Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/371

 OSCANS.- SIKELS. 355 caught several peculiar words from their association with the Si- kels, which words approach in most cases very nearly to the Latin, so that a resemblance thus appears between the language of Latium on the one side, and that of QEnotrians and Sikels (in southern Italy and Sicily) on the other, prior to the establish- ments of the Greeks. These are the two extremities of the Sikel population ; between them appear, in the intermediate country, the Oscan or Ausonian tribes and language ; and these latter seem to have been in a great measure conquerors and in- truders from the central mountains. Such analogies of language countenance the supposition of Thucydides and Antiochus, that these Sikels had once been spread over a still larger portion of southern Italy, and had migrated from thence into Sicily in conse- quence of Oscan invasions. The element of affinity existing be- tween Latins, CEnotrians, and Sikels to a certain degree also between all of them together and the Greeks, but not extending extended from the south of Tuscany down to the straits of Messina, occu- pies in the upper part of its territory only the valley of the Tihcr, lower down, occupies the mountainous districts also, and in the south, stretches across from sea to sea, called Sikels, CEnotrians, or Peucctians. Other mountain tribes, powerful, though not widely extended, live in the northern Abruzzo and its neighborhood : in the east, the Sabines, southward from them the cognate Marsi, more to the west the Aborigines, and among them probably the old Ausonians or Oscans. About 1000 years prior to the Christian era, there arises among these tribes from whom almost all the popular migrations in ancient Italy have proceeded a movement whereby the Aborigines more northward, the Sikels more southward, are precipitated upon the Sikels of the plains beneath. Many thousands of the great Sikel nation withdraw to their brethren the CEnotrians, and by degrees still farther across the strait to the island of Sicily. Others of them remain stationary in their residences, and form, in conjunction with the Aborigines, the Latin nation, in conjunction with the Ausonians, the Oscan nation: the latter extends itself over what was afterwards called Samnium and Campania. Still, the population and power of these mountain tribes, especially that of the Sabines, goes on perpetually on the increase : as they pressed onward towards the Tiber, at the period when Rome was only a single town, so they also advanced southwards, and conquered, first, the mountainous Opica; next, some centuries later, the Opician plain, Cam- pania; lastly, the ancient country of the CEnotrians, afterwards denominated Lucania/' Compare Nicbuhr, Romisch. Geschicht. vol. i, p. 80, 2d edit, and the first <hapter of Mr. Donaldson's Varronianns.