ring of cattle. Like Greece, it is a noble
land which calls forth and rewards the energies of man, opening
up alike for restless adventure the way to distant lands and for
quiet exertion modes of peaceful gain at home.

But, while the Grecian peninsula is turned towards the east, the
Italian is turned towards the west. As the coasts of Epirus and
Acarnania had but a subordinate importance in the case of Hellas,
so had the Apulian and Messapian coasts in that of Italy; and, while
the regions on which the historical development of Greece has been
mainly dependent--Attica and Macedonia--look to the east, Etruria,
Latium, and Campania look to the west. In this way the two peninsulas,
so close neighbours and almost sisters, stand as it were averted
from each other. Although the naked eye can discern from Otranto
the Acroceraunian mountains, the Italians and Hellenes came into
earlier and closer contact on every other pathway rather than on the
nearest across the Adriatic Sea, In their instance, as has happened
so often, the historical vocation of the nations was prefigured
in the relations of the ground which they occupied; the two great
stocks, on which the civilization of the ancient world grew, threw
their shadow as well as their seed, the one towards the east, the
other towards the west.

Italian History

We intend here to relate the history of Italy, not simply the history
of the city of Rome. Although, in the formal sense of political
law, it was the civic community of Rome which gained the sovereignty
first of Italy and then of the world, such a view cannot be held
to express the higher and real meaning of history. What has been
called the subjugation of Italy by the Romans appears rather,
when viewed in its true light, as the consolidation into an united
state of the whole Italian stock--a stock of which the Romans were
doubtless the most powerful branch, but still were only a branch.

The history of Italy falls into two main sections: (1) its internal
history down to its union under the leadership of the Latin stock,
and (2) the history of its sovereignty over the world. Under the
first section, which will occupy the first two books, we shall have
to set forth the settlement of the Italian stock in the peninsula;
the imperilling of its national and political existence, and
its partial subjugation, by nations of other descent and older
civilization, Greeks and Etruscans; the revolt of the Italians
ag