Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/102

 86 ITALIA. the JIarsi (Cato, ap. Prisclan. is. 9) ; and there can be no doubt that the same relation subsisted be- tween the two nati(Mis : but we are wholly in the dark as to the origin of the Marsi themselves. Several circumstances, however, combine to render it probable that they were closely connected with the fcjabines, but whether as a distinct offset from that people, or that the two proceeded from one common stock, we have no means of determining. [Marsi.] The Frentani, on the other hand, are generally re- presented as a Samnite race ; indeed, both they and the Hirpini were so closely connected with the Sam- nites, that they are often considered as forming only a part of that people, though at other times they figure as independent and separate nations. But the traditions with regard to the establishment of the Hirpini and the origin of their name [Hiiipini], seem to indicate that they were the result of a sepa- rate migration, subsequent to that of the body of the Samnites. South of the Hirpini, again, the Lu- eanians are universally described as a Samnite co- lony, or rather a branch of the Samnites, who ex- tended their conquering arms over the greater part of the country called by the Greeks Oenotria, and thus came into direct collision with the Greek colo- nies on the southern coasts of Italy. [Magna Graecia.] At the height of their power the Lu- canians even made themselves masters of the Brut- tian peninsula ; and the subsequent revolt of the Bruttii did not clear that country of these Sabellia'/i invaders, the Bruttian people being apparently a mixed population, made up of the Lucanian con- querors and their Oenotrian serfs. [Brlttii.J AVhile the Samnites and their Lucanian progeny were thus extending their power on the S. to the Sicilian strait, they did not omit to make themselves masters of the fertile plains of Campania, which, together with the flourishing cities of Capua and Cumae, fell into their hands between 440 and 420 b. c. [Cam- PAXIA.] The dominion of the Sabellian race was thus esta- blished from the neighbourhood of Ancona to the southern extremity of Bruttium : but it nmst not be supposed that throughout this wide extent the popu- lation was become essentially, or even mainly, Sa- bellian. That people appears rather to have been a race of conquering warriors ; but the rapidity with which they became blended with the Oscan popula- tions that they found previously establisJied in some parts at least of the countries they subdued, seems to point to the conclusion that there was no very wide difference between the two. Even in Samnium itself (which probably formed their stronghold, and where they were doubtless more numerous in pro- portion) we know that they adopted the Oscan lan- guage ; and that, while the Romans speak of the people and their territory as Sabellian, they designate their speech as Oscan. (Liv. viii. I, x. 19, 20.) In like manner, we know that the Lucanian invaders carried with them the same language into the wilds of Bruttium ; where the double origin of the people was shown at a late period by their continuing to speak both Greek and Oscan. (Fest. p. 35.) The relations between these Sabellian conquerors and the Oscan inhabitants of Central Italy render it, on the whole probable, that the two nations were only branches from one common stock (Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 104), related to one another veiy much like the Normans, Danes, and Saxons. Of the language of" the Sabines themselves we have unfortunately scarcely any remains : but there are some words quoted by an- ITALIA. cient authors as being at once Sabine and Oscan ; and Varro (himself a native of Reate) bears distinct tes- timony to a comiection between the two. (Van-. L. L. vii. § 28, ed. Muller.) On the other hand, there are evidences that the Sabine language had considerable affinity with the Umbrian (Donaldson, Varron. p. 8); and this was probably the reason why Zenodotus of Troezen (ap. Dionys. ii. 49) de- rived the Sabines from an Umbrian stock. But, in fact, the Umbrian and Oscan languages were them- selves by no means so distinct as to exclude the supposition that the Sabine dialect may have been intermediate between the two, and have partaken largely of the characters of both. 4. Umbuians. — The general tradition of anti- quity appears to have fixed upon the Unibrians as the most ancient of all the races inhabiting the Italian peninsula. (Plin. iii. 14. s. 19 ; Flor. i. 17 ; Dionys. i. 19.) We are expressly told that at the earliest period of which any memoiy was preserved, they occupied not only the district where we find them in historical times, but the greater part of Etruria also ; while, across the Apeimines, they held the fertile plains (subsequently wrested from them by the Etruscans and the Gauls) from the neigh- bourhood of Ravenna to that of Ancona, and appa- rently a large part of Picenum also. Thus, at this time, the Unibrians extended from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian sea, and from the moirths of the Padus nearly to those of the Tiber. Of their origin or national affinities we learn but little from ancient authors ; a notion appears to have arisen among the Romans at a late period, though not alluded to by any writer of authority, that they were a Celtic or Gaulish race (Solin. 2. § 11 ; Serv. ad Aen. xii. 75.3; Isidor. Oriff. ix. 2), and this view has been adopted by many modem authors. (Walckenaer, Gcoyr. cks Gaules. vol. i. p. 10 ; Thierry, Hist, des Gauluis, vol. i.) But, in this instance, we have a much safer guide in the still extant remains of the Umbrian language, preserved to us in the celebrated Tabulae Eugubinae [Iguvium] ; and the researches of mo- dem philologers, which have been of late years espe- cially directed to that interesting monument, have sufficiently proved that it has no such close affinity with the Celtic as to lead its to derive the Unibrians from a Gaulish stock. On the other hand, these inquiries have fully established the existence of a general resemblance between the Umbrian, Oscan, and oldest Latin languages ; a resemblance not con- fined to particular words, but extending to the gram- matical forms, and the whole stractiu-e of the lan- guage. Hence we are fairly warranted in concluding that the Unibrians, Oscans, and Latins (one im- portant element of the nation at least), as well as the Sabines and their descendants, were only branches of one race, belonging, not merely to the same great family of the Indo-Teutonic nations, but to the same subdivision of that family. The Umbrian may Tery probably have been, as believed by the Romans, the most ancient branch of these kindred tribes ; and its language would thus bear much the same rela- tion to Latin and the later Oscan dialects that Moeso-Gothic does to the several Teutonic tongues. (Donaldson, Varron. pp. 78, 104, 105; Schwegler, Jidmische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 176.) 5. Etruscax-s. — While there is good reason to suppose a gener;il and even close aSinity between the nations of Central Italy which have just been re- viewed, there are equaJly strong grounds for re- garding the Etruscans as a people of wholly dif-