of that old stock from which the Greeks descended, and to which

we belong ourselves, and they spoke a language which had the same root as

ours and as the Greek. From one of these nations the best known form of

this, as it was polished in later times, was called Latin, from the tribe who

spoke it.

About the middle of the peninsula there runs down, westward from the

Apennines, a river called the Tiber, flowing rapidly between seven low hills,

3 CHARLOTTE M. (CHARLOTTE MARY) YONGE

which recede as it approaches the sea. One, in especial, called the Palatine

Hill, rose separately, with a flat top and steep sides, about four hundred yards

from the river, and girdled in by the other six. This was the place where the

great Roman power grew up from beginnings, the truth of which cannot

now be discovered.

There were several nations living round these hills-the Etruscans, Sabines,

and Latins being the chief. The homes of these nations seem to have been

in the valleys round the spurs of the Apennines, where they had farms and

fed their flocks; but above them was always the hill which they had fortified

as strongly as possible, and where they took refuge if their enemies attacked

them. The Etruscans built very mighty walls, and also managed the drainage

of their cities wonderfully well. Many of their works remain to this day,

and, in especial, their monuments have been opened, and the tomb of each

chief has been found, adorned with figures of himself, half lying, half sitting;

also curious pottery in red and black, from which something of their lives

and ways is to be made out. They spoke a different language from what

has become Latin, and they had a different religion, believing in one great

Soul of theWorld, and also thinking much of rewards and punishments after

death. But we know hardly anything about them, except that their chiefs

were called Lucumos, and that they once had a wide power which they had

lost before the time of history. The Romans called them Tusci, and Tuscany

still keeps its name.

The Latins and the Sabines were more alike, and also more like the Greeks.

There were a great many settlements of Greeks in the southern parts of Italy,

and they learnt something from them. They had a great many gods. Every

house had its own guardian. These were called Lares, or Penates, and were

generally represented as little figures of dogs lying by the hearth, or as brass

bars with dogs' heads. This is the reason that the bars which close in an open

hearth are still called dogs. Whenever there was a meal in the house the mas-

ter began by pouring out wine to the Lares, and also to his own ancestors,

of whom he kept figures; for these natives thought much of their families,

4 CHARLOTTE M. (CHARLOTTE MARY) YONGE