ticular instances, the Hamite Pelasgians had subdued the native Indo-European inhabitants of Spain and Italy; and established, as we have seen, a Curete kingdom in both countries. One general point of resemblance between the Tuscans and Lydians is, the epithet "barbarous," with which both races are distinguished by the Greeks and Romans, and which shows that the Tuscan and Lydian idioms had no affinity with Greek or Latin. Herodotus expressly ranks the Lydians among barbarous nations, and Cicero places the Tuscans in the same class: è barbaris nulli ante maritimi præter Etruscos et Pœnos, De Rep. lib. ii. 4. Pausanias says, that Arimnus, king of the Tyrseni, was the first of the barbarians, πρωτος βαρβαρων, who made an offering to Jupiter at Olympia, lib. v. 12. This barbarous character of the Tuscan language would be only a natural consequence of their descent from the barbarous Lydians; the circumstance is mentioned here only to point out that it is not at variance with the Lydian migration recorded by Herodotus. The sepulchre of Alyattes, king of Lydia, with its five termini bearing inscriptions, Herod. i. 93, brings to mind the tomb of the Tuscan Porsenna with its five pyramids: the celebrated mausoleum, erected by Artemisia, was Carian. The Lycian polity, like the Tuscan, was an elective monarchy; and so prosperous, that it once held the command of the sea as far as Italy. We have already seen that the Lycians were a kindred race with the Lydians and Carians, but it was peculiar to the Lycians that their genealogies were reckoned by the mother's side, Herod. i. 173; and it is remarkable, that the epitaphs in the ancient Tuscan sepulchres, distinguish the individual much more frequently by his mother than by his father's name. Muller, vol. i. p. 403. The important conclusion which I would draw from all the above premises, is, that the Pelasgians and Tuscans belonged to the same great Hamite race; yet there are some distinctions which equally show, that they constituted different portions of that race. The walls and fortifications of all Pelasgian cities in Greece and Italy are built of huge stones of a polygonal shape, whilst the materials in Tuscan cities are hewn into regular rectangular forms. "In general," says Muller, "the towns of Etruria are distinguished in this manner from those in the rocky district of the Hernici and the neighbouring highlands, as well as from the gigantic walls of Arcadia and Argolis; and thereby show that they are of more recent origin, as, in the common course of things, the progress is from irregular to regular forms, and not the reverse. On the whole, however, it may be said, that these colossal walls on numerous heights form a characteristic feature peculiar to Greek and Italian districts; and they may be adduced in evidence, that the Tuscans and the Hellens (Pelasgians?) were of kindred origin, and started on their career with the same elements of civilization; it would therefore follow, that the whole art of masonry, connected with the elevated sites of all these Etruscan cities, must date its origin from the arrival of the Pelasgian Tyrrhenians in Italy." (Vol. i. p. 250.) It is certainly very singular, (says a writer in the Quarterly Review,) that wherever tradition points out the Pelasgian settlements, there the polygonal style of building should be found; but we are led to another curious result in Etruria, the polygonal style of building : is scarcely ever discovered; as far as it goes, this argument would show, that the Tyrrhenians, the main body of the Etrurian people, or the subjugated race, who, according to Niebuhr, executed their great works, were not Pelasgians (vol. liv. p. 440). I have already stated, that the Pelasgians and Tuscans formed different subdivisions of the great Hamite race: to what particular tribe of it the Tuscans belonged will appear more plainly in the next chapter. As Hercules occurs for particular notice afterwards, and he was extensively worshipped among Hamite tribes, the Tuscans, Pelasgians, Phenicians, &c., I shall conclude this chapter with some remarks concerning this deity, extracted from Mr. Thirlwall's History of Greece. It is sufficient to throw a single glance at the fabulous adventures called (by the Greeks) the labours of Hercules, to be convinced, that a part of them at least belongs to the Phenicians and their wandering god, in whose honour they built temples in all their principal settlements along the coast of the Mediterranean. To him must be attributed all the journeys of Hercules round the shores of Western Europe, which did not become known to the Greeks for many centuries after they had been explored by the Phenician navigators. The number, to which those labours are confined by the legend, is evidently an astronomical period, and thus itself points to the course of the sun which the Phenician god represented. The event, which closes the career of the Greek hero, who rises to immortality from the flames of the pile on which he lays himself, is a prominent feature in the same Eastern mythology, and may therefore be safely considered as borrowed from All these tales may indeed be regarded as additions it. made at a late period to the Greek legend, after it had sprung up independently at home. But it is at least a remarkable coincidence, that the birth of Hercules is assigned to the city of Cadmus; and the great works ascribed to him, so far as they were really accomplished by human labour, may seem to correspond better with the art and industry of the Phenicians, than with the skill and power of a less civilized race. But in whatever way the origin of the name and idea of Hercules may be explained, he appears without any ambiguity as a Greek hero. Vol. i. p. 126. CHAPTER III. ON THE ORIGIN AND PROPHETIC DESTINY OF THE TUSCANS. "That which Petra is, and which Rome itself is destined to be." Keith on the Prophecies. ETRURIA is one of the great and, as yet, unsolved problems of ancient history. It is clear, that before the Romans, there existed in Italy a great nation, in a state of advanced civilization, with public buildings of vast magnitude, and works constructed on scientific principles, and of immense solidity, in order to bring the marshy plains of central and northern Italy into regular cultivation. They were a naval and commercial people, to whom tradition assigned the superiority, at one period, over the navigation of the Mediterranean. Their government seems to have been nearly allied to the oriental theocracies; religion was the dominant principle; the ruling aristocracy a sacerdotal order. In their federal government, (each Etruscan Union consisted of twelve cities, one beyond the Apennines, one in Tuscany proper, one in Campania,) in their internal polity, in their usages, the Etrurian nation bore some |