ITALY
231
ITALY
6i lb. to 11 lb., which came into force on 1 August,
1908. There were established 11 automobile services;
and in order to expedite the distribution of letters
and of telegrams in Rome, Milan, and Naples, there
is about to be established the pneumatic postal service
of the American engineer Batcheller, in a total length
of 2:3-4 miles of tubes. By the law of 5 April, 190S,
the postal service of the navigation lines between
Italy and the islands of Sicily and of Sardinia was
placed under the administration of the railroads of
the State, while the postal and the commercial service
of other lines is entrusted to private parties, with the
assistance of a subsidy by the State to which, how-
ever, all profits above 5 per cent, must be paid. The
contract period is limited to twenty years, the pres-
ent contracts coming to an end on 30 June, 1910.
(5) Telegraphs. — Statistics for 30 June, 1908, show that there were 30,650 miles of telegraph lines, with 157,044 miles of wires; the submarine cables belonging to the State are of a combined length of approximately 1250miles. There are 5312 telegraph offices belonging to the Government, while the number of those belong- ing to railroads and to other companies is 2582; in all, 7894.
(6) Telephones. — Telephone service was estab- lished in Italy in 1881, and, until 1907 it was fur- nished by private companies, except for international communication; but, by the law of 15 July, 1907, the State assumed control of city telephones, for which purpose was established the Direzione Generale dei Telefoni. There are 10 international lines, and 303 lines between cities. Moreover, there are four sub- marine telephone cables of a combined length of 22 miles. On 30 June, 1908, there were 2988 telephone employees and 50,278 subscribers to city tclejihones.
(7) Wireless Telegraphs. — Italy has 14 fixed wireless telegraph stations that transmitted, in the periml of 1907-1908, 1478 messages, containing 29,320 words, and received 4760 messages containing 77,186 words.
History. — With the foundation of Rome (754 b. c.) the historical life of Italy begins. About 600 B. c. the Gauls appear settled on either side of the Po (Padus) ; to the west along the Mediterranean are the Ligurians, and eastward around the Adriatic the tribes of Venice and Istria. In central Italy the Etrurians, of myste- rious origin, had reached a high degree of civilization, as their sepulchral architecture and art. remain to prove. Their neighbours, the Italici, were divided into two great groups, the Latin tribes and those of Umbro-Sabine origin. To the south was "Greater Greece " (Magna Grsecia), a number of Greek colonies, the most important of which was Tarentum. This is not the place to relate how gradually the small city of Rome extended its rule until all Italy, the Mediter- ranean lands, Gaul and Germany, Egypt and the hither Orient, i. e. the known world {orbis terrarum) acknowledged its authority (see Rome). In those centuries of conquest and assimilation Rome was al- ternately a kingdom, a republic, and finally an empire. It was under the first Roman emperor, Augustus Csesar, and through his world-wide edict, that Jesus Christ came to be born at Bethlehem in Judea, and in an incredibly short time the religion of the Crucified One had been estabhshed at Rome (Romans, i, 17; xv,23; Suetonius, " Vita Claudii", xxv; TertulL, "De Praescr.", xxxvi; Tacit., "Ann.", lib. XV, xliv; see Peter, Saint; Padl, Saint), had penetrated all parts of the peninsula and made convert s in every class. Not to speak of the more or less relial)le claims of many Italian cities to Apostolic origins for their churches (Cappelletti, " Le chiese d' Italia", Venice, 1844-71; J. Riviere, "La propag. du Christ, dans les trois pre- miers siecles ", Paris, 1907), the historian Eusebius ex- hibits Christianity as vigorous and expansive in Italy previous to Constantine (see Fabricius, " Lux salutaris Evangelii"; Harnack, "Mission und .\usbreitung des Christenthums ", 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1905; Duchesne,
"Hist. Ancienne de I'Eglise", I, Paris, 1906, and
Idem, "The Roman Church before Constantine",
New York, 1909).
PoUtical necessity eventually led to the abandon- ment of Rome as the administrative centre of the unwieldy empire and the foundation (327) of a new city (Constantinople, New Rome) on the site of an- cient Greek Byzantium, in a situation so incomparable for defence and attack that for many centuries the new city was impregnable (Bury, " History of the Later Roman Empire ", London, 1889) . In the mean- time had been fought (311) near Rome the battle of the Milvian Bridge which sealed the fate of paganism, though in the higher classes and amid the rural popu- lation it Ungered to the end of the fourth century (De Broglie, " L'eghse et I'empire romain au IV""^ siecle", Paris, 1856-66; Duchesne, "Hist, ancienne de I'E- glise", II, Paris, 1907; AlUes, "The Formation of Christendom", IV, VI, London, 1861-95; G. Boissier, "La fin du paganisme", 5th ed., Paris, 1907). Out-
Church of TbinitX de' Monti, Rom
side of Rome, the cities of Milan, Aquileia, and Ra-
venna acquired ecclesiastical rank and influence,
largely for pohtical reasons. The synodal life of the
peninsula was vigorous (Hefele, " History of the
Councils") in the fourth and fifth centuries, particu-
larly at Rome, and the relations with Constantinople
were close and often friendly, a situation that was
sadly affected by the momentous Acacian schism that
divided Constantinople and Rome for thirty-five years
(484-519) and inaugurated, though remotely, the final
separation of Italy from the Eastern Empire.
The barbarian invasions reached their height at precisely this time. After a century of destructive assaults on various parts of the empire, including the capture of Rome (408) by Alaric, King of the Goths, the Roman imperial authority collapsed in Italy, where Odoacer, King of the Heruli, ruled the peninsula (476-93) until overthrown by Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths (493-526). Despite the beneficent genius of this great king, and the efforts of his patriotic prime minister.Cassiodorus, the short -!i\'ed Ostrogothic State fell before the assaults of the Byzantine generals Beli- sariusandNarses(553),and Italy was again part of the Roman Empire, governed by an exarch at Ravenna, subject also to the ca>saropapism of its Byzantine rulers (see ViGiLirs, Pope; Three Chapters.'The) and helpless as before in presence of new invasions (Hodg- kin, "The 'Varia;' of Cassiodorus"; Pfeilschifter, " Theod. d. Crosse und d. Kirche ", 1896; Bury, " Later Roman Empire"). In 568 the German Langolxirdi (Lombards) overran Northern Italy and by the middle of the eighth century had almost extinguislicd Byzan- tine autliority in the peninsula (Hodgkin, "Italy and her Invaders", London, 1880; Kurth, " Origines de la civilisation moderne", Paris, 1905; Grisar, " Gesch. Roms u. der Papste", I. Freiburg, 1901; Dahn,
