A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

(A stadium
is about 600
feet.)
Campania.
Strabo V. 4. 3.
Polybius
91.
The text is
uncertain.
iii.
330 Italy and her People
to enable them to finish their voyage speedily.
Lightened
of a part of their cargo, they enter the river and sail up to
Rome, a distance of a hundred and ninety stadia. Such
is
the city of Ostia founded by Ancus Marcius.
Next in order after Latium is Campania, which extends
along the Tuscan Sea. . . . This plain is fertile above
all others, and is entirely surrounded by fruitful hills and
the Samnite and Oscan mountains.
The plains about Capua are the best in Italy for fertility
and beauty and nearness to the sea, and for the harbors,
into which run the merchants who are sailing to Italy from
all parts of the world. They contain, too, the most famous
and beautiful cities of Italy. ... In the centre of these
plains lies the richest of all the cities,—Capua. No tale
in all mythology wears a greater appearance of probability
than that which is told of these lowlands, which like others
of remarkable beauty are called the Phlegraean plains; for
surely none are more likely for beauty and fertility to have
been contended for by the gods.
In addition to these advantages, they are strongly
sheltered by nature and difficult of approach; for one
side is protected by the sea, and the rest by a long high
chain of mountains, through which lead but three passes
from the interior, all narrow and difficult,—one from
Samnium (a second from Latium), and a third from Hirpini.
Strabo V. 4. 3. One proof of the fertiUty of this country is that it produces
the finest corn.
I refer to the grain from which a
groat is made superior to all kinds of rice, and to almost
all other farinaceous food. They say that some of the
plains are bearing crops all
the year round,—two crops
of rye, a third of panic, and sometimes a fourth of vegetables.
From there, too, the Romans procure their finest