Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/462

 444 I T A L Y [GEOGUAPHY. the extant remains of the language have been found, and these consist of inscriptions of so brief and fragmentary a character as to afford a very imperfect basis for philological inferences. Such as they are, however, they seem to lead to the conclusion that the language spoken in this part of Italy was essentially distinct from the Oscan and Sabellian dialects of Central Italy ; while at the same time they present sufficient analogies with the Latin on the one hand and the Gre^k on the other to show that they belonged to the same family with those two well-known languages. The results, therefore, of the recent examination of these long neglected documents appear distinctly to confirm the statements of ancient authors, according to which the j inhabitants of the southern portion of the peninsula were a Pelasgic race, a term used by them in a very vague and general manner, but usually employed to designate the most ancient inhabitants both of Greece and Italy, who probably belonged to the same branch of the great Aryan race, The Pelasgic origin of the CEnotrians is not only asserted by the concurrent testimony of many ancient authors, but we are told that the native population of Southern Italy, who had been reduced to a state of serfdom analogous to that of the Penestie in Thessaly and the Helots in Laconia were still called Pelasgi. The evidence as to the Pelasgic origin of the Messapians or lapygians is less definite ; but the mythical genealogies in which the earliest Greek authors embodied the received traditions concerning the relations of different tribes and nations all point to the same conclusion ; and they certainly regarded the neighbouring tribes of the Peucetians and Daunians, who occupied a part of the country subse quently known as Apulia, as derived from the same stock. A strong confirmation of this view is found in the facility with which the inhabitants of these countries assimilated Greek customs and manners, though the actual Greek colonies founded among them in historical times were comparatively few. It must be observed that the name of Italians was at one time confined to the CEnotrians ; indeed, according to Antiochus of Syracuse, the name of Italy was at first still more limited, being applied only to the southern portion of the peninsula now known as Calabria. But in the time of that historian, as well as of Thucydides, the names of (Enotria and Italia, which appear to have been at that period regarded as synonymous, had come to be extended so as to include the shore of the Tarentine Gulf as far as Metapontum and from thence across to the Gulfs of Laus and Posidonia on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It thus still comprised only the two provinces subsequently known as Lucania and Bruttium. 2. The tribes of Central Italy, from the Umbrians in the mrth to the Campanians in the south, are known by exist ing remains of their languages to have spoken cognate dialects, presenting unquestionable affinities with each other, as well as with the earlier forms of the well-known language of the Latins. The differences, however, are still very considerable, and confirm the testimony of historical tradition, as preserved to us by ancient writers, in lead ing us to divide them into five separate groups, viz., the Umbrians, Sabines, Latins, Yolscians, and Oscans, or as they are sometimes termed Sabellians, including the Samnites and Campanians, and the tribes (such as the Lucanians, Frentani, &c.) who are distinctly recorded to have emanated from the Samnites. (1) The Umbrians, who occupied in historical times the eastern portion of the peninsula between Etruria and the Adriatic, were at an earlier period a much more powerful nation, and not only occupied the extensive tract subse quently wrested from them by the Gauls, but extended their dominion from sea to sea, and held the greater part, if not the whole, of the territory afterwards possessed by the Etruscans, which is said to have been wrested by that people foot by foot from the Umbrians. The concurrent voice of the traditions preserved to us from antiquity points, to the Umbrians as one of the most ancient nations of Italy ; and this is confirmed by the still extant remains of their language as shown in the celebrated inscriptions known as the EUGUBINE TABLES (f/-v.), by far the most important monument of any of the early Italian lan guages that has been transmitted to our time. The ela borate examination of this valuable record in recent times may be considered as establishing clearly, on the one hand,, the distinctness of the language from that of the neighbour ing Etruscans, and, on the other, its close affinity with the Oscan, as spoken by the Sabellian tribes, and with the old Latin. The same researches tend to prove that the Umbrian dialect is the most ancient of these cognate tongues, and probably represents most nearly the original form of this branch of the great Indo-Teutonic family. They may be taken also as distinctly negativing the theory put forth by some ancient writers, and maintained by several modern inquirers, that the Umbrians were a Celtic race. Before the time when the Umbrians came into contact with the advancing power of Home, their importance had greatly declined. The Etruscans had conquered from them the whole territory west of the Apennines, from the foot of the mountains to the Tyrrhenian Sea, while the Senonian Gauls, who invaded the north of Italy in the 4th century B.C., permanently established themselves in possession of the fertile district between the Apennines and the Adriatic^ extending from the neighbourhood of Ravenna to that of Ancona, which continued to be known until long afterwards as the &quot;Ager Gallicus.&quot; (2) The /Sabines are a people of whom, familiar as is their name to the student of lloman history, we know very little. Their language is totally lost ; not a single inscrip tion has been preserved to us, and it appears to have fallen into disuse at a comparatively early period. But even from the few scattered notices of Sabine words preserved by lloman grammarians it is evident that it possessed strong affinities with the Oscan and Umbrian ; and the facility with which it passed into those of the neighbouring races is a strong reason against there being any marked diversity between them. The traditions recorded by ancient writers, untrustworthy as they are in detail, all concur in pointing to the same result, that the Sabines were a very ancient people, who, at the earliest period of which any memory was preserved, were settled in the lofty mountain districts about the sources of the Aternus and the Velinu?, from which they subsequently descended into the more fertile valleys about Ileate, and at one time extended their dominion to within a few miles of Rome, Cures, which was universally reckoned a Sabine city, being only 24 miles from the capital, while Nomentum and Eretum, still nearer Rome, are included by several writers as Sabine towns. That a people inhabiting so rugged and inclement a dis trict as that which is represented as the original abode of the Sabines should have spread themselves into the neighbouring regions, and established offshoots in some what more favoured lands, is entirely in accordance with probability, and hence we can have no difficulty in accept ing the tradition that the Picentes, or inhabitants of Picenum, the fertile district along the coast of the Adriatic between that sea and the main ridge of the Apennines, from beyond Ancona to the river Matrino, were of Sabine origin. The same thing is expressly asserted by Ovid (himself a native of the district) of the Peligni, a tribe who occupied the upland valley of the Gizio, of which Sulmo was the capital ; and there can be little doubt that the