From Milan to Rimini the stations and distances

are given in the greatest detail in the Jerusalem Iti

Milan

Marignano
Lodi vecchio

Piacenza

la Fontana

Ancient names.

Compitum *
Ariminum

Modern names.

Rimini

Distances in
Roman miles.

- VI.
XII.

At Placentia, the Via Emilia was crossed by the Via Posthumia, of which we have already spoken in treating of the roads of Liguria. How this way was continued beyond Placentia does not appear very clearly; but as there is no indication in any of the Itineraries of a direct communication between Placentia and Cremona, through which city we know that the Via Posthumia was carried, I am inclined to think that it crossed the Po at Placentia, and reached Cremona by Laus Pompeia and Acerræ, Gherra. In this case the stations will be nearly as follows:

*There was a cross-road from Cremona to Regium on the Via Æmilia, according to the Itin. Anton. p. 283.

* At Compitum, as the name implies, the Via Emilia was met by another road, which I conceive to have been that branch of the Via Flaminia which led from Arretium in Etruria to Bononia, and was constructed by C. Flaminius Nepos, A. U.C. 567. (Liv. XXXIX. 2.)

A

Strabo is thought to confound this road with the Via Flaminia, which was laid down from Rome to Ariminum by C. Flaminius, who was censor A. U.C. 537, and three years after was killed in the battle of the lake Trasymene. Strab. V. 217.

The same Itinerary supplies another cross-road between Bononia and Verona. (p. 282.)

Lastly, we may notice a road which seems to have led from Parma through Liguria into Etruria. No mention is made of it in the Itineraries, but there is good historical evidence of the existence of such a route b: (Liv. XLI. 18.) and I conceive that it was by this road that the Roman armies usually penetrated from Etruria into Cisalpine Gaul, before the Flaminian and Æmilian ways had been laid down. The general direction of this route, which is now much frequented, seems to have been from Pisa to Luca, Sarzana, Pontremoli, Fornovo, and Parma.

SECTION IV.

VENETIA AND HISTRIA.

Origin and history of the Veneti-Description of the coastMouths of the Po-Interior of the country-Euganei, Tridentini, Carni, and other Alpine nations-Sources of the Timavus -The Histri-Description of Histria.

WE are now arrived at the north-east angle of Italy, formed by the Alps and the head of the Adriatic gulf; to which the name of Venetia was assigned, from the Heneti, or Veneti, an ancient people respecting whose origin considerable uncertainty seems to have existed even among the best informed writers of antiquity. The poetical as well as popular opinion identified them with the Heneto-Paphlagones, enumerated by Homer in the catalogue of the allies of Priam. (B. 852.) It was affirmed, that this people, having lost their leader during the Trojan war, had crossed over into Europe under the command of Antenor, and in the course of their subsequent wanderings had arrived at the head of the Adriatic, where they finally settled, after having expelled the Euganei, the original inhabitants of the country. (Liv. I. c. 1. Cato. ap. Plin. III. 19. Corn. Nep. ap. Plin. VI. 2. Justin. XX. 1. Scymn. Ch. Perieg. 388. Soph. 'Ixív aλwois ap. Strab. XIII. 608. Mæandr. ap. eund. XII. 552. Virg. Æn. I. 242. Ovid. Fast. IV. 78. Sil. Ital. VIII.604.) Strabo, who mentions more than once this tradition, was himself inclined to believe the Veneti

to be Gauls, (V. 212.) as there was a tribe of the same name in that country a. (Cæs. Bell. Gall. III. 9.) But Strabo is singular in this opinion, which we ought to be the less inclined to receive as it is at variance with the testimony of Polybius. (II. 17.) This historian assures us, that the Veneti differed in language from the Gauls, though in manners and customs they bore a great resemblance to that nation. Herodotus, who was well acquainted with the Veneti, designates them by the generic appellation of Illyrians. (I. 196. and V. 10.) And we ought. perhaps to content ourselves with this indication of their origin, without attempting to trace it to a remoter source. I would leave it to more able and inquisitive antiquaries, to speculate on the probability of the Asiatic origin of the Venetic. But if the fact of their having crossed the Bosphorus be admitted, we might easily conceive their subsequent progress across the plains of Thrace, and along the banks of the Danube and the Save into Croatia, and finally their arrival on the north-western shore of the Adriatic. One thing at least, with regard to the Venetian migration, may be safely asserted; that they were the last people who penetrated into Italy by that frontier. This fact is sufficiently evident from the extreme position which they took up, and from

a They occupied the district of Vannes in Brittany. D'Anville, Not. de l'Anc. Gaule, Art. Veneti.

b Some peculiarities of their language are mentioned by Pliny. (XXVI. 7.) Modern researches seem to establish that

this language was different from the Etruscan, having a still greater affinity to archaic Greek,

than that dialect, both in the form of the letters and the character of the idiom. Orsato. Monum. Patav. Maffei Osserv. Letter. t. v. Lanzi. Saggio di Lingua Etrusca, P. iii. p. 649. et seq.

Filiasi Saggio dei Veneti primi, P. ii. p. 11. Id. Mem. Stor. dei Veneti primi, t. ii. c. 31.