Note 168 — Chapter III · GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE.

Varro gave the preference to the soil and climate of Italy, where everything good was produced in perfection. He thought no barley to be compared with the Campanian, no wheat with the Apulian, no rye with the Falernian, no oil with the Venafran. The whole country was so thickly planted with trees that it seemed to be an orchard. Not even Phrygia itself abounded more in vineyards; nor was Argos so fertile as parts of Italy, though it was said to produce from ten to fifteen pipes the juger. De Re Rustica, i. 2. p. 46. b.