Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/103

 ITALIA. fercnt race and origin from those by ivhicli they were surrounded. This strongly marked distinctness from the other Italian races appears to have been recog- nised botli by lioman and Greek writers. Dionysius even affirms that the Etruscans did not resemble, either in language or manners, any other people whatsoever (Dionys. i. 30); and, liowever we may question the generality of this assertion, the fact in regard to their language seems to be borne out by the still existing remains of it. The various theories that have been proposed concerning their origin, and the views of modern philologers in regard to their language, are more fully discussed under the article Etruria. It may suffice here to state that two points may be considered as fairly established: — 1. That a considerable part of the population of Etruria, and especially of the more southern portions of that country, was (as already mentioned) of Pe- lasgic extraction, and continued to speak a dialect closely akin to the Greek. 2. That, besides this, there existed in Etniria a ])cople (probably a con- quering race) of wholly ditferent origin, who were the proper Etruscans or Tuscans, but who called themselves liasena; and that this race was wholly distinct from the other nations of Central Italy. As to the ethnical affinities of this pure Etmsc.an race, we are almost as much in the dark as was Dionysius; hut recent philological inquiries appear to have established the fact that it may be referred to the same great family of the Indo-Teutonic na- tions, though widely separated from all the other branches of that family which we find settled in Italy. There are not wanting, indeed, evidences of many points of contact and similarity, with tiie Umbrians on the one hand and the Pelasgians on the other; but it is probable that these are no more than would naturally result from their close juxta- position, and that mixture of the diflerent races which had certainly taken place to a large extent before the period from wliieh all our extant monu- ments are derived. It may, indeed, reasonably be assumed, that the Umbrians, who appear to have been at one time in possession of the greater part, if not the whole, of Etruria, would never be altogether expelled, and that there must always have remained, especially in the N. and E., a subject population of Umbrian race, as there was in the more southern districts of Pelasgian. The statement of Livy, which represents the Rhaetians as of the same race with the Etruscans (v. 3.3), even if its accuracy be admitted, throws but little light on the national affinities of the latter; for we know, in fact, nothing of the Khaetians, either as to their language or origin. It only remains to advert briefly to the several branches of the population of Northern Italy. Of these, by far the most numerous and important were the Gauls, who gave to the whole basin of the Po the name of Gallia Cisalpina. They were universally admitted to be of the same race with the Gauls who inhabited the countries beyond the Alps, and their migration and settlement in Italy were referred by the Roman historians to a comparatively recent period. The history of these is fully given under Gallia Cisalpina. Adjoining the Gauls on the SW., both slopes of the Apennines, as well as of the Maritime Alps and a part of the plain of the Po, were occupied by the Ligurians, a people as to whose national affinities we are almost wholly in the dark. [Liguria.] It is certain, however, from the positive testimony of ancient writers, that they ITALIA. 87 were a distinct race from the Gauls (Strab. ii. p. ] 28), and there seems no doubt that they were established in Northern Italy long before the Gallic invasion. Nor were they by any means confined to the part of Italy which ultimately retained their name. At a very early period we learn that they occupied the whole coast of the IIediterranean, from the foot of the Pyrenees to the frontiers of Etruria, and the Greek writers uniformly speak of the people who occupied the neighbourhood of JMassilia, or the modern Provence, as Ligurians, and not Gauls. (Strab. iv. p. 203.) At the same period, it is probable that they were more widely spread also in the basin of the Po than we find them when they appear in Roman history. At that time the Taurini, at the foot of the Cottian Alps, were the most northern of the Ligurian tribes; while S. of the Padus they ex- tended probably as far as the Trcbia. Along the shores of the ]Iediterranean they possessed in the time of Polybius the whole country as far as Pisae and the mouths of the Arnus, while they held the fastnesses of the Apennines as far to the E. as the frontiers of the Arretine territory. (Pol. ii. IG.) It was not till a later period that the Macra became the established boundaiy between the Roman pro- vinc'e of Liguria and that of Etruria. Bordering on the Gauls on the E., and separated from them by the river Athesis {Adlije), were the Veneti, a people of whom we are distinctly told that their language was diilerent from that of the Gaul.s (Pol. ii. 17), but of whom, as of the Ligurians, we know rather what they were not, than what they were. The most probable hypothesis is, that they were an Illyrian race (Zeuss, iJie Deutschvn, p. 251 ), and there is good reason for referring their neigh- bours the IsTKiANS to the same stock. On the other hand, the Carni, a mountain tribe in the extreme NE. of Italy, who immediately bordered both on the Venetians and Istrians, were more pro- bably a Celtic race [Carni]. Another name which we meet with in this part cf Italy is that of the Euganei, a people who had dwindled into insignificance in historical times, but whom Livy describes as once great and power- ful, and occupying the whole tracts from the Alps to the sea. (Liv. i. 1.) Of their national affinities we know nothing. It is possible that where Livy speaks of other Alpine races besides the Rhaetians, as being of common origin with the Etruscans (v. 33), that he had the Euganeans in view; but this is mere conjecture. He certainly seems to have re- garded them as distinct both from the Venetians and Gauls, and as a more ancient people in Italy than either of those races. V. History. The history of ancient Italy is for the most part inseparably connected with that of Rome, and cannot be considered apart from it. It is impossible here to attempt to give even an outline of that history; but it may be useful to the student to present at one view a brief sketch of the progress of the Roman arms, and the period at which the several nations of Italy successively fell under their yoke, as well as the measures by which they were gradually con- solidated into one homogeneous whole, in the form that Italy assumed under the rule of Augustus. The few facts known to us concerning the history of the several nations, before their conquest by the Romans, will be found in their respective articles ; that of the Greek colonies in Southern Italy, and G 4