Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/117

 858 ETBURIA. the people of that coontry; the other, havitig beeii compelled hj a great fanirae to emigrate with one- half of the existing popalation of Ljdia, had ulti- mately settled in the land of the Umbrians, and given to his people the name of Tyrseni. (Herod, i. 94.) The internal improbabilities of this narrative are obTioos : and the fkbles with which it is mingled, as weU as the introduction of the eponymous heroes Lydus and Tyrrhenns, impart to it a strongly mythical character. But the same tradition appean to have been related with some little variation by aeversl other authors (Dionys. i. 28), among the rest by Timaeus (Fr. 19. ed. Didot), and is alluded to by Lycophron (^Alex. 1351). It was also adopted by many Greek writers of later times, and, as already mentioned, became almost universally received among the Romans. (Scymn. Ch. 220; Strab. y. p. 219; Plut Both. 2; a long list of Boman authorities is collected by Dennis, Etruria, vol. i. p. zxxii.) We have, unfortuziately, no means of knowing whether it existed as a national tradition foaoag the Etruscans themselves, or, as appears more probable, was merely adopted by them, in the same uianner as the legend <^ Aeneas and the Trojan ookmy was by the Romans. But this view of the subjeot seems to have been iar leas generally received at the earliest period of liistorical research. We learn from Dionysius (L 28) that Xanthus the Lydian historian (an elder con* temporary of Herodotus) made no mention of this colonisation of Tyrrhenia, though he mentioned other less important settlements of the Lydians; and that lie represented the two sons of Atys as being named Lydus and Torrh^fUy and giving name to the two tribes of Lydians and Torrkebiant! thb latter name is known to us from other sources as that ci an Aisiatic people bordering upon the Lydians. (Stepb. Byz. t, V, Tof^os), Hence it seems very probable that the legend related to Herodotus had confounded the two nations of Tyrrhenians and Torrhebians. On the other hand, Hellanicus represented the Tyr- rheniansof Etruria as Pekuffiant^-whom he described, according to the custom of the logographers, as migrating direct from Thessaly to Italy, where they first founded the city of Spina near the mouth of the Padus, and thence pressed through the interior of the peninsula, and established themselves in Tyrrhenia. (Hellan. Fr. 1. ed. Didot; Dionys. L 28.) Dionysius himself, the only author of a later period who rejects the Lydian tradition, discards the view of Hellanicus also, and says that the Etruscans in his day were wholly distinct from every other people in their language, as well as mannerb, customs, and religious rites; hence he inclines to consider them as an aboriginal or autochthonous people. {Id. L SO). Among modem authors, many have adopted the Lydian tradition as an historical fact, and have sought to support it by pointuig out analogies and resemblances in the manners, religious rites, and architecture of the Etruscans with those of the Lydians and other nations of Asia Minor. (Dennis, Etruria, vol. i. p. xxxvii. &c ; Newman, Regal Rome, p. 100.) Others, while they reject this trsdition, hut admit the strongly oriental character of many of the customs and institutions of the Etruscans, have de- rived them from the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and other oriental nations : while Micali, a modem Tuscan writer of celebrity, is content to acquiesce in the opinion of Dionysius, that the Etruscans were an indigenous people of Italy, at the same time that he regards maay of their arts and institutioDs as im* ETRURIA. ported directly fitxn Egypt (llificali, AntichiPbpdU IttUiani^ vol. i. c. 7. pp. 99, 140, &c.) Niebuhr was the first to point out that the popu-- lation of Etraria was of a mixed character, and liiat in all inquiries into its origin we must discriminate between two different races, which existed simulta- neously in the country, during the period when we have any knowledge of its history. Of these two elements tiie one he r^ards as Pelasgic, (Composing the bulk of the population, especially of the more southern parts of Etruria, but existing in a state of serfdom or vassalage, having been conquered by a nation of invaders from the north, descending in the last instance from the mountains of Rhaetia. It is this conquering race whom he considers as the true Rasena, or Etruscans properly ao called, while the name of Tyrrhenians* (applied by the Greeks to the whole people) belonged oi right only to the Peksgio or subject population. The Rasena thus formed a dominant aristocracy, which however gradually be- came mingled into one people with the subject race, in the same manner as the Normans and Saxons in Englsnd. (Niebuhr, vol. i. pp. 109 — 142, LeeL <m Rom. Hist vol. i. pp. 57 — 67.) The theory of C. 0. MQller is in fact nothing mors than an ingenious modification of the Lydian tradi- tion qS Herodotus, so contrived as to adapt it to the fact (which he recognises in comnnm with Niebuhr and most recent inquirers) of the Pelasgic origin of a lai^e part of the population of Etruria. He con- siders the Tyrrhenians of Italy to be identical with those Tyrrhenian PeUugians (TvfNnjyol n^Acuryof, Soph. Fr. 256), the existence of which as a sea-faring people on the ishmds and coasts of the Aegaean Sea is a fact attested by many ancient authors. [Pk* LAsoi.] A body of these Pelasgians he supposes to have beien settled on the coast of Lydia, where they obtained the name of Tyrriienians fhxn a city of the name of Tyrrha; and tluit, being compelled at a late^ period to emigrate from thence, they repaired to the coasts of Etmria, where they founded the cities of Tarquinii and Agylla, and gradually acquired se much influence as to impart to the whole people whom they found there the name of Tyrrboiians. This preriously existing popuUtion he supposes to have been the Rasena xx Etruscans proper, and in- clines with Niebuhr to derive them from the moun- tains of Rhaetia. (M&ller, Etruiker, vol. i. EinkU. c. 2, ffetrwien, m KL Sckr, vol. i. pp. 13&^140.) Of the more recent theories, that of Lepsins (Tyrrkenitche Pekuger in Eirurim, 8vo. Ldpsig, 1842) deserves especial menti(«. He discards alto- gether the hypothesis of a separate nation of Rasena, and considere the Etruscans as resulting from a mixture of the invading Pelasgians with the Umbrians, who, according to several authorities, previously oos* cupied the country afterwards known as Etruria. To the above speculations must be added the results of recent inquiries mto the language of the ancient Etruscans. Unfortunately, the mnterialu which exist for these are so scan^ as to afibrd a very insecure basis for ethnological oondusiona. The greater part of the inscriptions extant are merely sepulchral, and contain therefore but a very few words, besides proper names. A nngle inscription preserved at Perugia extends to 46 ^es: but has hitherto defied all attempts at its interpretation^ But the researches of recent philologers, and a careful comparison of thb Perugian inscription with a few shorter ones, which have been discovered in the more sputherly part* of ^tnuia, seem to justify the lo^