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At the commencement of the year the attention of the people was drawn away from the Etrurian war, because a body of fugitives from the Pomptine district, suddenly entering the city, brought word that the Antians were up in arms; and that the states of the Latins privately sent their youth to that war, denying that there was any public concert in it, they alleging that volunteers were only not prevented from serving in whatever quarter they pleased.
The old burgess-domain had hitherto been enlarged chiefly by individual assignation in such a way that southern Etruria as far as towards Caere and Falerii, the districts taken from the Hernici on the Sacco and on the Anio the largest part of the Sabine country and large tracts of the territory formerly Volscian, especially the Pomptine plain were converted into land for Roman farmers, and new burgess-districts were instituted mostly for their inhabitants.
Of feuds with the neighbouring Latin and Volscian communities the Roman annals of the regal period recount more than enough; but only a few detached notices, such as that perhaps of the capture of Suessa in the Pomptine plain, can be held to contain a nucleus of historical fact.
In Italy at least great works of drainage were prosecuted as well as the formation of roads. In 594 the drying of the Pomptine marshes a vital matter for Central Italy was set about with great energy and at least temporary success; in 645 the draining of the low-lying lands between Parma and Placentia was effected in connection with the construction of the north Italian highway.
Scenic representations first introduced. Curtius leaps on horseback completely armed into a gulf in the forum. Titus Manlius, having slain a Gaul in single combat, who challenged any of the Roman soldiers, takes from him a golden chain, and hence gets the name of Torquatus. Two new tribes are added, called the Pomptine and Publilian.
The minds of the enemy being so terrified by this calamity, that they felt a certain alarm, even after it had abated the Romans both augmented the number of their colonists at Velitrae, and despatched a new colony to the mountains Of Norba to serve as a stronghold in the Pomptine district.
About the period when Veii and the Pomptine plain came into the hands of Rome, the Samnite hordes were already in possession of all Lower Italy, with the exception of a few unconnected Greek colonies, and of the Apulo-Messapian coast.
But considerable cuttings would be required on that more elevated part of the Campagna which lies between the mountains of Alba and the nearest part of the coast. The basin of the Pomptine marshes is bounded by the offsets of the Alban mountains, the Volscian mountains, and the sea. In the central part it is only a few feet above the sea-level, and in some parts it is below it.
Don't be astonished if there is a somewhat longer interval than usual between my letters: for I intend being out of town in April. I write this letter in the Pomptine district, having put up at the villa of M. Æmilius Philemo, from which I could hear the noise of my clients, I mean those you confided to me!
The portion of the Diary which relates to this celebrated proceeding is lively and picturesque. Yet we read it, we own, with pain; for it seems to us to prove that the fine understanding of Frances Burney was beginning to feel the pernicious influence of a mode of life which is as incompatible with health of mind as the air of the Pomptine marshes with health of body.
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