DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62267#0354
344
CLASSICAL TOUR
may be admitted as satisfactory proofs of its
reality.
In fine, the eloquent lamentations of Lucan,
which I have cited upon a former occasion, prove
that in his time, though no civil war or interior
calamity had intervened, the very vicinity of the
Capital itself was very thinly inhabited; an evil
which he poetically ascribes to one single battle
in the contest which he celebrates. His words,
even when a due allowance is made for the fictions
of the poet, and the exaggeration of his style, bear
so much upon the point, that I think it neces-
sary to insert them.
Non aetas haec carpsit edax, monimentaque rerum
Pntria destituit: crimen civile videmus,
Tot vacuas urbes. Generis quo turba redacta est
Humani 1 toto populi qui nascimur orbe
Nec muros implere viris nec possumus agros.
Urbs nos una capit; vincto fossore coluntur
Hesperia segetes; stat tectis putris avitis
In nullos ruitura domus.
Lib. vii.
Now, as to cultivation, Italy, with all its fer-
tility, did not, it seems, produce a sufficient
quantity of corn to supply the wants of her own
inhabitants; for even so early as the reign of
Augustus; Egypt had become the granary of the
Capital, and that prince, after the defeat of Am
CLASSICAL TOUR
may be admitted as satisfactory proofs of its
reality.
In fine, the eloquent lamentations of Lucan,
which I have cited upon a former occasion, prove
that in his time, though no civil war or interior
calamity had intervened, the very vicinity of the
Capital itself was very thinly inhabited; an evil
which he poetically ascribes to one single battle
in the contest which he celebrates. His words,
even when a due allowance is made for the fictions
of the poet, and the exaggeration of his style, bear
so much upon the point, that I think it neces-
sary to insert them.
Non aetas haec carpsit edax, monimentaque rerum
Pntria destituit: crimen civile videmus,
Tot vacuas urbes. Generis quo turba redacta est
Humani 1 toto populi qui nascimur orbe
Nec muros implere viris nec possumus agros.
Urbs nos una capit; vincto fossore coluntur
Hesperia segetes; stat tectis putris avitis
In nullos ruitura domus.
Lib. vii.
Now, as to cultivation, Italy, with all its fer-
tility, did not, it seems, produce a sufficient
quantity of corn to supply the wants of her own
inhabitants; for even so early as the reign of
Augustus; Egypt had become the granary of the
Capital, and that prince, after the defeat of Am