here.
Campania was especially fertile and is reported to have yielded three
successive crops annually. The vine and the olive flourished, and their
cultivation eventually became even more profitable than the raising of
grain.

The valleys and mountain sides afforded excellent pasturage at all
seasons, and the raising of cattle and sheep ranked next in importance to
agricultural pursuits among the country's industries.

*The **islands**: Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica.* The geographical location of
the three large islands, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, links their history
closely with that of the Italian peninsula. The large triangle of Sicily
(11,290 sq. mi.) is separated from the southwest extremity of Italy by the
narrow straits of Rhegium, and lies like a stepping-stone between Europe
and Africa. Its situation, and the richness of its soil, which caused it
to become one of the granaries of Rome, made it of far greater historical
importance than the other two islands. Sardinia (9,400 sq. mi.) and
Corsica (3,376 sq. mi.), owing to their rugged, mountainous character and
their greater remoteness from the coast of Italy, have been always, from
both the economic and the cultural standpoint, far behind the more favored
Sicily.

*The historical significance of Italy's configuration and location.* The
configuration of the Italian peninsula, long, narrow, and traversed by
mountain ridges, hindered rather than helped its political unification.
Yet the Apennine chain, running parallel to the length of the peninsula,
offered no such serious barriers to that unification as did the network of
mountains and the long inlets that intersect the peninsula of Greece. And
when once Italy had been welded into a single state by the power of Rome,
its central position greatly facilitated the extension of the Roman
dominion over the whole Mediterranean basin.

*The name Italia.* The name Italy is the ancient _Italia_, derived from
the people known as the _Itali_, whose name had its origin in the word
_vitulus_ (calf). It was applied by the Greeks as early as the fifth
century B. C. to the southwestern extremity of the peninsula, adjacent to
the island of Sicily. It rapidly acquired a much wider significance,
until, from the opening of the second century, _Italia_ in a geographical
sense denoted the whole country as far north as the Alps. Politically, as
we shall see, the name for a long time had a much more restricted
significance.