Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/150

130 of the Po, being conterminous on the east along the Adige with the Veneti of Illyrian (Albanian?) descent, on the west with the Ligurians. This is proved in particular by the existence of the already mentioned rugged Etruscan dialect which was still spoken in Livy's time by the inhabitants of the Rhætian Alps, and by the fact that Mantua remained Tuscan down to a late period. To the south of the Po, and at the mouths of that river, Etruscans and Umbrians were mingled, the former as the dominant, the latter as the older race, which had founded the old commercial towns of Hatria and Spina, while the Tuscans appear to have been the founders of Felsina (Bologna) and Ravenna. A long time elapsed ere the Celts crossed the Po; hence the Etruscans and Umbrians left deeper traces of their existence on the right bank of the river than they had done on the left, which they had to surrender at an earlier period. All the districts, however, to the north of the Apennines passed too rapidly out of the hands of one nation into those of another to permit the formation of any continuous national development there.

Far more important in an historical point of view was the great settlement of the Tuscans in the land which still bears their name. Although Ligurians or Umbrians were perhaps at one time (P. 120) settled there, the traces of their occupation have been wholly effaced by the civilization of their Etruscan successors. In this region, which extends along the coast from Pisæ to Tarquinii, and is shut in on the east by the Apennines, the Etruscan nationality found its permanent abode, and maintained itself with great tenacity down to the time of the Empire. The northern boundary of the proper Tuscan territory was formed by the Arnus; the region north from the Arnus as far as the mouth of the Macra and the Apennines was a debateable border land in the possession sometimes of Ligurians, sometimes of Etruscans, and, in consequence, larger settlements did not succeed there. The southern boundary was probably formed at first by the Ciminian Forest, a chain of hills south of Viterbo, and at a later period by the Tiber. We have already (P. 121) noticed the fact that the territory between the Ciminian range and the Tiber, with the towns Sutrium, Nepete, Falerii, Veii, and Cære appears to have been taken possession of by the Etruscans at a period considerably later than the more northerly district, possibly not earlier than in the