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warriors and city-nobles of historical Etruria derived their origin from the Rætian Alps. With regard to the argument from the remains of the Etruscan language, the philologer will at once admit that, as far as it goes, the evidences of affinity, which have been adduced, are neither precarious nor doubtful. Instead of conjectures founded on a casual agreement of syllables, we have seen that the meaning, which we were led to expect, was at once supplied by the language, which collateral circumstances had indicated as the proper source of information; and not only were ethnical names and common words simply and consistently explained in this way, but we found that some peculiarities of etymology and syntax were at once illustrated by a reference to the same standard of comparison. So that, on the whole, every available resource of grammar and philology tends to confirm and reconcile the otherwise divergent and contradictory statements of ancient history; and the Etruscans may now without any inconsistency claim both the Tyrrheno-Lydian and Rætian affinities, which the classical writers have attributed to them.

§ 12. General remarks on the absorption or evanescence of the old Etruscan Language.

It only remains that I should make a few remarks on the absorption or evanescence of the old Etruscan language. When we see so much that is easily explained; when, in fact, there is no great difficulty in dealing with any Etruscan word which has come down to us with an interpretation or clue to its meaning; and when we are puzzled only by inscriptions, which are in themselves mere fragments, made up in a great measure of proper names, and mutilated by, we know not how many, conventional abbreviations, it is sufficiently evident that the striking differences between the Etruscan and the other ancient dialects of the peninsula were not such as to take the language out of the Indo-Germanic family, and that while these differences affected only an inconsiderable ingredient in the old Etruscan, the main portion of the language must have approximated very closely to the contiguous and surrounding idioms. Otherwise, we should be obliged to ask, where is the bulk of that language which was spoken by the ancestors of Mæcenas? We talk of dead languages; but this variety of human speech should seem to be not only dead, but buried, and not only buried, but sunk

beneath the earth in some necropolis, into which no Galassi or Campanari can dig his way. The standard Italian of the present day is the offspring of that Latinity which was spoken by the Etrusco-Romans; but we find no trace of ancient barbarism in any Tuscan writer. Surely it is a fair inference, that while the Rætian element, introduced into the northern cities by an aristocracy of conquest, was not permanently influential, but was absorbed, like the Norman French in this country, by the Pelasgo-Umbrian language of the bulk of the population, the latter, which may be termed "the common Etruscan," like the Sabello-Oscan and other dialects, merged in the old Latin, not because the languages were unlike, but because they were sister idioms, and embraced one another as soon as they had discovered their relationship'. The only way to escape from all the difficulties of this subject is to suppose that the city on the Tiber served as a centre and rallying point for the languages of Italy as well as for the different tribes who spoke them, and that Rome admitted within her walls, with an inferior franchise, which in time completed itself, both the citizens and the vocabularies of the conquered Italian states. If this absorbing centralization could so thoroughly Latinize the Celtic inhabitants of Lombardy, and even the transalpine branch of the Gallic race, much more would it be likely to affect the Etruscans, who extended to the Tiber, and whose language, in its predominant or Pelasgian character, approximated so closely to the cognate idiom of the old Latin tribes.

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1 Among many instances of the possibility at least of such a transition, not the least interesting is the derivation of Populonia from Phupluns, the Etruscan Bacchus; so that this city, the Etruscan name of which was Popluna, is the Dionysopolis of Etruria (see Gerhard in the Rhein. Mus. for 1833, p. 135). Now it is clear that as Nethuns Nethu-nus, is the god of nethu, so Phupluns Poplu-nus is the god of poplu. It seems that the ancients planted the poplar chiefly on account of their vines, and the poplar was sacred to Hercules, who has so many points of contact with Bacchus. Have we not, then, in the word phupluns the root of pópulus, a word quite inexplicable from the Latin language alone? A sort of young, effeminate Hercules, who appears on the coins of Populonia (see Müller, Etrusk. I. p. 331), is probably this Poplunus. The difference in the quantity of the first syllables of Populus and Populonia is not surprising, as the latter is an exotic proper name, and the former a naturalized common term.

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CHAPTER VI.

THE OLD ROMAN OR LATIN LANGUAGE.

§1. Fragments of old Latin not very numerous. § 2. Arvalian Litany. § 3. Chants

preserved by Cato. § 4. Fragments of Salian hymns. § 5. Old regal laws. § 6. Remains of the XII. Tables. § 7. Table I. § 8. Table II. §9. Table III. § 10. Table IV. § 11. Table V. § 12. Table VI. § 13. Table VII. § 14. Table VIII. § 15. Table IX. § 16. Table X. § 17. Table XI. § 18. Table XII. § 19. The Tiburtine Inscription. § 20. The epitaphs of the Scipios. § 21. The Columna Rostrata. § 22. The Silian and Papirian Laws and the edict of the Curule Ediles. § 23. The Senatus-Consultum de Bacchanalibus, § 24. The old Roman law on the Bantine Table.

§ 1. Fragments of Old Latin not very numerous.

AVING in the preceding chapters given specimens of the

different proportions to the formation of the Roman people, the next step will be to collect the most interesting remains of the old Roman language,-considered as the offspring of the Umbrian, Oscan, and Tuscan,- such as it was before the predominance of Greek cultivation had begun to work on this rude composite structure. The total loss of the genuine Roman literature will, of course, leave us but a scanty collection of such documents. Indeed, for the earlier centuries we have only a few brief fragments of religious and legal import. As we approach the Punic wars, the inscriptions become more numerous and complete; but then we are drawing near to a period when the Roman language began to lose its leading characteristics under the pressure of foreign influences, and when it differed little or nothing from that idiom which has become familiar to us from the so-called classical writings of the Augustan age.

Polybius, speaking of the ancient treaty between Rome and Carthage (III. 22), remarks that the old Latin language differed so much from that which was spoken in his own time, that the best-informed Romans could not make out some expressions without difficulty, even when they paid the greatest attention: τηλικαύτη γὰρ ἡ διαφορὰ γέγονε τῆς διαλέκτου, καὶ παρὰ Ρωμαίοις, τῆς νῦν πρὸς τὴν ἀρχαίαν, ὥστε τοὺς συνετωτάτους

1 See Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome, pp. 15, sqq.

ἔνια μόλις ἐξ ἐπιστάσεως διευκρινείν. The great mass of words must, however, have been susceptible of interpretation; for he does not shrink from translating into Greek the substance at least of that very ancient treaty.

§ 2. Arvalian Litany.

Accordingly, we find that the most primitive specimens of Latinity may now-a-days be understood by the scholar, who, after all, possesses greater advantages than Polybius and his contemporary Romans. This will appear if we examine the song of the Fratres Arvales, which is one of the most important and ancient specimens of the genuine Roman language. The inscription, in which it is preserved, and which was discovered in the year 1777, is probably not older than A. D. 218; but there is every reason to believe that the cantilena itself was the same which was sung in the earliest ages of Rome,-for these litanies very often survive their own significance. The monks read the Latin of their missals without understanding it, and the Parsees of Gujerat cannot interpret their sacred Zend. It appears from the introductory remarks, that this song was confined to the priests, the Publici being excluded: "Deinde subselliis marmoreis consederunt; et panes laureatos per Publicos partiti sunt; ibi omnes lumemulia cum rapinis acceperunt, et Deas unguentaverunt, et Ædes clusa est, omnes foris exierunt: ibi Sacerdotes clusi succincti, libellis acceptis, carmen descindentes tripodaverunt in verba hæc :

1. Enos Lases jucate (ter),

2.

Neve luaerve Marmar sins incurrere in pleoris (ter)

3. Satur furere (vel fufere) Mars limen salista berber (ter)

4. Semunis alternei (vel alternis ?) advocapit conctos (ter)

5. Enos Marmor (vel Mamor) jurato (ter)

6. Triumpe, triumpe, triumpe, triumpe, triumpe. Post tripodationem, deinde signo dato Publici introiere, et libellos receperunt." (See Orelli, Inscript. Lat. I. p. 391, no. 2271.)

There can be little doubt as to the meaning of any single word in this old hymn, which seems to be written in very rude Saturnian verse, the first half of the verse being alone preserved in some cases; as in Enós Lasés juváte-Enós Mamór juváto. The last line is a series of trochees cum anacrusi, or a still shorter form of the first half of the Saturnian verse.

1. Enos is a form of the first person plural, analogous to the German uns. Lases is the old form of Lares (Quinctil. Institut. Orat. I. 4. § 13; see Müller ad Fest. p. 15).

2. Luærve for luerve-m, according to a custom of dropping the final м, which lasted till Cato's time (see next §). This form bears the same relation to luem that Minerva does to mens. Caterva from catus = acutus (above, p. 106), and its synonym acervus from acus, are derivatives of the same kind1. We may also compare bovem, suem, &c. with their older forms, boverem, suerem, &c. Marmar, Marmor, or Mamor, is the Oscan and Tuscan Mamers, i. e. Mars (above p. 146). That Mars, or Mars pater, was addressed as the averter of diseases, bad weather, &c. is clear from Cato, R. R. 141. Sins is sinas: so Tab. Bantin. 1. 19: Bantins for Bantinus, &c. Ple-ores is the genuine comparative of ple-nus, which bears the same relation to λeos that unus does to oios. The fullest form would be ple-ioresλe-loves.

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3. "O Mars, having raged to your satisfaction (comp. Hor. I. Carm. II. 37: "longo satiate ludo"), grant that the Sun's light may be warm." Limen for lumen may be com

1 Mr. F. W. Newman (Regal Rome, p. 61) derives caterva from the Welch cad-torva," battle-troop." I do not know whether this etymology was suggested by the well-known statements in Vegetius, II. 2: "Galli Celtiberique pluresque barbaricæ nationes catervis utebantur in præliis." Isidor. Orig. IX. 33: "proprie Macedonum phalanx, Gallorum caterva, nostra legio dicitur." Döderlein, who proposes (Lat. Syn. u. Et. V. 361) to connect caterva with quattuor, properly remarks that these passages do not show that caterva was considered a Gallic word, but only that, as distinguished from the phalanx and legio, it denoted a less completely disciplined body of men. The natural idea of a “heap” of separable objects is that of a mass piled up to a point, and this is indicated by the roots of ac-er-vus and cat-er-va. The latter therefore, as denoting a body of men, suggests the same arrangement as the cuneus, which is mentioned along with it by Tacitus, Hist. II. 42: "comminus eminus catervis et cuneis concurrebant." On the form of cat-er-va, see below, Ch. XIII. § 5.

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