Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/31

Rh the city become a province thoroughly Greek, while no direct colonization from Greece had taken place; and even among the ruder stock of the Messapii there are various indications of a similar tendency. With the recognition of such a general family relationship or affinity between the Iapygians and Hellenes (a recognition, however, which by no means goes so far as to warrant our taking the Iapygian language to be a rude dialect of Greek), investigation must rest content, at least in the mean time, until some more definite and better assured result be attainable. The lack of information, however, is not much felt; for this race, already on the decline at the period when our history begins, comes before us only when it is giving way and disappearing. The character of the Iapygian people, little capable of resistance, easily merging into other nationalities, agrees well with the hypothesis, to which their geographical position adds probability, that they were the oldest immigrants, or the historical autochthones of Italy. There can be no doubt that all the primitive migrations of nations took place by land, especially such as were directed towards Italy, the coast of which was accessible by sea only to skilful sailors, and, on that account, was still in Homer's time wholly unknown to the Hellenes. But if the earlier settlers came over the Apennines, then, as the geologist infers the origin of mountains from their stratification, the historical inquirer may hazard the conjecture that the stocks pushed furthest towards the south were the oldest inhabitants of Italy; and it is just at its extreme south-eastern verge that we meet with the Iapygian nation.

The middle of the peninsula was inhabited, as far back as reliable tradition reaches, by two peoples, or rather two branches of the same people, whose position in the Indo-Germanic family admits of being determined with Errata: