Laudator Temporis Acti

[41] In what terms to describe the coast of Campania taken by itself, with its blissful and heavenly loveliness, so as to manifest that there is one region where nature has been at work in her joyous mood! And then again all that invigorating healthfulness all the year round, the climate so temperate, the plains so fertile, the hills so sunny, the glades so secure, the groves so shady! Such wealth of various forests, the breezes from so many mountains, the great fertility of its corn and vines and olives, the glorious fleeces of its sheep, the sturdy necks of its bulls, the many lakes, the rich supply of rivers and springs flowing over all its surface, its many seas and harbours and the bosom of its lands offering on all sides a welcome to commerce, the country itself eagerly running out into the seas as it were to aid mankind. I do not speak of the character and customs of its people, its men, the nations that its language and its might have conquered. [42] The Greeks themselves, a people most prone to gushing self-praise, have pronounced sentence on the land by conferring on but a very small part of it the name of Great Greece!

[41] qualiter Campaniae ora per se felixque illa ac beata amoenitas, ut palam sit uno in loco gaudentis opus esse naturae! iam vero tanta ea vitalis ac perennis salubritas, talis caeli temperies, tam fertiles campi, tam aprici colles, tam innoxii saltus, tam opaca nemora, tam munifica silvarum genera, tot montium adflatus, tanta frugum vitiumque et olearum fertilitas, tam nobilia pecudi vellera, tam opima tauris colla, tot lacus, tot amnium fontiumque ubertas totam eam perfundens, tot maria, portus, gremiumque terrarum commercio patens undique et tamquam iuvandos ad mortales ipsa avide in maria procurrens.  neque ingenia ritusque ac viros et lingua manuque superatas commemoro gentes. [42] de ea iudicavere Grai, genus in gloriam suam effusissimum, quotam partem ex ea appellando Graeciam Magnam!