The countries of Central Italy were Etruria, Latium, and Campania, facing
the Western, or Tuscan Sea; Umbria and Picenum, looking out over the
Eastern, or Adriatic Sea; and Samnium and the country of the Sabines,
occupying the rough mountain districts of the Apennines.

Southern Italy comprised the countries of Apulia, Lucania, Calabria, and
Bruttium. Calabria occupied the "heel," and Bruttium formed the "toe," of
the peninsula. This part of Italy, as we have already learned, was called
Magna Graecia, or "Great Greece," on account of the number and importance
of the Greek cities that during the period of Hellenic supremacy were
established in these regions.

The large island of Sicily, lying just off the mainland on the south, may
be regarded simply as a detached fragment of Italy, so intimately has its
history been interwoven with that of the peninsula. In ancient times it
was the meeting-place and battleground of the Carthaginians, Greeks, and
Romans.

EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY.--There were, in early times, three chief races
in Italy--the Italians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks. The Italians, a
branch of the Aryan family, embraced many tribes (Latins, Umbrians,
Sabines, Samnites, etc.), that occupied nearly all Central Italy. The
Etruscans, a wealthy, cultured, and maritime people of uncertain race,
dwelt in Etruria, now Tuscany. Before the rise of the Romans they were the
leading race in the peninsula. Of the establishment of the Greek cities in
Southern Italy, we have already learned in connection with Grecian History
(p. 111).

Some five hundred years B.C., the Gauls, a Celtic race, came over the
Alps, and settling in Northern Italy, became formidable enemies of the