Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/464

 446 ITALY [GEOGRAPHY. element, but there seems no doubt that the northern part of the province known to the Romans under that name had been occupied by a Samnite population, while the tribes south of Mount Garganus the Daunians and Peucetians probably retained their nationality, though brought under subjection by the Samnites. The monuments of the Oscan language, though not numerous, are more considerable than those of any other of the early Italian languages, except the Umbrian, and can for the most part be interpreted with reasonable certainty by the assistance of Latin. The most important of them are (1) The Tabula Bantina, a bronze tablet found in the neighbourhood of Bautia (Banzi), on the borders of Apulia and Lucania, which relates to the municipal affairs of that town ; (2) the Cippus Abellanus, so called from its having been found near Abella in Campania, containing a treaty or agreement between the two neighbouring cities of Nola and Abella ; and (3) a bronze tablet more recently discovered in the neighbourhood of Agnone in northern Samnium, recording the dedication of various sacred offer ings. It is interesting to observe that these three specimens of the ancient dialect have been found in nearly the most distant quarters of the Oscan territory, None have as yet been found in Lucania or Bruttium, but we know from Festus that the Bruttians spoke Oscan. The language was thus at one time spoken through the whole of the southern peninsula. It doubtless ceased to be employed officially after the defeat of the Samnites and their allies in the Social War (90-88 B.C.) ; but the numerous minor inscriptions found rudely scratched or painted on the walls of Pompeii show that it continued in vernacular use until a much later period. 3. The Etruscans. The obscure question of the origin and affinities of this remarkable people, and the attempts that have been made to interpret their language, have been fully discussed in the article ETRUEIA. For the present we must be content to acquiesce in the conclusion, which is in accordance with all the statements of ancient authors, that they were a people wholly distinct from all others in Italy, while the researches of modern writers have been able to throw but very little light upon their language or ethnical affinities. Northern Italy. The ethnography of Northern Italy is much more simple than that of the central regions of the peninsula. At the time when the Romans first became acquainted with this part of Italy, the whole country was divided among three nations the Gauls, the Ligurians, and the Veneti or Venetians. (1) Of these the Gauls, who occupied the extensive plains in the valley of the Po and its tributaries, arid had extended their dominion from the Alps to the Apennines and the Adriatic, were unquestionably intruders or im migrants, who had crossed the Alps at a comparatively late period. The last emigration was that in which the Senones or Senonian Gauls established themselves, as has been already mentioned, in the coast land of Umbria between the Apennines and the Adriatic ; and this invasion was, according to the Roman historians, directly connected with the capture of Rome in 390 B.C. But the migration of the great mass of the Gauls who occupied -the plains of Northern Italy undoubtedly took place at a much earlier period, and is assigned by Livy, our only authority on the subject, and who unfortunately does not mention the sources from which he derived his information, to the reign of the elder Tarquin at Rome (616-578 B.C.). Who were the people that inhabited this country previous to their irruption we do not know with certainty, but the districts adjoining the foot of the Alps on the west were undoubtedly in the hands of Ligurian tribes, and those in the south at the foot of the Apennines had probably been at one time occupied by the Umbrians, who had, however, previous to the Gaulish invasion been either driven out or reduced to- subjection by the Etruscans. Of the character and extent of the Etruscan settlements in the region north of the Apennines we have very little information ; but the state ments of ancient authors that they had at one time extended their dominion over a considerable part of Northern Italy, and founded large cities among which Felsina (afterwards called Bononia) and Mantua are especially mentioned have been confirmed of late years by the discovery of undoubted Etruscan remains at Bologna and other places north of the Apennines (see ETRURIA). But it may well be doubted whether they ever formed the population of these countries ; it appears more probable that they were merely a race of more civilized settlers in the midst of the native tribes. Of the Gaulish tribes whose names are known to us as established in the north of Italy at the time when they first came into collision with the Roman arms, the most important were the Insubres and Cenomani to the north of the Po, and the Boii and Lingones to the south of that river. Immediately west of the Ticinus, the Lsevi are expressly called by Livy a Ligurian tribe, while beyond the Adige to the east began the Veneti and Euganei, so that the territory thus occupied by the Gauls was far from comprising the whole tract subsequently known as Gallia Cisalpina. (2) The Ligurians or Ligures the Greek form of the name is Ligyes are a people of whose origin and affinities we know absolutely nothing, but whom we find from the earliest times in possession of the rugged mountainous tract with which their name is inseparably connected. They were, when we first hear of them, considerably more extensively spread than at a later period, the south coast of Gaul, subsequently included in the Roman province of that name, having been originally occupied by Ligurian tribes. Thus the Sallyes or Salluvii, in whose territory the Greek colony of Massilia was founded (about 600 B.C.), are distinctly described as a Ligurian tribe, and it may be considered certain that they held the whole country from the Maritime Alps to the Rhone, while Scylax represents them as intermixed with Iberian tribes in the tract from the mouths of the Rhone to the foot of the Pyrenees. But all authorities agree that they were a separate nationality, distinct alike from the Iberians and from the Gauls. No trace of their language has been preserved and all theories as to their origin must be purely conjectural. At the time when they first came in contact with the Roman arms, the Ligurians not only occupied the coast of the Mediterranean and underfalls of the Maritime Alps and Apennines from the Var to the Magra, but the much more extensive tract comprising the northern slopes of those mountains towards the valley of the Po. As has been already mentioned, it is probable that they were still more extensively spread in this direction prior to the irruption of the Gauls, but even in the historical period we find it distinctly stated that the Lsevi and Libici, tribes immedi ately west of the Ticinus, were of Ligurian race. The same thing is told us both by Strabo and Pliny of the Taurini, and was probably true also of their neighbours the Salassi. But the tribes who appear in history as the indomitable foes of Rome, against whom they waged for nearly a century and a half (237-109 B.C.) a war much re sembling that of the Circassians against Russia in modern times, were those on the two flanks of the Apennines, and the southern slopes of the Maritime Alps. Here the Ingauni and Intemelii in the western Riviera, and the Statielli on the reverse of the mountains were the most conspicuous tribes ; while towards the east the Apuani, who held the Lunigiana and the rugged mountain group above Carrara,