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[ The Italian Veneti, though often confounded with the Gauls, were more probably of Illyrian origin. See M. Freret, Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. * Note: Or Liburnian, according to Niebuhr. Vol. i. p. 172.—M.]
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[ See Maffei Verona illustrata, l. i. * Note: Add Niebuhr, vol. i., and Otfried Müller, die Etrusker, which contains much that is known, and much that is conjectured, about this remarkable people. Also Micali, Storia degli antichi popoli Italiani. Florence, 1832—M.]
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[ The first contrast was observed by the ancients. See Florus, i. 11. The second must strike every modern traveller.]
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[ Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. iii.) follows the division of Italy by Augustus.]
The European provinces of Rome were protected by the course of the Rhine and the Danube. The latter of those mighty streams, which rises at the distance of only thirty miles from the former, flows above thirteen hundred miles, for the most part to the south-east, collects the tribute of sixty navigable rivers, and is, at length, through six mouths, received into the Euxine, which appears scarcely equal to such an accession of waters. [78] The provinces of the Danube soon acquired the general appellation of Illyricum, or the Illyrian frontier, [79] and were esteemed the most warlike of the empire; but they deserve to be more particularly considered under the names of Rhætia, Noricum, Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Mæsia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece.