Talk:Pontine Marshes

Declivity

The word declivity seems a little obscure to me. RJFJR (talk) 00:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Work to be done

Part of this is in error. The marshes per se were never a blossoming area, they were always a malarial marsh, since prehistoric times, very much like the marshes further north in Etruria, but much bigger. The author states Livy as a source but gives no chapter and verse! When you look a little further you see the "cities" (villages) and the garden area are sited around the marsh not on it. No, the marsh was not created by deforestation. That is all guess work and it is wrong. There was a drainage problem just as further north. It was only solved by filling in the marsh and channeling the waters. People did not use the road because it was always flooded and the bridges were always out. I realize my unreferenced article on the via appia stimulated this speculative article on the marsh. All I can say is, do better than I did, not worse. I will fix via appia but this needs to be fixed too. I'm sure there are plenty of interesting geologic studies available online. References especially need to be done. We need some latitudes and longitudes here. What did Livy say and where? Where were those places actually and where were they not? Let's make sense here: the anopheles mosquito did not appear there overnight. There is no appreciation of the size of that chunk of land, which takes up a big section of the coast of Italy. We need some geographic data. If you're interested, let's do it right, hey? (botteville)12.4.27.248 (talk) 21:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Update. I believe I have found the source of the original article, which appears here also. Editor - you could have saved us some trouble if you had included it in the first place. This source is ambiguous - it does not always distinguish between the Pontine marshes and the Pontine region. The region geologically includes what became "Old Latium." It rose out of the marsh through volcanic activity of the Alban mount. True the Volscians settled in the region and made to some extent a garden there. But, the settlements listed by Pliny and others are not IN the marsh, they are around it and the Latins settled old Latium. There was some reclamation in the vicinity of Tarracina, which was built on the marsh as well as in the coastal strip. It all depends on whether you mean Pontine geologic region or Pontine marsh. A marsh is a marsh is a marsh and you cannot and could never settle in it, unless you live on reed islands and build reed houses. The author is a bit equivocal. It is he who proposes the runoff theory; i.e., it was the Volscians who created the marsh by deforestation. Bunk. All the settments are around the marsh, and the Latins, who were there before the Volscians moved in, drew the line of Old Latium at the edge of the marsh. By digging in the fields we are probably not going to find any Bronze Age settlements there. Anyway I an expanding the article a little to adequately cover these sources and theories. This is why WP needs sources - a hasty check of the Internet and a hasty write-up off the top of your head doesn't do it. There is no great rush to publish untruth instead of truth.Dave (talk) 13:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems I'm speaking mainly to imaginary editors, as most of this comes from 1911 Britannica. I spend a lot of my time talking to dead men, but I am in some noble company in that. It wasn't one of their best articles, no disrespect intended, as they are a credible source as sources go. Man is limited. So, I put them on Wikisource and as I intend a total rewrite their text won't appear here any longer.Dave (talk) 14:18, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

S. P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI-X, Volume 1 Introduction and Book VI, p. 434 "the south-eastern end of the Latin plain was covered with marshes, which were not drained until the developement of the modern town of Latina. These were the 'Pomptine Marhses', and the ager Pomptinus was the dry land between them and the M. Lepini, that is the territory of Norba, Setia, and Circeii." So at least in Oakley's view, the Marshes should not be equalled with the ager Pomptinus as the introductory sentence currently does. Fornadan (t) 22:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Odd

At the moment, the first sentence sounds rather odd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.220.110 (talk) 10:18, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Old chap - if you are referring to what I think you are, it is more than odd; in fact it is not to be taken seriously. This is a formating error resulting from my moving pictures and losing caption text. So that is where it went. I fixed that. If you still find it odd let me know in what sense; otherwise, I shall presume we are square.Dave (talk) 14:03, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Challenge and remove

"In ancient days this low tract was fertile and well-cultivated, and contained several prosperous cities— Suessa Pometia, Ulubrae, perhaps the modern Cisterna, and others. Pliny reports that the Volsci created a blossoming landscape there around 500 BCE. In 367 BCE, the Romans successfully defeated the Volsci, but they lost the fruitful area in the following centuries. Because of the large need for wood for shipbuilding, as well as for kilns and the Roman water-heating systems, the trees on the mountain slopes were systematically cut down, with resultant erosion, a classic example of deforestation in Antiquity.

The three rivers Sisto, Uffente and Amazone changed their beds continuously, and each storm surge from the sea accumulated water, so that at times the rivers flowed backwards into the interior. In the south the country was below sea level by up to 40 cm. The tropical Anopheles mosquito, carrier of malaria, transferred its blood parasite to the local mosquito species Anopheles messeae; the marshland and the district far beyond became deadly by the end of the Republican period.

Attempts to drain the marshes were made by Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 BCE, when he constructed the Via Appia through them (the road having previously followed a devious course at the foot of the Volscian mountains); further attempts at draining the marshes were made at various times during the Roman period. All plans assumed that the water from the deepest part of the moorland had to be collected, in order to let it flow off to sea. Since no sufficient pumping capacities were available at that time, the plans proved technologically impossible. A canal ran through the Pontine Marshes parallel to the road, and for some reason that is not altogether clear, it was used in preference to the road during the Augustan period. The Roman Emperor Trajan in the early second century and the Ostrogoth Theodoric in the sixth attempted drainage projects to render the land workable, but failed. Trajan repaired the Via Appia, and Theodoric did the same some four hundred years later, but by the Middle Ages it had fallen into disrepair."

This section has not one reference. There are many inaccuracies. For example, I'd like to know how it can be fertile and well-cultivated and be flooded and malarial with backward-flowing rivers. Similarly, just where were all these cities? The article answers these questions, of course, but not in this over-sparse write-up, kluged up from Britannica in an incomprehensible way. I can't work with it, and I'm working on this now, so out it comes, challenged and unreferenced. Note also "All plans assumed..." - how would you know that? Moreover, the use of the canal is perfectly clear; the road was often out and travellers could not sit around for weeks waiting for the Roman army to fix it. And besides, as the sources make clear, if you had the money you could buy a berth on the barge, embark at night, sleep below decks, and wake up on the other side in the morning, avoiding the trouble and the mosquitos. Let the mule driver get malaria; he was probably a slave anyway. For the draining, they started with the land above sea level. There is no evidence at all that the astute Roman engineers, who knew enough about hydraulic engineering to run aquaducts from 20 miles or more away into the city over a perfectly straight course with a very slight gradient actually did not know some of the marsh was below sea level or really thought they could drain the water uphill. I am trying very hard not to be sarcastic, but my suggestion is to check these things out before you say them; otherwise, it is an essay and essays are not allowed.

References

The Pontine Marshes were finally drained and reclaimed in works begun in 1926 under the responsibility of

I think this is one of the most famous passages in all Wikipedia. Everyone quotes it. But - it has substantially no reference, is written like an essay, and is incorrect in places anyway. So, I'm rewriting. WP informs, it does not form, public opinion.Dave (talk) 03:45, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Challenge and remove

The project, constantly referred to in terms of a battle, ref "The region figures in the 'battle for wheat', the purpose of which is to enable Italy to produce all the wheat she requires so as to be independent of foreign supplies" (Russell 1939:276). end ref was a huge public relations boost for Mussolini, fulfilling his long-term belief in the “rural vocation of the Italian people” and their triumph over nature, an epitome of the Fascist conception of progress.

The article as it was includes no Russell ref and I can't be bothered to hunt it down especially since Russell if he did say that missed the whole point of the battle, which I did include along with a proper ref. It wasn't a battle for wheat or any other object, the entire project was organized in the same way a general would organize a battle. These unreferenced so-called goals of fascists are not what they had in mind. The idea is that a military-like organization of veterans (fasci) would take over society and the government and run it efficiently through discipline and a military-like hierarchy. Mussolini was not being hypocritical about the marsh initiative, it was one of the few things in which he believed with all his heart. It's too bad the effort was to some extent tainted by his espousing of malaria medical experments of marsh workers. Apart from that, the region owes its existence to Mussolini, although you could argue it was going to happen anyway. Naturally he made the most of the propaganda - so don't they all - but it was not undertaken for propagandistic purposes and he had no belief in the sacrosanctness of the individual; in fact, he was willing to sacrifice large numbers of them. He believed in the future (he got that from communism) and in the state. It is probably safe to say both communism and fascism are offshoots of German idealism, but that has nothing to do with this article. The removed write-up makes him sound like a glorified tour guide. It doesn;t belong here, and due to its essay-like characteristics not anywhere on WP I fear. Have you tried writing something for a blog site, which is nothing but essay?Dave (talk) 12:58, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

What is LUCE? ...mentioned in this article

What is LUCE? I can find no info, anywhere.

It is mentioned in this article that "... Mussolini was often photographed between workers, shirtless with a shovel in his hand, or threshing wheat at harvest time - these occasions were regularly filmed by LUCE for inclusion in nationally shown propaganda newsreels..."

Could LUCE be a commercial news service, based in Italy? Or a government run news service?

I once saw a LUCE logo on a newsreel about the sinking of the Andrea Doria. Obviously, that occurred long after Mussolini was gone. However, that LUCE logo on the image of the Andrea Doria still had a distinctive eagle emblem, that was similar to logos of the Fascist period.

71.207.224.57 (talk) 02:28, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

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About the supposed German 'bio warfare'

The article has this unreferenced statement:

>> Although it is true that the bog impeded the movement of heavy equipment, the Germans did not flood the marsh for that reason; the equipment under the heavy shelling from some of the largest artillery pieces the Germans had was going nowhere, anyway. <<

First, poorly written. Second, it makes little sense. It seems quite likely they wanted flooding to bog the advancing Allied forces down--since they moved so much on tracked and wheeled vehicles. If it even slowed down the forces for a day, it could help in a battle.

This whole assertion about bio-warfare seems poorly referenced and poorly stated.

Malaria would take some time to affect large number of people--the mosquito populations would take a long time re-establish everywhere.

It could be that the malaria was a calculation to punish the partisans fighting on the side of the Allies, but I would have to think flooding all the farmland was an even worse punishment. And the Germans would have known from N. Africa that the Allied military knew how to deal with malaria. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.241.72.9 (talk) 11:46, 12 January 2019 (UTC)