HKB
[Sidenote: A gold mine near Aquileia.]
Near Aquileia, in the territory of the Noric Taurisci, in my own time a gold mine was discovered, so easy to work, that by scraping away the surface soil for two feet, gold could be found immediately. The seam of gold was not more than fifteen feet; some of it was found unmixed with alloy in nuggets of the size of a bean or lupine, only an eighth of it disappearing in the furnace; and some wanted more elaborate smelting, but would still pay thoroughly well. Accordingly, on the Italians joining the barbarians in working this mine, in two months the price of gold went down a third throughout Italy: and when the Taurisci found out that, they expelled their Italian fellow-workers and kept the monopoly themselves....
[Sidenote: The four passes of the Alps,—the Cornice, Argentière, Genèvre (Val d’Aosta), Cenis.]
[Sidenote: Lago Maggiore.]
[Sidenote: Lago di Garda, Lago di Como.]
If we compare the mountains in Greece—Taygetus, Lycaeus, Parnassus, Olympus, Pelion, Ossa, and those in Thrace—Haemus, Rhodope, Dunax, with the Alps, we may state the case thus. Each one of the former may be ascended or skirted by an active traveller in a single day; but no one could ascend the Alps even in five days, the distance from the plain being two thousand two hundred stades. There are but four passes, one through Liguria, nearest the Tyrrhenian Sea; the next through the Taurini, which was the one used by Hannibal; the third through the Salassi; and the last by the Rhaeti,[226] all of them excessively precipitous. There are several lakes in the mountains, three of great size, the Benacus, five hundred by one hundred and thirty stades, out of which the Mincius flows; the Larius, four hundred stades long, and somewhat narrower than the Benacus, discharging the Addua; and thirdly, the Verbanus, about three hundred stades by thirty, from which comes a considerable river—the Ticinus. All these three rivers discharge themselves into the Padus....
[Sidenote: Capuan wine.]
+11.+ There is an excellent wine made at Capua called Anadendrites, or the “wine of the climbing vine,” with which no other can compare....
The length of the coast from Iapygia to the straits is three thousand stades by land, and it is washed by the Sicilian sea. Sailing, however, the distance is less than five hundred stades....
The largest distance of the Etrurian coast is from Luna to Ostia, a distance of one thousand three hundred and thirty stades.[227]...
The island Lemnos is called Aethaleia....
[Sidenote: The Bay of Naples.]
The bay between the two promontories of Misenum and Minerva is called the Crater (the Bowl). Above this coast lies the whole of Campania, the most fertile plain in the country. Round the Bowl live the Opici and the Ausones....
[Sidenote: Eastern coast-road from S. to N. of Italy.]
The north road from Iapygia has been marked out with miles, five hundred and sixty to Sena, and one hundred and seventy thence to Aquileia....
[Sidenote: The Lacinian promontory.]
Then comes Lacinium ... from the straits to this place is a distance of one thousand three hundred stades, and thence to the Iapygian promontory seven hundred....
[Sidenote: The craters in the volcanic Holy Island one of the Lipari group.]