Dennis, George: The cities and cemeteries of Etruria: in two volumes (Band 1) (London, 1848)

chap, i.] PAST GREATNESS AND PRESENT DESOLATION. 2 L

is perhaps not incorrect, that it was demolished to supply
materials for the rebuilding of Rome,5 though the distance
would preclude the transport of more than the archi-
tectural ornaments. Its desolation must have been owing
either to the policy of Rome which proscribed its habita-
tion, or to malaria ;6 otherwise, a city which presented so
many advantages as almost to hare tempted the Romans
to desert their hearths and the sepulchres of their fathers,
would scarcely have been suffered to fall into utter decay,
and remain so for nearly four centuries. The Romans
most probably ceased to maintain the high cultivation of
its territory, and it became unhealthy, as at the present
day. This was the case with the Campagna in general,
which in very early times was studded with towns, but
under Roman domination became, what it has ever since
remained—a desert, whose vast surface is rarely relieved
by a solitary habitation*

After the lapse of ages the site was colonized afresh
by Augustus ; but the glory of Veii had departed—the
new colony occupied scarcely a third of the extent of the
ancient city, and struggled for a century for existence, till
in the days of Adrian it again sunk into decay. Yet it
is difficult to credit the assertion of Florus, that its very
site was forgotten. " This, then, was Veii!—who now re-
members its existence % What ruins ?—what traces of it
are left ? Hardly can we credit our annals, which tell us
Veii has been." 7 For the inscriptions found on the spot

5 II. p. 579, trans. the Mv/nicipium Augustma Vetens of the

6 Dionysius, however, (Excerpta Mai, inscriptions—could never have been of
XII. 14) tells us the air of Veii was very much importance, though the inscrip-
healthy, which is more than can be said tions mention several temples, a theatre,
of it now-a-days ; some of the inhabi- and baths ; for Strabo, who wrote in
tants of Isola, like Vale'ri the cicerone, the reign of Tiberius, speaks of it as an
being constant martyrs to the malaria insignificant place in his time—as one of
fever. the mXlxvcu ffvxvai of Etruria (V. p. 226,

7 Flor. I. 12. The Roman colony— ed. Casaub.)