The
representatives of some of these names, Torcello, Mazzorbo, Burano, are
familiar sounds to the Venetian at the present day.
From Padua came the largest stream of emigrants. They left the tomb of
their mythical ancestor, Antenor, and built their humble dwellings upon
the islands of the rivers Altus and Methamaucus, better known to us as
Rialto and Malamocco. This Paduan settlement was one day to be known to
the world by the name of Venice. But let us not suppose that the future
"Queen of the Adriatic" sprang into existence at a single bound like
Constantinople or Alexandria. For two hundred and fifty years, that is
to say for eight generations, the refugees on the islands of the
Adriatic prolonged an obscure and squalid existence--fishing, salt
manufacturing, damming out the waves with wattled vine-branches, driving
piles into the sand-banks, and thus gradually extending the area of
their villages. Still these were but fishing villages, loosely
confederated together, loosely governed, poor and insignificant, so that
the anonymous geographer of Ravenna, writing in the seventh century, can
only say of them, "In the country of Venetia there are some few islands
which are inhabited by men.
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