PREFACE.

As Italy, from its political circumstances, has always afforded greater facilities to the traveller and topographer for exploring the remains of antiquity with which it abounds, than Greece and Asia Minor, its rivals in celebrity and classical interest, it is reasonable to expect that its comparative geography should in consequence be better understood and more definitively settled, than that of either of those two countries. Nor will this expectation prove groundless, when we examine the materials possessed by the geographer for constructing a map illustrative of the ancient condition and history of Italy, every part having now been so thoroughly investigated by foreign as well as native antiquaries, that there is hardly a site of any historical importance which has not been identified with sufficient accuracy and precision. From thence it is obvious, that the writer who follows so beaten a track must renounce all hope of communicating original information, and content himself with the humbler, though not less useful task, of giving publicity to the researches of others; and