Orbitello is clearly proved to have been an Etruscan town; perhaps, according to Mr. Dennis, founded by the Pelasgi, "for the foundations of the sea-wall which surrounds it on three sides are of vast polygonal blocks, just such as are seen in many ancient sites of central Italy (Norba, Segni, Palæstrina, to wit), and such as compose the walls of the neighboring Cosa." Tombs of Etruscan construction have also been found in the immediate neighborhood of the city, on the isthmus of sand which connects it with the mainland. Others also have been found within the circuit of the walls. The tombs have been unusually productive; in part, no doubt, because they appear to have escaped earlier plunderers. Vases, numerous articles in bronze, and gold ornaments of great beauty have been found. Of the town itself, which from the distance has a very picturesque aspect, Mr. Dennis says: "It is a place of some size, having nearly six thousand inhabitants, and among Maremma towns is second only to Grosseto. It is a proof how much population tends to salubrity in the Maremma that Orbitello, though in the midst of a stagnant lagoon ten square miles in extent, is comparatively healthy, and has more than doubled its population in thirty years, while Telamona and other small places along the coast are almost deserted in summer, and the few people that remain become bloated like wine-skins or yellow as lizards." But the inland district is full of ruins and remnants of towns which in many cases were strongholds long before Romulus traced out the lines of the walls of Rome with his plough, if indeed that ever happened. Ansedonia, the ancient Cosa, is a very few miles away, Rusellæ, Saturnia, Sovana at a considerably greater distance; farther to the south rises another of these forest-clad ridges which, whether insulated by sea or by fen, are so characteristic of this portion of the Italian coast. Here the old walls of Corno, another Etruscan town, may be seen to rise above the olive-trees and the holm-oaks.
Beyond this the lowland becomes more undulating, and the foreground scenery a little less monotonous. Corneto now appears, crowning a gently shelving plateau at the end of a spur from the inland hills, which is guarded at last by a line of cliffs. Enclosed by a ring of old walls, like Cortona, it "lifts to heaven a diadem of towers." In site and in aspect it is a typical example of one of the old cities of Etruria. Three hundred feet and more above the plain which parts it from the sea, with the gleaming water full in view on one side and the forest-clad ranges on the other, the outlook is a charming one, and the attractions within its walls are by no means slight. There are several old churches, and numerous Etruscan and Roman antiquities are preserved in the municipal museum. The town itself, however, is not of Etruscan origin, its foundation dates only from the Middle Ages; but on an opposite and yet more insulated hill the ruins of Tarquinii, one of the great cities of the Etrurian League, can still be traced; hardly less important than Veii, one of the most active cities in the endeavor to restore the dynasty of the Tarquins, it continued to flourish after it had submitted to Rome, but it declined in the dark days which followed the fall of the Empire, and never held up its head after it had been sacked by the Saracens, till at last it was deserted for Corneto, and met the usual fate of becoming a quarry for the new town. Only the remnants of buildings and of its defenses are now visible; but the great necropolis which lies to the southeast of the Corneto, and on the same spur with it, has yielded numerous antiquities. A romantic tale of its discovery, so late as 1823, is related in the guide-books. A native of Corneto in digging accidentally broke into a tomb. Through the hole he beheld the figure of a warrior extended at length, accoutred in full armour. For a few minutes he gazed astonished, then the form of the dead man vanished almost like a ghost, for it crumbled into dust under the influence of the fresh air. Numerous subterranean chambers have since been opened; the contents, vases, bronzes, gems and ornaments, have been removed to museums or scattered among the cabinets of collectors, but the mural paintings still remain. They are the works of various periods from the sixth to the second or third century before the Christian era, and are indicative of the influence exercised by Greek art on the earlier inhabitants of Italy.
