The recent discovery that the malaria which has hitherto rendered parts of the Campagna almost uninhabitable during the summer is propagated by the mosquito (Anopheles claviger) marks a new epoch; the most diverse theories as to its origin had hitherto been propounded, but it is now Malaria. possible to combat it on a definite plan, by draining the marshes, protecting the houses by fine mosquito-proof wire netting (for Anopheles is not active by day), improving the water supply, &c., while for those who have fever, quinine (now sold cheaply by the state) is a great specific. A great improvement is already apparent; and a law carried in 1903 for the Bonifica dell’ Agro Romano compels the proprietors within a radius of some 6 m. of Rome to cultivate their lands in a more productive way than has often hitherto been the case, exemption from taxes for ten years and loans at 2½% from the government being granted to those who carry on improvements, and those who refuse being expropriated compulsorily. The government further resolved to open roads and schools and provide twelve additional doctors. Much is done in contending against malaria by the Italian Red Cross Society. In 1900 31% of the inhabitants of the Agro Romano had been fever-stricken; since then the figure has rapidly decreased (5.1% in 1905).
The wheat crop in 1906 in the Agro Romano was 8,108,500 bushels, the Indian corn 3,314,000 bushels, the wine 12,100,000 gallons and the olive oil 1,980,000 gallons,—these last two from the hill districts. The wine production had declined by one-half from the previous year, exportation Produce. having fallen off in the whole country. 1907, however, was a year of great overproduction all over Italy. The wine of the Alban hills is famous in modern as in ancient times, but will not as a rule bear exportation. The forests of the Alban hills and near the coast produce much charcoal and light timber, while the Sabine and Volscian hills have been largely deforested and are now bare limestone rocks. Much of the labour in the winter and spring is furnished by peasants who come down from the Volscian and Hernican mountains, and from Abruzzi, and occupy sometimes caves, but more often the straw or wicker huts which are so characteristic a feature of the Campagna. The fixed population of the Campagna in the narrower sense (as distinct from the hills) is less than 1000. Emigration to America, especially from the Volscian and Hernican towns, is now considerable.
2. Latium Novum or Adjectum, as it is termed by Pliny, comprised the territories occupied in earlier times by the Volsci and Hernici. It was for the most part a rugged and mountainous country, extending at the back of Latium proper, from the frontier of the Sabines to the sea-coast between Terracina and Sinuessa. But it was not separated from the adjacent territories by any natural frontier or physical boundaries, and it is only by the enumeration of the towns in Pliny according to the division of Italy by Augustus that we can determine its limits. It included the Hernican cities of Anagnia, Ferentinum, Alatrium and Verulae—a group of mountain strongholds on the north side of the valley of the Trerus (Sacco); together with the Volscian cities on the south of the same valley, and in that of the Liris, the whole of which, with the exception of its extreme upper end, was included in the Volscian territory. Here were situated Signia, Frusino, Fabrateria, Fregellae, Sora, Arpinum, Atina, Aquinum, Casinum and Interamna; Anxur (Terracina) was the only seaport that properly belonged to the Volscians, the coast from thence to the mouth of the Liris being included in the territory of the Aurunci, or Ausones as they were termed by Greek writers, who possessed the maritime towns of Fundi, Formiae, Caieta and Minturnae, together with Suessa in the interior, which had replaced their more ancient capital of Aurunca. Sinuessa, on the sea-coast between the Liris (Garigliano) and the Vulturnus, at the foot of the Monte Massico, was the last town in Latium according to the official use of the term and was sometimes assigned to Campania, while Suessa was more assigned to Latium. On the other hand, as Nissen points out (Italische Landeskunde, ii. 554), the Pons Campanus, by which the Via Appia crossed the Savo some 9 m. S.E. of Sinuessa, indicates by its name the position of the old Campanian frontier. In the interior the boundary fell between Casinum and Teanum Sidicinum, at about the 100th milestone of the Via Latina—a fact which led later to the jurisdiction of the Roman courts being extended on every side to the 100th mile from the city, and to this being the limit beyond which banishment from Rome was considered to begin.
Though the Apennines comprised within the boundaries of Latium do not rise to a height approaching that of the loftiest summits of the central range, they attain to a considerable altitude, and form steep and rugged mountain masses from 4000 to 5000 ft. high. They are traversed by three principal valleys: (1) that of the Anio, now called Teverone, which descends from above Subiaco to Tivoli, where it enters the plain of the Campagna; (2) that of the Trerus (Sacco), which has its source below Palestrina (Praeneste), and flows through a comparatively broad valley that separates the main mass of the Apennines from the Volscian mountains or Monti Lepini, till it joins the Liris below Ceprano; (3) that of the Liris (Garigliano), which enters the confines of New Latium about 20 m. from its source, flows past the town of Sora, and has a very tortuous course from thence to the sea at Minturnae; its lower valley is for the most part of considerable width, and forms a fertile tract of considerable extent, bordered on both sides by hills covered with vines, olives and fruit trees, and thickly studded with towns and villages.
It may be observed that, long after the Latins had ceased to exist as a separate people we meet in Roman writers with the phrase of nomen Latinum, used not in an ethnical but a purely political sense, to designate the inhabitants of all those cities on which the Romans had conferred “Latin rights” (jus Latinum)—an inferior form of the Roman franchise, which had been granted in the first instance to certain cities of the Latins, when they became subjects of Rome, and was afterwards bestowed upon many other cities of Italy, especially the so-called Latin colonies. At a later period the same privileges were extended to places in other countries also—as for instance to most of the cities in Sicily and Spain. All persons enjoying these rights were termed in legal phraseology Latini or Latinae conditionis.
Authorities.—For the topography of Latium, and the local history of its more important cities, the reader may consult Sir W. Gell’s Topography of Rome and its Vicinity (2nd ed., 1 vol., London, 1846); A. Nibby, Analisi storico-topografico-antiquaria della carta dei dintorni di Roma (3 vols., 2nd ed., 1848); J. Westphal, Die römische Kampagne (Berlin, 1829); A. Bormann, Alt-lateinische Chorographie und Städte-Geschichte (Halle, 1852); M. Zoeller, Latium und Rom (Leipzig, 1878); R. Burn’s Rome and the Campagna (London, 1871); H. Dessau, Corp. Inscr. Lat. v. xiv. (Berlin, 1887) (Latium); Th. Mommsen, Corp. Inscr. Lat. vol. x. pp. 498-675 (Berlin, 1883); G. Tomassetti, “Della Campagna Romana nel medio evo,” published in the Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria (Rome, 1874–1907), and separately (a work dealing with the medieval history and topography of the Campagna in great detail, containing also valuable notices of the classical period); by the same author, La Campagna romana (Rome, 1910 foll.); R. A. Lanciani, “I Comentari di Frontino intorno agli acquedotti,” Memorie dei Lincei (Rome, 1880), serie iii. vol. v. p. 215 sqq. (and separately), also many articles, and Wanderings in the Roman Campagna (London, 1909); E. Abbate, Guida della provincia di Roma (Rome, 1894, 2 vols.); H. Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, ii. (Berlin, 1902), 557 sqq.; T. Ashby, “The Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna,” in Papers of the British School at Rome, i. iii.-v. (London, 1902 foll.). (T. As.)
LATONA (Lat. form of Gr. Λητώ, Leto), daughter of Coeus
and Phoebe, mother of Apollo and Artemis. The chief seats of
her legend are Delos and Delphi, and the generally accepted
tradition is a union of the legends of these two places. Leto,
pregnant by Zeus, seeks for a place of refuge to be delivered.
After long wandering she reaches the barren isle of Delos, which,
according to Pindar (Frag. 87, 88), was a wandering rock borne
about by the waves till it was fixed to the bottom of the sea for
the birth of Apollo and Artemis. In the oldest forms of the
legend Hera is not mentioned; but afterwards the wanderings
of Leto are ascribed to the jealousy of that goddess, enraged
at her amour with Zeus. The foundation of Delphi follows
immediately on the birth of the god; and on the sacred way
between Tempe and Delphi the giant Tityus offers violence to
Leto, and is immediately slain by the arrows of Apollo and
Artemis (Odyssey, xi. 576-581; Apollodorus i. 4). Such are the
main facts of the Leto legend in its common literary form,
which is due especially to the two Homeric hymns to Apollo.
But Leto is a real goddess, not a mere mythological figure.
The honour paid to her in Delphi and Delos might be explained
as part of the cult of her son Apollo; but temples to her existed
in Argos, in Mantineia and in Xanthus in Lycia; her sacred
grove was on the coast of Crete. In Lycia graves are frequently
placed under her protection, and she is also known as a goddess of
fertility and as κουροτρόφος. It is to be observed that she appears
far more conspicuously in the Apolline myths than in those
which grew round the great centres of Artemis worship, the
reason being that the idea of Apollo and Artemis as twins is
one of later growth on Greek soil. Lycia, one of the chief seats
of the cult of Apollo, where most frequent traces are found of
the worship of Leto as the great goddess, was probably the earlier
home of her religion.
