Sporadic Syro-Arabians in Africa exhibit, as we go farther from the center of their dispersion, a successive degeneration in the passage of the Aramaic languages from the Abyssinian to the Galla and Berber, from this again to the Caffre, from the Caffre to the Hottentot, and from the Hottentot to the clucking of the savage Bushman, and while there is no later infusion of civilized Semitic elements until the conquest of North Africa by the Arabs; on the other hand, the Celto-Turanian tribes were overrun or absorbed at a very early period by successive or parallel streams of Sclavonians, Lithuanians, and Saxo-Goths, flowing freely and freshly from the north of Irân; and the latest of these emigrants, the High-Germans, found many traces of similarity in the Celtic tribes with which they ultimately came in contact. Whatever might have been the degradation of the Ugro-Turanian races in those regions where they were most thinly scattered, it is obvious that the Scythia of Herodotus, which was the highway of the earliest march of Indo-Germanic migration into Europe, could not have been, as Niebuhr supposed, mainly peopled by a Tchudic or Mongolian stock. And though the name of S-colota or Asa-Galatæ, by which some of the Scythæ called themselves, may be regarded as pointing to a Celtic or Turanian intermixture, the great mass of the hordes which dwelt to the north of the Euxine must have consisted of Indo-Germanic tribes who conquered or ejected the Turanians; and I have no hesitation in referring these invaders, together with the Pelasgians of Greece and Italy, to different branches of the Sclavonian, Lithuanian, Saxo-Gothic, or generally Low Iranian stock.

§ 14.

The Pelasgians were of Sclavonian origin.

It has been proved that the Sarmatians belonged to the parent stock of the Sclavonians; and we find in the Sclavonian dialects ample illustrations of those general principles by which the Scythian languages seem to have been characterised. Making, then, a fresh start from this point, we shall find an amazing number of coincidences between the Sclavonian languages and the Pelasgian element of Greek and Latin: most of these have been pointed out elsewhere1; at present it is only necessary to call

1 New Crat. § 88.

attention to the fact. So that, whichever way we look at it, we shall find new reasons for considering the Pelasgians as a branch of the great Sarmatian or Sclavonian race. The Thracians, Getæ, Scythæ, and Sauromatæ, were so many links in a long chain connecting the Pelasgians with Media; the Sauromata were at least in part Sclavonians; and the Pelasgian language, as it appears in the oldest forms of Latin, and in certain Greek archaisms, was unquestionably most nearly allied to the Sclavonian: we cannot, therefore, doubt that this was the origin of the Pelasgian people, especially as there is no evidence or argument to the contrary.

§ 15. Foreign affinities of the Umbrians, &c.

But, to return to Italy, who were the old inhabitants of that peninsula? Whom did the Pelasgians in the first instance conquer or drive to the mountains? What was the origin of that hardy race, which, descending once more to the plain, subjugated Latium, founded Rome, and fixed the destiny of the world?

The Umbrians, Oscans, Latins, or Sabines-for, in their historical appearances, we must consider them as only different members of the same family-are never mentioned as foreigners. We know, however, that they must have had their Transpadane affinities as well as their Pelasgian rivals. It is only because their Celtic substratum was in Italy before the Pelasgians arrived there, that they are called aborigines. The difference between them and the Pelasgians is in effect this: in examining the ethnical affinities of the latter we have tradition as well as comparative grammar to aid us; whereas the establishment of the Umbrian pedigree depends upon philology alone.

§ 16.

Reasons for believing that they were the same race as the Lithuanians.

Among the oldest languages of the Indo-Germanic family not the least remarkable is the Lithuanian, which stands first among the Sclavonian dialects', and bears a nearer resemblance to Sanscrit than any European idiom. It is spoken, in different

1 See Pott, Et. Forsch. I. p. xxxiii. and his Commentatio de BorussoLithuanico tam in Slavicis quam Letticis linguis principatu. Halis Saxonum, 1837-1841.

dialects, by people who live around the south-east corner of the Baltic. One branch of this language is the old Prussian, which used to be indigenous in the Sam-land or "Fen-country" between the Memel and the Pregel, along the shore of the Curische Haf, and the Lithuanians are often called Samo-Getæ or "FenGoths." Other writers have pointed out the numerous and striking coincidences between the people who spoke this language and the Italian aborigines1. Thus the connexion between the Sabine Cures, Quirinus, Quirites, &c. and the old Prussian names Cures, Cour-land, Curische Haf, &c. has been remarked; it has been shown that the wolf (hirpus), which was an object of mystic reverence among the Sabines, and was connected with many of their ceremonies and some of their legends, is also regarded as ominous of good luck among the Lettons and Courlanders; the Sabine legend of the rape of the virgins, in the early history of Rome, was invented to explain their marriage ceremonies, which are still preserved among the Courlanders and Lithuanians, where the bride is carried off from her father's house with an appearance of force; even the immortal name of Rome is found in the Prussian Romowo; and the connexion of the words Roma, Romulus, ruma lupa, and ruminalis ficus, is explained by the Lithuanian raumu, gen. raumens, signifying "a dug" or "udder 2."

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1 Perhaps the oldest observation of this affinity is that which is quoted by Pott (Commentatio, I. p. 6), from a work published at Leyden in 1642 by Michalo Lituanus (in rep. Pol. &c. p. 246): nos Lithuani ex Italico sanguine oriundi sumus, quod ita esse liquet ex nostro sermone semi-latino et ex ritibus Romanorum vetustis, qui non ita pridem apud nos desiere, &c. Etenim et ignis (Lith. ugnis f.) et unda (wandů m.), aer (uras), sol (sáulé)... unus (wiênas)... et pleraque alia, idem significant Lithuano sermone quod et Latino."

2 See Festus, pp. 266-8, Müller; and Pott, Etymol. Forsch. II. p. 283. According to this etymology, the name Romanus ultimately identifies itself with the ethnical denomination Hirpinus. The derivation of the word Roma is, after all, very uncertain; and there are many who might prefer to connect it with Groma, the name given to the forum, or point of intersection of the main streets in the original Roma quadrata, which was also, by a very significant augury, called mundus (see Festus, p. 266; Dionys. I. 88; Bunsen, Beschreib. d. Stadt Rom, III. p. 81; and below, Ch. VII. § 6). The word groma or gruma, however, is not without its Lithuanian affinities. I cannot agree with Müller (Etrusk. II. p. 152), Pott (Etym, Forsch. II. 101), and Benfey (Wurzel-Lexikon, II. p. 143), who follow the old

Besides these, a great number of words and forms of words in the Sabine language are explicable most readily from a comparison with the Lithuanian; and the general impression which these arguments leave upon our mind is, that the Latins and Sabines were of the same race as the Lithuanians or old Prussians.

§ 17. Further confirmation from etymology.

Let us add to this comparison one feature which has not yet been observed. The Lithuanians were not only called by this name1, which involves both the aspirated dental th and the vocalised labial u, but also by the names Livonian and Lettonian, which omit respectively one or other of these articulations. Now it has been mentioned before, that the name of the Latins exhibits the same phenomenon; for as they were called both Latins and Lavines, it follows that their original name must have been Latuinians, which is only another way of spelling and pronouncing Lithuanians. If, therefore, the warrior-tribe, which descended upon Latium from Reate and conquered the Pelasgians, gave their name to the country, we see that these aborigines were actually called Lithuanians; and it has been shown that they and the Sabines were virtually the same stock. Consequently, the old Prussians brought even their name into Italy. And what does this name signify? Simply, freemen2;" 2." for the root

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grammarians, and connect this word with the Greek γνώμα, γνώμη, γνώμων : it is much more reasonable to suppose, with Klenze (Abhandl. p. 135, note), that it is a genuine Latin term; and I would suggest that it may be connected with grumus, Lithuan. krúwa, Lettish kraut: comp. κρμaέ, Kλμaέ, globus, gleba, &c. The name may have been given to the point of intersection of the main via and limes, because a heap of stones was there erected as a mark (cf. Charis. I. p. 19). Even in our day it is common to mark the junction of several roads by a cross, an obelisk, or some other erection; to which the grumus, or "barrow," was the first rude approximation. If so, it may still be connected with ruma; just as paorós signifies both "a hillock" and "a breast;" and the omission of the initial g before a liquid is very common in Latin, comp. narro with yvwpigw, nosco with γιγνώσκω, and norma with γνώριμος.

1 The known forms of the name are Litwa, Lietuwa, Litauen, Lietuwininkas, AirBoí, Lethowini, Lituini, Letwini, Lethuini, Lettowii, Litwani, Letthones, and Letthi.

2 By a singular change, the name of the kindred Sclavonians, which in the oldest remains of the language signifies either " celebrated," "illus

signifying "free," in all the European languages consisted of land a combination of dental and labial, with, of course, a vowel interposed. In most languages the labial is vocalised into u, and prefixed to the dental; as in Greek e-λeú0e-pos, Lithuan. liaudis, Germ. leute, &c.1 In the Latin liber the labial alone remains.

§ 18.

Celtic tribes intermixed with the Sclavonians and

Lithuanians in Italy and elsewhere.

The name of the Umbrians, the most northerly of the indigenous Italians, leads to some other considerations of great importance. It can scarcely be doubted that in their northern as well as their southern settlements the Lithuanians were a good deal intermixed with Celto-Finnish tribes in the first instance, and subjected to Sclavonian influences afterwards. That this was the case with the Lithuanians, we learn from their authentic and comparatively modern history. The proper names cited by Zeuss (p. 229) show that there was a Celtic ingredient in the population of Rætia and Noricum. It appears, too, that in Italy there was a substratum of Celts before the Lithuanians arrived there; this is expressly recorded of the Umbrians by M. Antonius and Bocchus (apud Solin. c. 2.) and by Servius (ad Virg. Æneid. XII. 753), and the fact is clearly indicated by the name of the country, Umbria, and its principal river Umbro. If the oldest inhabitants of this country were Celtic, they must have been an offshoot of the Celtic race which occupied the contiguous district of Ligu

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trious" (from clava, "glory," root clu, Sanscr. çru, Gr. «λv-: see 'Safarik, and Palacky's Eltest. Denkm. der Böhm. Spr. pp. 63, 140), or "intelligibly speaking," as opposed to barbarian (from slovo, “ a word "), has furnished the modern designation of “a slave,” esclave, schiavo. The Bulgarians, whom Gibbon classes with the Sclavonians (VII. p. 279, ed. Milman), have been still more unfortunate in the secondary application of their name (Gibbon, X. p. 177).

=

1 Dr Latham says (Germania of Tacitus, Epilegom. p. cxi.): "the root L-t people is German (Leute), yet no one argues that the Lat-ins, Lithuanians, and a host of other populations, must, for that reason, be German.” If the people called themselves by this name, it may be fairly inferred that it was to them a significant term, and may therefore be taken as a mark of affinity: no Indo-Germanic philologer will deny that the Lithuanians and Germans were cognate races.