CHAPTER X THE WESTERN WORLD AND ROME TO THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC Section 40. The Western Mediterranean World AND Early Italy The western Mediterranean forms a large detached basin, The western marked off from the eastern Mediterranean by the Italian ranean world peninsula and the Island of Sicily. There is no geographical name for this western basin, but with its islands and surround- ing countries we may call it the western Mediterranean world. The most important land in the western Mediterranean world in early times was Italy. Italy ^ is not only four times as large as Greece, but, unlike Geography Greece, it is not cut up by a tangle of mountains into winding o" ita/^ valleys and tiny plains. The main chain of the Apennines, though crossing the peninsula obliquely in the north, is nearly parallel with the coasts and many of its outlying ridges are quite so. There are larger plains than we find anywhere in Greece ; at the same time there is much more room for upland 1 The area of Italy and its islands is about 110,000 square miles, roughly equaling the area of Nevada and not quite four times that of South Carolina. I 241
