whole of this vast lowland country passed into Roman administration,
to become the chief province of Caesar's great triple command, and one
of the most valuable parts of the empire.

What, then, is the relation of this vast lowland country between the
Alps and the Apennines to Italy proper? It stands as it has always
stood to her as a great defence. For if, as we must, we consider Italy
as the shrine, the sanctuary, and the citadel of Europe, a place apart
and separate--and because of this she has been able to do her work
both secular and religious--what has secured her but Cisalpine Gaul?
The valley of the Po, all this vast plain, appears in history as the
cockpit of Europe, the battlefield of the Celt, the Phoenician, the
Latin, and the Teuton, of Catholic and Arian, strewn with victories,
littered with defeats, the theatre of those great wars which have
built up Europe and the modern world. If the Gauls had not been broken
by the plain, they would perhaps have overwhelmed Italy and Rome; if
Hannibal had found there enemies instead of friends, the Oriental
would not so nearly have overthrown Europe. It broke the Gothic
invasion, Attila never crossed it, it absorbed the worst of the
appalling Lombard flood; Italy remains to us because of it.

Now since Cisalpine Gaul thus secured Italy, the entry from the one to
the other, the road between them must always have been of an immense
importance. That entry and that road, whenever they were in dispute,
Ravenna commanded, and a good half of her importance lies in this.

I say whenever they were in dispute: in time of peace that road and
that entry were not in the keeping of Ravenna but of Rimini.

A study of the map will show us that though the Apennines shut off