VARRONIANUS. CHAPTER I. HE OLD ITALIAN TRIBES CONSIDERED AS RELATED TO EACH OTHER. Clements of the population of Rome. § 2. The LATINS-a composite tribe. 3. The Oscans, &c. § 4. Alba and Lavinium. § 5. Trojan colony in Latium. 6. The SABINES-how related to the Umbrians and Oscans. § 7. The Umians their ancient greatness. § 8. Reduced to insignificance by successive ntacts with the Tyrrheno-Pelasgians and Etruscans. §9. The PELASGIANS -the differences of their position in Italy and Greece respectively. § 10. They reserve their national integrity in Etruria. § 11. Meaning and ethnical extent the name "Tyrrhenian." § 12. The ETRUSCANS-the author's theory specting their origin. § 13. The names Etruscus and Rasena cannot be brought > an agreement with Tyrsenus. § 14. It is explicitly stated by ancient writers at the Etruscans came from Rætia. § 15. This view of the case is after all le most reasonable. § 16. It is confirmed by all available evidence, and espeially by the contrast between the town and country language of ancient Etruria. 17. Further inferences derivable from (a) the traditionary history of the uceres. § 18. (b) Fragmentary records of the early constitution of Rome. 19. (c) Etymology of some mythical proper names. § 20. General conclusion as > the mutual relations of the old Italian tribes. 1. Elements of the population of Rome. HE sum of all that is known of the earliest history of Rome is comprised in the following enumeration of particulars. A of Latin origin, more or less connected with Alba, settled he Palatine hill, and in the process of time united itself, by right of intermarriage and other ties, with a band of Sabine iors, who had taken up their abode on the Quirinal and itoline hills. These two towns admitted into fellowship with selves a third community, established on the Cælian and uiline hills, which seems to have consisted of Pelasgians, r from the Solonian plain lying between Rome and Lavi, or from the opposite side of the river near Care; and the e body became one city, governed by a king, or magister ili, and a senate; the latter being the representatives of the three original elements of the state,—the Latin or Oscan Ramnes, the Sabine Titienses or Quirites, and the Pelasgian Luceres. It appears, moreover, that the Etruscans, on the other side of the Tiber, eventually influenced the destinies of Rome in no slight degree, and the last three kings mentioned in the legendary traditions were of Etruscan origin. In other words, Rome was, during the period referred to by their reigns, subjected to a powerful Etruscan dynasty, from the tyranny of which it had, on two occasions, the good fortune to escape. What Servius planned was for the most part carried into effect by the consular constitution, which followed the expulsion of the last Tarquinius. As these facts are established by satisfactory evidence, and as we have nothing else on which we can depend with certainty, it follows that in order to investigate the ethnical affinities of the Roman people, and the origin and growth of their language, we must in the first instance inquire who were the Latins, the Sabines, the Pelasgians, and the Etruscans, and what were their relations one with another. After this we shall be able with greater accuracy to examine their respective connexions with the several elements in the original population of Europe. The general result will be this :-that the Septimontium, or seven Hills of Rome, contained a miniature representation of the ethnography of the whole Peninsula. Leaving out of the question the Celtic substratum, which cannot be ascertained, but which was probably most pure in the mountaineers of the Apennines, the original population of Italy from the Po to the straits of Rhegium was, like that of ancient Greece, Pelasgo-Sclavonian. This population remained unadulterated up to the dawn of ancient history in the central plains to the West-namely, in Etruria and Latium, but in the rest of Italy it was superseded or absorbed or qualified in different degrees of fusion by a population. of Gothic or Low-German origin, which, although undoubtedly of later introduction in the Peninsula, was so mixed up with the Celtic or primary tribes that it claimed to be aboriginal. When this Low-German race remained tolerably pure, or at least only infected with Celtic ingredients, it bore the names of Umbrians or Ombricans in the North, and of Opicans or Oscans in the South. When it was intermixed with Sclavonic elements to about the same extent as the Lithuanians or Old Prussians in the North of Europe, this Low-German population became known as Latins and Sabines. And the Etruscans or Rasena were a later and uninfected importation of Low Germans fresh. from the North, who conquered and were partly absorbed into the pure Tyrrhenians, or Pelasgo-Sclavonians to the right of the Tiber. § 2. The LATINS-a composite tribe. The investigations of Niebuhr and others have made it sufficiently certain that the Pelasgians formed a very important element in the population of ancient Latium. This appears not merely from the primitive traditions, but also, and more strongly, from the mythology, language, and architecture of the country. It has likewise been proved that this Pelasgian population was at an early period partially conquered by a tribe of mountaineers, who are called Oscans, and who descended on Latium from the basins of the Nar and the Velinus. The influence of these foreign invaders was most sensibly and durably felt in the language of the country; which in its earliest form presents phenomena not unlike those which have marked the idiom spoken in this island since the Norman conquest. The words relating to husbandry and peaceful life are Pelasgian, and the terms of war and the chase are Oscan1. As it is this foreign element which forms the distinction. between the Latins and the Pelasgians, let us in the first place inquire into the origin and affinities of these Oscan conquerors, in order that we may more easily disentangle the complexities of the subject. § 3. The Oscans, &c. The Oscans were known at different times and in different places under the various names of Opicans, Opscans, Ausonians, 1 Niebuhr, H. R. I. p. 82. Müller, Etrusker, I. p. 17. This observation must not be pressed too far; for it does not in fact amount to more than prima facie evidence. The Opican or Oscan language belongs to the Indo-Germanic family no less than the Pelasgian; the latter, however, was one ingredient in the language of ancient Greece, and it does not appear that any Hellenic tribes were connected with the Oscans; consequently it is fair to say that, as one element in the Latin language resembles the Greek, while the other does not, the Græcising element is Pelasgian. = and Auruncans. The primary denomination was Op-icus or Oqu-icus, derived from Ops or Opis - Oqu-is, the Italian name of the goddess Earth; and these people were therefore, in accordance with their name, the Autochthones, or aboriginal inhabitants of the district where they are first found. The other denominations are derived from the same word, Op-s= Oqu-is, by the addition of the endings -si-cus, -sunus, and -sun-icus. The guttural is assimilated in Oscus, the labial is absorbed in Avowv, and the s has become r, according to the regular process, in Auruncus1. 1 See Niebuhr, I. 69, note. Buttmann, Lexilogus, I. p. 68, note 1. (p. 154, Fishlake). The investigation of these names leads to a variety of important and interesting results. It has been shown elsewhere that in the oldest languages of the Indo-Germanic family the names of the cow or ox and the earth are commutable (N. Crat. § 470). Not to refer to the obvious but not so certain analogy between 'Amis, the ox-god, and the aniŋ yaîa, it can be shown to demonstration that the steer or ox, which was to the last the symbol of the old Italians, as appears by their coins, entered into the meaning of their two national designations, Italus and Opicus. With regard to the former it is well known, that italos, or itulus, or with the digamma vitulus, meant an ox or steer (Niebuhr, I. 18 sqq.), and Vitellium appears on coins as a synonym for Italia. This takes us at once to the Gothic vithrus, O. N. vedr, O. S. withar, Anglo-S. vether, O. H. G. vidar, N. H. G. widder (properly the castrated animal), English wether; and as these are referred to sheep rather than oxen, we must conclude that the name is an epithet which is applicable to either animal. With regard to the other root, qu in Equus carries us back to the principle of combined but divergent articulations, to which I first called attention (N. Crat. § 110), and on which the late Mr. Garnett wrote some valuable papers (Philol. Soc. II. p. 233, 257 al.), and we may infer that the roots ap- or op- present a labial only instead of an original combination of labial and guttural, while we find the opposite divergence in the guttural forms vac-ca, veh-o, Sanser. vaha, Gr. öxos, exw, Goth. auh-sa, O. N. ox, Anglo-S. oxa, O. H. G. ohso, N. H. G. ochs, Engl. ox. The labial form is sometimes strengthened by an inserted anusvára, or homogeneous liquid; thus by the side of on-άpa and op-s we have ỏ-μ-þúveiv• avέew. Hesych. Cf. on-ópa, auc-tumnus (where the root avέ-, auc-, aug-eo contains the guttural form of this element) and 3-μ-πη· εὐθηνία ὅθεν καὶ ἡ Anunτηp 'O-μ-via. With these remarks we shall have no difficulty in reducing to one origin and classifying the different Italian names into which the root oqu- enters. The qu- is found only in Equ-us; the p appears in Op-icus, Ap-ulus; the guttural is assimilated in Oscus = Ok-scus (cf. di-σkos for dík-σkos, dé-σxy for λéy-σêŋ &c. N. Crat. § 219); the labial These aboriginal tribes, having been in the first instance, like the Arcadians in the Peloponnese, driven by their invaders, the Pelasgians, into the mountain fastnesses of the Apennines, were at length reinforced by foreign elements, and descending from the interior on both sides, conquered the people of the plains and the coast. One tribe, the Ap-uli, subdued the Daunians and other tribes settled in the south-east, and gave their name to the country; they also extended themselves to the west, and became masters of the country from the bay of Terracina upwards to the Tiber. In this district they bore the well-known names of Volsci and Æqui, names still connected with the primary designation of the aborigines. A more important invasion was that which was occasioned by the pressure of the Sabines on an Oscan people settled in the mountains between Reate and the Fucine lake. These invaders came down the Anio, and conquered the Pelasgians of northern Latium. Their chief seat in the conquered country seems to have been Alba, the Alp-ine or mountain-city, where they dwelt under the name of Prisci Latini, "ancient Latins;" being also called Casci, a name which denotes "ancient" or "well-born," and which, like the connected Greek term xaoí, implies that they were a nation of warriors (N. Crat. § 322). § 4. Alba and Lavinium. The district of Latium, when history first speaks of it, was thus occupied by two races; one a mixed people of Oscan con = is vocalized in Au-son; the s of the termination is changed into r, according to the old Italian practice, in Au-runcus = Au-sunicus; and the root-consonant is represented only by an initial v in Volscus Apulisicus, which has vanished, as usual, in the Hellenic articulation 'Eλíoukos (Herod. VII. 165). It will be seen in the sequel that I seek a very different origin for the name Umbria, which Niebuhr apparently refers to this root and it seems very strange to me that he should have understood the statement of Philistus quoted by Dionysius (I. 22): éĝavaoτῆναι δὲ ἐκ τῆς ἑαυτῶν τοὺς Λίγυας υπό τε Ομβρικῶν καὶ Πελασγών, which refers to the dispossession of the Celtic inhabitants of Umbria and Etruria, as belonging to the same traditions which led Antiochus to write that the Sicilians were driven over into Sicily by the Opicans (H. R. I. p. 82): for Antiochus is speaking exclusively of what took place in the southern extremity of Italy, and the Pelasgians and Ombrici mentioned by Philistus were the Tyrrhenians and Umbrians of the north. |