i.
c.9.Fabretti has composed a very learned treatise on the aqueducts of Rome.] We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the public works, of the Roman empire.

The observation of the number and greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former, and to multiply the latter.

It may not be unpleasing to collect a few scattered instances relative to that subject without forgetting, however, that from the vanity of nations and the poverty of language, the vague appellation of city has been indifferently bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentum.
I.Ancient Italy is said to have contained eleven hundred and ninety-seven cities; and for whatsoever aera of antiquity the expression might be intended, [74] there is not any reason to believe the country less populous in the age of the Antonines, than in that of Romulus.
The petty states of Latium were contained within the metropolis of the empire, by whose superior influence they had been attracted.

[741] Those parts of Italy which have so long languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and viceroys, had been afflicted only by the more tolerable calamities of war; and the first symptoms of decay which they experienced, were amply compensated by the rapid improvements of the Cisalpine Gaul.

The splendor of Verona may be traced in its remains: yet Verona was less celebrated than Aquileia or Padua, Milan or Ravenna.