Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/77

Rh tarch, we have abundant testimony to the fact that the Gauls long before conquering Rome, had conquered the Etrurian cities to the North. It is true we know but little of the details, but when we consider how little we know of the Gaulish conquest of Rome, we cannot wonder at our knowing still less of their conquest of Etruria. But the fact remains incontestable, and Polybius, who lived 100 years before Dionysius, says expressly, as if to anticipate modern conjecture, "whatever we read in history concerning the ancient dynasties and fortunes of the Tyrrhenians must be all referred to a former people, for," says he, "the Gauls, who often visited this country and had seen its beauty with a jealous eye, found occasion from some slight pretext to fall suddenly upon the Tyrrhenians with a powerful army, when they were in no expectation of an enemy, and drove them from their native seats" (ii. c. 2). The Lydian or Pelasgic oligarchy had no doubt previously become much weakened, as every oligarchy must be in the course of time without extraneous support and infusion of strength, and thus long even before Roman history begins the Tyrrhenians under the Gaulish domination had become Etruscans. The more peaceful and civilized classes no doubt still remained and infused some of their civilisation and some knowledge of their laws and religious rites to their conquerors. But they must have become a different people however amalgamated. Though we have no mention of the name of the ancient colonists as Etruri or Etrurians, we may accept Niebuhr's suggestion that they probably bore it. If then the dominant Gaulish invaders were of the Oscan family, then we have a clue to the name afterwards given them as Etruri Oscans, Etruscans. This though merely my own conjecture, I think may be received as feasible, in as much as the remains of the so called Oscan language approach nearer to Latin than any of the other ancient dialects of Italy, and if the Oscan Gauls then combining their own language with the Greek of Rome produced the Latin, their brethren in the North had made the Etrurians become Etruscans. This name seems recorded as having been first known used by Cato who died about 150 years before our æra, and he was a contemporary of Polybius, previous to whose time, as we have already shown, the change in Etruscan nationality had taken place. The conclusion is that even the language of the Lydian or Pelasgian colonists had passed away, and though much of their civilisation might have survived, still they had become a different people. A further conclusion also follows that whatever remains called Etruscan are yet spared us, but