| an area in W Italy, SE of Rome: formerly marshy, now drained. |
Pon·tine Marshes  (pŏn'tēn, -tīn)  An area of central Italy between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Apennine foothills. Formerly a malarial breeding ground, the land was drained during the 1930s to produce fertile farmland. |
Pontine Marshes
reclaimed area in Latina provincia, Lazio (Latium) regione, south-central Italy, extending between the Alban Hills, the Lepini Mountains, and the Tyrrhenian Sea, and traversed by the Appian Way. Two tribes, the Pomptini and the Ufentini, lived in this district in early Roman times, but the region was already marshy and malarial during the later years of the Roman Republic. Several emperors and popes made unsuccessful attempts at reclamation, but throughout modern history the marshes remained unhealthy, inhabited by a handful of shepherds, with small fields on the higher eastern edge where peasants from towns high on the Lepini Mountains cultivated wheat. Rough pasture and maquis (a tough scrub) covered most of the area.
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