[1145] Now Vaison, in the department of Vaucluse.
[1146] “The Grove of Augustus.” This town appears to have been overflowed by the river Druma, which formed a lake on its site. Its remains were still to be seen in the lake in modern times, and from it the town on the margin of the lake takes its name of Le Luc.
[1147] Under the name “formula” Pliny perhaps alludes to the official list of the Roman government, which he had consulted for the purposes of accuracy.
[1148] Bouche places the site of this people at the village of Avançon, between Chorges and Gap, in the department of the Hautes Alpes.
[1149] The present town of Digne, in the department of the Basses Alpes.
[1150] It is not known from what points these measurements of our author are taken.
[1151] The modern names of these localities will form the subject of consideration when we proceed, in c. [7], to a more minute description of Italy.
[1152] This passage is somewhat confused, and may possibly be in a corrupt state. He here speaks of the Apennine Alps. By the “lunata juga” he means the two promontories or capes, which extend east and west respectively.
[1153] This seems to be the meaning of “alumna,” and not “nurse” or “foster-mother,” as Ajasson’s translation has it. Pliny probably implies by this antithesis that Rome has been “twice blessed,” in receiving the bounties of all nations of the world, and in being able to bestow a commensurate return. Compared with this idea, “at once the nurse and mother of the world” would be tame indeed!
[1154] By adding its deified emperors to the number of its divinities. After what Pliny has said in his Second Book, this looks very much like pure adulation.