Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/232

region, beginning at the Tiber, is looked upon as the first of Italy according to the division of Augustus.

Inland there are the following colonies: — Capua^[1], so called from its champaign country, Aquinum^[2], Suessa^[3], Venafrum^[4], Sora^[5], Teanum surnamed Sidicinum^[6], Nola^[7]; and the towns of Abella^[8], Aricia^[9], Alba Longa^[10], the Acer-

1. It probably had its name from Campania, of which it was the capital, and which was so called from its extensive campi or plains. The site of this luxurious and magnificent city is now occupied by the village of Santa Maria di Capoua, the modern city of Capua being on the site of ancient Casilinum. Of ancient Capua there are but few remains. It was made a Roman colony by Julius Cæsar.
2. Originally a city of the Volscians: Cicero had a villa there, and Juvenal and the emperor Pescennius Niger were natives of it. The present Aquino stands on its site, and there are considerable remains of it to be seen.
3. Or Suessa Aurunca, to distinguish it from the Volscian city of Suessa Pometia. The poet Lucilius was a native of it. The modern Sessa stands in its vicinity.
4. The modern Venafri stands near its site. It was famous for the excellence of olives.
5. On the banks of the Suris, and the most northerly town of the Volsci. The modern Sora is in its vicinity, and the remains of its walls are still to be seen.
6. The modern Teano oceupies its site. It was famous for the medicinal springs in its vicinity. There was another Teanum, in Apulia.
7. The town on its site still preserves the name. Bells were made here, whence in the later writers they are called "Nolæ." There is also an ecclesiastical tradition that church bells were first used by Saint Paulinus, bishop of this place, whence they were called 'Campanæ.' The emperor Augustus died here.
8. The remains of the ancient town, of which the ruins are very extensive, are called Avella Vecchia. It was famous for its fruit, especially its filberts, to which it gives name in the French "Avelines." It was first a Greek colony, and then a town of the Oscans.
9. A city of Latium, sixteen miles from Rome, and said to have been of Sicilian origin. The modern town of La Riccia occupies the site of its citadel. It was celebrated for the temple and grove of Diana, whose high priest was always a fugitive slave who had killed his predecessor, and was called "Rex nemorensis," or "king of the grove." See Ovid, Fasti, B. vi. l. 59; Art of Love, B. i. l. 260; and Lucan, B. vi. l. 74.
10. The ancient city was destroyed by Tullus Hostilius, king of Rome. The Roman colony here was probably but small. The Roman patrician families, the Julii, Servilii, Tullii, and Quintii, are said to have migrated from Alba Longa, which, according to tradition, had given to Rome her first king.