No More Learning

50; comp. Corp. bun‘. 1. 4! . n. 805); (a) the Mer curiales (Liv. ii. 27 Cicero, 4. Preller. Myth. p. 597) likewise with magirtri (Henzen, 6010), the guild from the valley of the Circus, where the temple of Mercury stood; (3) the pagans‘ Aventr'umes likewise with magistri (Henzen, 60m); and (4) the pagani pagr' Ianicuhmir likewise with mgiriri (C. L. n. 801, 802). certainly not accidental that these four guilds, the only ones of the sort that occur in Rome, belong to the very two bills excluded from the four local tribes but en closed by the Servian wall, the Capitol and the Aventine, and the Jani culum belonging to the same fortification and connected with this the further fact that the expression montam' pagani-ue employed as a desig nation of the whole inhabitants in connection with the city (comp. besides the well-known passage, Cic. dc Dame, :8, 74, especially the law as to the city aqueducts in Festus, 'u. . q'fur, p. 340; [ma/diam’ paganive “If: aquam dividuntfl). The manIani, properly the inhabitants of the three regions of the Palatine town (p. 67), appear to be here put 4 Mon‘ for
is
;
is
I. ;
i.
l.
It is
i.
;
ii. 5,
crutr. v11 HEGEMONY OF ROME IN LATIUM
139
and the Aventine, and also the Janiculum ;1 the Palatine, as the oldest and proper city, was enclosed by the other heights along which the wall was carried, as if encircled with a wreath, and the two castles occupied the middle.
The work, however, was not complete so long as the ground, protected by so laborious exertions from outward foes, was not also reclaimed from the dominion of the water, which permanently occupied the valley between the Palatine and the Capitol, so that there was perhaps even a ferry there, and which converted the valleys between the Capitol and the Velia and between the Palatine and the Aventine into marshes. The subterranean drains still existing at the present day, composed of magnificent square blocks, which excited the astonishment of posterity as a marvellous work of regal Rome, must rather be reckoned to belong to the following epoch, for travertine is the material employed and we have many accounts of new structures of the kind
the whole population of the four regions of the city proper. The pagans‘ are, undoubtedly, the residents of the Aventine and Janiculum not included in the tribes, and the analogous callzg‘ia of the Capitol and the Circus valley.
1 The "Seven-hill-city" in the proper and religious sense was and continued to be the narrower Old-Rome of the Palatine (p. 62). Certainly the Servian Rome also regarded itself, at least as early as the time of Cicero (comp. ag. Cic. ad All. vi. 5, a; Plutarch, Q. Rom. 69), as
‘ ‘ Seven-hill-city," probably because the festival of the Septimontium, which was celebrated with great zeal even under the Empire, began to be re garded as a festival for the city generally; but there was hardly any definite agreement reached as to which of the heights embraced by the Servian ring-wall belonged to the "seven. " The enumeration of the Seven Mounts familiar to us, viz. Palatine, Aventine. Caelian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, Capitoline. is not given by any ancient author. It is put together from the traditional narrative of the gradual rise of the city (Jordan, Topographic, ii. :06 reg), and the Janiculum is passed over in simply because otherwise the number would come out as eight. The earliest authority that enumerates the Seven Mounts (manta) of Rome the description of the city from the age of Constantine the Great. It names as such the Palatine, Aventine, Caelian, Esquiline, Tarpeian, Vatican, and ]aniculum,-where the Quirinal and Viminal are, evidently as coller, omitted, and in their stead two "monies" are introduced from the right bank of the Tiber, including even the Vatican which lay outside of the Servian wall. Other still later lists are given by Servius (ad Am. vi. 783), the Berne Scholia to Virgil's Geoqr'cs (ii. 535), and Lydus (de Mar. p. :18, Bekker).
is
it,
I49
HEGEMONY OF ROME IN LATIUM BOOK!
in the times of the republic; but the scheme itself belongs beyond doubt to the regal period, although presumably to a later epoch than the designing of the Servian wall and the Capitoline stronghold. The spots thus drained or dried supplied large open spaces such as were needed by the new enlarged city. The assembling-place of the com~ munity, which had hitherto been the Area Capitolina at the stronghold itself, was now transferred to the flat space, where the ground fell from the stronghold towards the
city (comitium), and which stretched thence between the Palatine and the Carinae, in the direction of the Velia. At that side of the comitium which adjoined the stronghold, and upon the stronghold-wall which arose above the comz'tium in the fashion of a balcony, the members of the senate and the guests of the city had the place of honour assigned to them on occasion of festivals and assemblies of the people; and at the place of assembly itself was erected the senate house, which afterwards bore the name of the Curia Hos tilia. The platform for the judgment-seat (tribunal), and the stage whence the burgesses were addressed (the later T051711), were likewise erected on the comitium itself. Its prolongation in the direction of the Velia became the new market (far-um Romanum). At the end of the latter, beneath the Palatine, rose the community-house, which included the oficial dwelling of the king (regr'a) and the common hearth of the city, the rotunda forming the temple of Vesta; at no great distance, on the south side of the Forum, there was erected a second round building con
nected with the former, the store-room of the community or temple of the Penates, which still stands at the present day as the porch of the church Santi Cosma e Damiano. It is a feature significant of the new city now united in a way very different from the settlement of the “seven
mounts,” that, over and above the hearths of the thirty curies which the Palatine Rome had been content with
can. vrr HEGEMONY OF ROME IN LATIUM
r41
associating in one building, the Servian Rome presented this general and single hearth for the city at large. 1 Along the two longer sides of the Forum butchers’ shops and other traders’ stalls were arranged. In the valley between the Palatine and Aventine a “ring” was staked off for races; this became the Circus. The cattle-market was laid out immediately adjoining the river, and this soon became one of the most densely peopled quarters of Rome. Temples and sanctuaries arose on all the summits, above all the federal sanctuary of Diana on the Aventine 133), and on the summit of the stronghold the far-seen temple of Father Diovis, who had given to his people all this glory, and who now, when the Romans were triumphing over the surrounding nations, triumphed along with them over the subject gods of the vanquished.
The names of the men, at whose bidding these great buildings of the city arose, are almost as completely lost in oblivion as those of the leaders in the earliest battles and victories of Rome. Tradition indeed assigns the different works to different kings-the senate-house to Tullus Hostilius, the Janiculum and the wooden bridge to Ancus Marcius, the great Cloaca, the Circus, and the temple of Jupiter to the elder Tarquinius, the temple of Diana and the ring-wall to Servius Tullius. Some of these statements may perhaps be correct; and apparently not the result of accident that the building of the new ring-wall associated both as to date and author with the new organi zation of the army, which in fact bore special reference to the regular defence of the city walls. But upon the whole we must be content to learn from this tradition-what
Both the situation of the two temples, and the express testimony or Dionysius, ii. 65, that the temple of Vesta lay outside of the Roma quadrata, prove that these structures were connected with the foundation not of the Palatine, but of the second (Servian) city. Posterity reckoned this rzgia with the temple of Vesta as scheme of Numa but the cause which gave rise to that hypothesis too manifest to allow of our attaching anyweighttolt.
is
a
;
1
is
is
it is
(p.
r42
HEGEMONY OF ROME IN LATIUM B001: 1
indeed evident of itself—that this second creation of Rome
with the commencement of her hegemony over Latium and with the remodelling of her
stood in intimate connection
burgess-army, and that, while it originated in one and the
its execution was not the work either of a single man or of a single generation It is im
possible to doubt that Hellenic influences exercised a
effect on this remodelling of the Roman com munity, but it is equally impossible to demonstrate the mode or the degree of their operation. It has already been observed that the Servian military constitution is essentially of an Hellenic type (p. 123) ; and it will be afterwards
shown that the games of the Circus were organized on an Hellenic model. The new regr'a with the city hearth was quite a Greek prytaneion, and the round temple of Vesta, looking towards the east and not so much as consecrated by the augurs, was constructed in no respect according to Italian, but wholly in accordance with Hellenic, ritual. With these facts before us, the statement of tradition
appears not at all incredible that the Ionian confederacy in
Asia Minor to some extent served as a model for the
Romano-Latin league, and that the new federal sanctuary on the Aventine was for that reason constructed in imitation
of the Artemision at Ephesus.
same great conception,
powerful
can. vm THE UMBRO-SABELLIAN STOCKS
CHAPTER VIII
I43
m UMBRO-SABELLIAN STOCKS-BEGINNINGS OI’ m SAMNITES
THE migration of the Umbrian stocks appears to have Umbro begun at a period later than that of the Latins. Like the s‘lbdh“ Latin, it moved in a southerly direction, but it kept more migration. in the centre of the peninsula and towards the east coast.
It is painful to speak of it; for our information regarding it comes to us like the sound of bells from a town that has been sunk in the sea. The Umbrian people extended according to Herodotus as far as the Alps, and it is not improbable that in very ancient times they occupied the whole of Northern Italy, to the point where the settlements of the Illyrian stocks began on the east, and those of the Ligurians on the west. As to the latter, there are traditions of their conflicts with the Umhrians, and we may perhaps draw an inference regarding their extension in very early times towards the south from isolated names, such as that of the island of Ilva (Elba) compared with the Ligurian Ilvates. To this period of Umbrian greatness the evidently Italian names of the most ancient settlements in the valley of the Po, Atria (black-town), and Spina (them-town), probably owe their origin, as well as the numerous traces of Umbrians in southern Etruria (such as the river Umbro, Camars the old name of Clusium, Castrum
Such indications of an Italian population
Amerinum). having preceded
144
THE UMBRO'SABELLIAN STOCKS B00! 1
the Etruscan especially occur in the most southern portion of Etruria, the district between the Ciminian Forest (below Viterbo) and the Tiber. In Falerii, the town of Etruria nearest to the frontier of Umbria and the Sabine country, according to the testimony of Strabo a language was spoken different from the Etruscan, and inscriptions bearing out that statement have recently been brought to light there, the alphabet and language of which, while presenting points of contact with the Etruscan, exhibit a general resemblance to the Latin. 1 The local worship also presents traces of a Sabellian character; and a similar inference is suggested by the primitive relations subsisting in sacred as well as other matters between Caere and Rome. It is probable that the Etruscans wrested those southern districts from the Umbrians at a period considerably subsequent to their
of the country on the north of the Ciminian Forest, and that an Umbrian population maintained itself there even after the Tuscan conquest. In this fact we may presumably find the ultimate explanation of the surprising rapidity with which the southern portion of Etruria became Latinized, as compared with the tenacious retention of the Etruscan language and manners in northern Etruria, after the Roman conquest. That the Umbrians were after obstinate struggles driven back from the north and west into the narrow mountainous country between the two arms of the Apennines which they subsequently held, is clearly indicated by the very fact of their geographical position,
just as the position of the inhabitants of the Grisons and
l In the alphabet the respecially deserves notice, I of the
being Latin
(R) and not of the Etruscan form (D). and also the z ( ) only be ; it can
derived from the primitive Latin, and must very faithfully represent it. The language likewise has close aflinity with the oldest Latin; Marci
occupation
Acarnlini he cupa, that is, l. l/lan‘iur Acarceliniur lzeic cubat‘:
A. Cotena La. f. . . xenaluo sentzm . . dedet cuando. . auncaplum, that is, Minervae A(ulus Cotena La(rtir)f(ilius) dc senalus senlentia dzdil guando (perhaps:olim) mnceptum. At the same time with these and similar inscriptions there have been found some others in
lncter and language, undoubtedly Etruscan.
Marten/a
difi'erent char
a
i’)
CHAP- VIII BEGINNINGS OF THE SAMNITES
245
that of the Basques at the present day indicates the similar fate that has befallen them. Tradition also has to report that the Tuscans wrested from the Umbrians three hundred towns; and, what is of more importance as evidence, in the national prayers of the Umbrian Iguvini, which we still possess, along with other stocks the Tuscans especially are cursed as public foes.
In consequence, as may be presumed, of this pressure exerted upon them from the north, the Umbrians advanced towards the south, keeping in general upon the heights, because they found the plains already occupied by Latin stocks, but beyond doubt frequently making inroads and encroachments on the territory of the kindred race, and intermingling with them the more readily, that the distinction in language and habits could not have been at all so marked then as we find it afterwards. To the class of such inroads belongs the tradition of the irruption of the Reatini and Sabines into Latium and their conflicts with the Romans; similar phenomena were probably repeated all along the west coast. Upon the whole the Sabines maintained their footing in the mountains, as in the district bordering on Latium which has since been called by their name, and so
too in the Volscian land, presumably because the Latin population did not extend thither or was there less dense ; while on the other hand the well-peopled plains were better able to offer resistance to the invaders, although they were not in all cases able or desirous to prevent isolated bands from gaining a footing, such as the Tities and afterwards the Claudii in Rome 55). In this way the stocks here became variously mingled, state of things which serves to explain the numerous relations that subsisted between the Volscians and Latins, and how happened that their district, as well as Sabina, afterwards became so early and speedily Latinized.
The chief branch, however, of the Umbrian stock threw Samnite‘. VOL. r0
1
it
(p. a
146
THE UMBRO-SABELLIAN STOCKS B00! 1
itself eastward from Sabina into the mountains of the Abruzzi, and the adjacent hill-country to the south of them. Here, as on the west coast, they occupied the mountainous districts, whose thinly scattered population gave way before the immigrants or submitted to their yoke; while in the plain along the Apulian coast the ancient native population, the Iapygians, upon the whole maintained their ground, although involved in constant feuds, especially on the northern frontier about Luceria and Arpi. When these migrations took place, cannot of course be determined; but it was presumably about the time when kings ruled in Rome. Tradition reports that the Sabines, pressed by the Umbrians, vowed a ver sacrum, that swore that they would give up and send beyond their bounds the sons and daughters born in the year of war, so soon as these should reach maturity, that the gods might at their pleasure destroy them or bestow upon them new abodes in other lands. One hand was led by the ox of Mars; these were the Safmi or Samnites, who in the first instance established themselves on the mountains adjoining the river Sagrus, and at later period proceeded to occupy the beautiful plain on the east of the Matese chain, near the sources of the Tifemus. Both in their old and in their new territory they named their place of public assembly-which in the one case was situated near Agnone, in the other near Bojano—from the ox which led them Bovianum. second band was led by the woodpecker of Mars; these were the Picentes, “the woodpecker-people,” who took possession of what now the March of Ancona. A third band was led by the wolf
into the region of Beneventum these were the Hirpini. In similar manner the other small tribes branched off from the common stock—the Praetuttii near Teramo the Vestini on the Gran Sasso the Marrucini near Chieti the Frentani on the frontier of Apulia the Paeligni on the
Majella mountains; and lastly the Marsi on the Fucine
(kirpus)
;
A ;
;
;;
a
is
a
is,
ci-mr. vm BEGINNINGS OF THE SAMNITES
r47
lake, coming in contact with the Volscians and Latins. All of these tribes retained, as these legends clearly show, a vivid sense of their relationship and of their having come forth from the Sabine land. While the Umbrians suc cumbed in the unequal struggle and the western offshoots of the same stock became amalgamated with the Latin or Hellenic population, the Sabellian tribes prospered in the seclusion of their distant mountain land, equally remote from collision with the Etruscans, the Latins, and the Greeks. There was little or no development of an urban life amongst them; their geographical position almost
wholly precluded them from engaging in commercial inter course, and the mountain-tops and strongholds sulficed for the necessities of defence, while the husbandmen continued to dwell in open hamlets or wherever each found the well spring and the forest or pasture that he desired. In such circumstances their constitution remained stationary; like the similarly situated Arcadians in Greece, their communities never became incorporated into a single state ; at the utmost they only formed confederacies more or less loosely con
nected. In the Abruzzi especially, the strict seclusion of the mountain valleys seems to have debarred the several cantons from intercourse either with each other or with the outer world. They maintained but little connection with each other and continued to live in complete isolation from the rest of Italy; and in consequence, notwithstanding the bravery of their inhabitants, they exercised less influence
than any other portion of the Italian nation on the develop ment of the history of the peninsula.
On the other hand the Samnite people decidedly ex-
hibited the highest political development among the eastern 5:3: Italian stock, as the Latin nation did among the western. Mi From an early period, perhaps from its first immigration, a comparatively strong political bond held together the Samnite nation, and gave to it the strength which subse~
Their
148
THE UMBRO-SABELLIAN STOCKS BOOK I
quently enabled it to contend with Rome on equal terms for the first place in Italy. We are as ignorant of the time and manner of the formation of the bond, as we are of its federal constitution ; but it is clear that in Samnium no single community was preponderant, and still less was there any town to serve as a central rallying point and bond of union for the Samnite stock, such as Rome was for the Latins. The strength of the land lay in its communes of husbandmen, and authority was vested in the assembly formed of their representatives; it was this assembly which in case of need nominated a federal commander-in-chief. In consequence of its constitution the policy of this confederacy was not aggressive like the Roman, but was limited to the defence of its own bounds; only where the state forms a unity is power so concentrated and passion so strong, that the ex tension of territory can be systematically pursued. Accord_ ingly the whole history of the two nations is prefigured in their diametrically opposite systems of colonization. What ever the Romans gained, was a gain to the state: the conquests of the Samnites were achieved by bands of volunteers who went forth in search of plunder and, whether they prospered or were unfortunate, were left to their own resources by their native home. The conquests, however, which the Samnites made on the coasts of the Tyrrhenian and Ionic seas, belong to a later age; during the regal period in Rome they seem to have been only gaining possession of the settlements in which we afterwards find them. As a single incident in the series of movements among the neighbouring peoples caused by this Samnite settlement may be mentioned the surprise of Cumae by Tyrrhenians from the Upper Sea, Umbrians, and Daunians
‘24. in the year 2 30. If we may give credit to the accounts of the matter which present certainly a considerable colouring of romance, it would appear that in this instance, as was often the case in such expeditions, the
can. vrn BEGINNINGS OF THE SAMNITES
I49
intruders and those whom they supplanted combined to form one army, the Etruscans joining with their Umbrian enemies, and these again joined by the Iapygians whom the Umbrian settlers had driven towards the south. Neverthe less the undertaking proved a failure: on this occasion at least the Hellenic superiority in the art of war, and the bravery of the tyrant Aristodemus, succeeded in repelling the barbarian assault on the beautiful seaport.
Etruscan nationality.
THE Etruscan people, or Ras,1 as they called themselves, present a most striking contrast to the Latin and Sabellian Italians as well as to the Greeks. They were distinguished from these nations by their very bodily structure: instead of the slender and symmetrical proportions of the Greeks and Italians, the sculptures of the Etruscans exhibit only short sturdy figures with large head and thick arms. Their manners and customs also, so far as we are acquainted with them, point to a deep and original diversity from the Graeco-Italian stocks. The religion of the Tuscans in particular, presenting a gloomy fantastic character and delighting in the mystical handling of numbers and in wild and horrible speculations and practices, is equally remote from the clear rationalism of the Romans and the genial image-worship of the Hellenes. The conclusion which
these facts suggest is confirmed by the most important and authoritative evidence of nationality, the evidence of language. The remains of the Etruscan tongue which have reached us, numerous as they are and presenting as they do various data to aid in deciphering occupy a position of isolation so complete, that not only has no one hitherto succeeded in interpreting these remains, but no one has been able even to determine precisely the place of
Rar-ermae, with the gentile termination mentioned at p. 152.
150
THE ETRUSCANS BOOK 1
CHAPTER IX
THE rmwscrms
1
it,
cm. I: THE ETRUSCANS
r5r
Etruscan in the classification of languages. Two periods in the development of the language may be clearly dis tinguished. In the older period the vocalization of the language was completely carried out, and the collision of two consonants was almost without exception avoided. 1 By throwing off the vocal and consonantal terminations, and by the weakening or rejection of the vowels, this sod: and melodious language was gradually changed in character, and became intolerably harsh and rugged! ‘ They changed
for example ramuSaf into ramsa, Tarquinius into Tarclmqf, Minerva into Illenrva, Menelaos, Polydeukes, Alexandros, into Mimie, Pultuke, Elc/zsentre. The indistinct and rugged nature of their pronunciation is shown most clearly by the fact that at a very early period the Etruscans made no distinction of a from u, b from p, c from g, d from t. At the same time the accent was, as in Latin and in the more rugged Greek dialects, uniformly thrown back upon the initial syllable. The aspirate consonants were treated in a similar fashion; while the Italians rejected them with the exception of the aspirated b or the j; and the Greeks, reversing the case, rejected this sound and retained the others 3, ¢, x, the Etruscans allowed the softest and most pleasing of them, the to drop entirely except in words borrowed from other languages, but made use of the other three to an extraordinary extent, even where they had no proper place Thetis for example became Tlzetilis, Telephus Tlzelap/u, Odysseus Uluze or Ut/ruze. Of the few termina tions and words, whose meaning has been ascertained, the greater part are far remote from all Graeco-Italian analogies
such as, all the numerals; the termination a! employed as
To this period belong ag. inscriptions on the clay vases of Caere, such as, minicmmamimaSumaramliriafirfurmaiefizerairieepanamine Sunartavkelefu, or mi ramuhafkaiufinaia.
We may form some idea of the sound which the language now had from the commencement of the great inscription of Perusia; eulat Iamm [arm] amwaxr lautn rlelfirime . rtlaafuna: sleleBcaru.
’1
a;
;
4>,
152
THE ETRUSCANS nooK 1
of descent, frequently of descent from the mother, ag. Cam'al, which on a bilingual inscription of Chiusi is translated by Cairmia natus; and the termination . ra in the names of women, used to indicate the clan into which they have married, eg. Lemesa denoting the spouse of a Lia'm'us. So cela or clan with the inflection clam-i means son; sex daughter; ril year; the god Hermes becomes Turms, Aphrodite Turan, Hephaestos Set/11am, Bakchos Fufluns. Alongside of these strange forms and sounds there certainly occur isolated analogies between the Etruscan and the Italian languages. Proper names are formed, substantially, after the general Italian system. The frequent gentile termination was or em:1 recurs in the termination mus which is likewise of frequent occurrence in Italian, especially in Sabellian clan-names; thus the Etruscan names Mauenas and Spurinna correspond closely to the Roman Maea'us and Spurius. A number of names of divinities, which occur as Etruscan on Etruscan monu ments or in authors, have in their roots, and to some extent even in their terminations, a form so thoroughly Latin, that, if these names were really originally Etruscan, the two
designation
must have been closely related; such as Usi: (sun and dawn, connected with ausum, aurum, aurora, sol), M'nema (menervare), Lara (lam'vus), Mptunus, Voltumna. As these analogies, however, may have had their origin
in the subsequent political and religious relations between the Etruscans and Latins, and in the accommoda tions and borrowings to which these relations gave rise, they do not invalidate the conclusion to which we are led by the other observed phenomena, that the Tuscan language differed at least as widely from all the Graeco-Italian
1 Such as Maecenas, Porsena, Vivenna, Caecina, Spurinna. The vowel in the penult is originally long, but in consequence of the throwing hack of the accent upon the initial syllable is frequently shortened and even rejected. Thus we find Porsena as well u Porsena. and Ceicne as
well as Caecina.
languages
only
can. 1x THE ETRUSCANS
r53
dialects as did the language of the Celts or of the Slavonians. So at least it sounded to the Roman ear; “Tuscan and Gallic ” were the languages of barbarians, “ Oscan and Volscian ” were but rustic dialects.
But, while the Etruscans differed thus widely from the Graeco-Italian family of languages, no one has yet succeeded in connecting them with any other known race. All sorts of dialects have been examined with a view to discover afi'inity with the Etruscan, sometimes by simple interroga tion, sometimes by torture, but all without exception in vain. The geographical position of the Basque nation would naturally suggest it for comparison; but even in the Basque language no analogies of a decisive character have been brought forward. As little do the scanty remains of the Ligurian language which have reached our time, consisting of local and personal names, indicate any con nection with the Tuscans. Even the extinct nation which has constructed those enigmatical sepulchral towers, called Nuraglu, by thousands in the islands of the Tuscan Sea, especially in Sardinia, cannot well be connected with the Etruscans, for not a single structure of the same character is to be met with in Etruscan territory. The utmost we can say is that several traces, that seem tolerably trust worthy, point to the conclusion that the Etruscans may be on the whole numbered with the Indo-Germans. Thus mi in the beginning of many of the older inscriptions is certainly élu’, rim’, and the genitive form of consonantal stems veneruf, ra zwuf is exactly reproduced in old Latin, corresponding to the old Sanscrit termination as. In like manner the name of the Etruscan Zeus, Tina or Tim'a, is probably connected with the Sanscrit dina, meaning day, as Zév is connected with the synonymous a’iwan. But, even granting this, the Etruscan people appears withal scarcely less isolated. “The Etruscans,” Dionysius said long ago, “are like no other nation in language
Home
of the Etruscans.
and manners ;” and we have nothing to add to his statement.
It is equally diflicult to determine from what quarter the Etruscans migrated into Italy; nor is much lost through our inability to answer the question, for this migration belonged at any rate to the infancy of the people, and
their historical development began and ended in Italy. No question, however, has been handled with greater zeal than this, in accordance with the principle which induces anti quaries especially to inquire into what is neither capable of being known nor worth the knowing—to inquire “who was Hecuba’s mother,” as the emperor Tiberius professed to do. As the oldest and most important Etruscan towns lay far inland—in fact we find not a single Etruscan town of any note immediately on the coast except Populonia, which we know for certain was not one of the old twelve cities— and the movement of the Etruscans in historical times was
from north to south, it seems probable that they migrated into the peninsula by land. Indeed the low stage of civilization, in which we find them at first, would ill accord with the hypothesis of immigration by sea. Nations even in the earliest times crossed a strait as they would a stream ; but to land on the west coast of Italy was a very different matter. We must therefore seek for the earlier home of the Etruscans to the west or north of Italy. It is not wholly improbable that the Etruscans may have come into Italy over the Raetian Alps; for the oldest traceable settlers in the Grisons and Tyrol, the Raeti, spoke Etruscan down to historical times, and their name sounds similar to that of the Ras. These may no doubt have been a remnant of the Etruscan settlements on the Po; but it is at least quite as likely that they may have been a portion of the people which remained behind in its earlier abode.
In glaring contradiction to this simple and natural view stands the story that the Etruscans were Lydians who had
I54
THE ETRUSCANS BOOK 1
crutr. rx THE ETRUSCAN S
! 55
emigrated from Asia. It is very ancient: it occurs even Story
of their
Lydian
in Herodotus ; and it reappears in later writers with innu merable changes and additions, although several intelligent origin. inquirers, such as Dionysius, emphatically declared their disbelief in and pointed to the fact that there was not
the slightest apparent similarity between the Lydians and Etruscans in religion, laws, manners, or language.
possible that an isolated band of pirates from Asia Minor
may have reached Etruria, and that their adventure may
have given rise to such tales; but more probably the whole
story rests on mere verbal mistake. The Italian Etruscans
or the Turs-ennae (for this appears to be the original form
and the basis of the Greek Tvpzr-vyvot’, Tvfifnyvoi', of the Umbrian Turs-ci, and of the two Roman forms Turn’, Etrum') nearly coincide in name with the Lydian people of
the Tofifvqfior' or perhaps also Tvfifr-qvot', so named from the
town Tfififia. This manifestly accidental resemblance in
name seems to be in reality the only foundation for that hypothesis-not rendered more trustworthy its great antiquity-and for all the pile of crude historical speculations
that has been reared upon By connecting the ancient maritime commerce of the Etruscans with the piracy of the Lydians, and then confounding (Thucydides the first
who has demonstrably done so) the Torrhebian pirates, whether rightly or wrongly, with the bucaneering Pelasgians
who roamed and plundered on every sea, there has been produced one of the most mischievous complications of historical tradition. The term Tyrrhenians denotes some
times the Lydian Torrhebi—as the case in the earliest sources, such as the Homeric hymns sometimes under the
form Tyrrheno-Pelasgians or simply that of Tyrrhenians,
the Pelasgian nation; sometimes, in fine, the Italian Etruscans, although the latter never came into
contact with the Pelasgians or Torrhebians, or were at all connected with them by common descent.
lasting
is ;
by
it.
is
by
a
it,
It is
Settle merits
of the Etrustnns In Italy.
It on the other hand, matter of historical interest to determine what were the oldest traceable abodes of the Etruscans, and what were their further movements when they issued thence. Various circumstances attest that before the great Celtic invasion they dwelt in the district to the north of the Po, being conterminous on the east along the Adige with the Veneti of Illyrian (Albanian? ) descent, on the west with the Ligurians. This proved in particular by the already-mentioned rugged Etruscan dialect, which was still spoken in the time of Livy by the inhabitants of the Raetian Alps, and by the fact that Mantua remained Tuscan down to late period. To the south of the Po and at the mouths of that river Etruscans and Umbrians were mingled, the former as the dominant, the latter as the older race, which had founded the old commercial towns of Atria and Spina, while the Tuscans appear to have been the founders of Felsina (Bologna) and Ravenna. A long time elapsed ere the Celts crossed the Po hence the Etruscans and Umbrians left deeper traces of their existence on the right bank of the river than they had done on the left, which they had to abandon at an early period. All
the regions, however, to the north of the Apennines passed too rapidly out of the hands of one nation into those of another to permit the formation of any continuous national development there.
Far more important in an historical point of view was the great settlement of the Tuscans in the land which still bears their name. Although Ligurians or Umbrians were probably at one time (p. 143) settled there, the traces of them have been almost wholly effaced by the Etruscan occupation and civilization. In this region, which extends along the coast from Pisae to Tarquinii and shut in on the east by the Apennines, the Etruscan nationality found its permanent abode and maintained itself with great tenacity down to the time of the empire. The northern
156
THE ETRUSCAN S BOOK 1
Etruria.
is
;
a
is
is,
a
can. 1x THE ETRUSCAN S
I57
boundary of the proper Tuscan territory was formed by the Arnus ; the region north from the Arnus as far as the mouth of the Macra and the Apennines was a debateable border land in the possession sometimes of Ligurians, some times of Etruscans, and for this reason larger settlements were not successful there. The southern boundary was
probably formed at first by the Ciminian Forest, a chain of hills south of Viterbo, and at a later period by the Tiber. We have already 144) noticed the fact that the territory between the Ciminian range and the Tiber with the towns of Sutrium, Nepete, Falerii, Veii, and Caere appears not to have been taken possession of the Etruscans till considerably later than the more northern districts, possibly not earlier than in the second century of Rome, and that the original Italian population must have maintained its ground in this region, especially in Falerii, although in relation of dependence.
From the time at which the river Tiber became the line Relations
of demarcation between Etruria on the one side and Umbria of the Etruscans
and Latium on the other, peaceful relations probably upon to latium. the whole prevailed in that quarter, and no essential change
seems to have taken place in the boundary line, at least so
far as concerned the Latin frontier. Vividly as the Romans
were impressed by the feeling that the Etruscan was foreigner, while the Latin was their countryman, they yet seem to have stood in much less fear of attack or of danger from the right bank of the river than, for example, from their kinsmen in Gabii and Alba; and this was natural, for they were protected in that direction not merely by the broad stream which formed natural boundary, but also by the circumstance, so momentous in its bearing on the mercantile
and political development of Rome, that none of the more powerful Etruscan towns lay immediately on the river, as did Rome on the Latin bank. The Veientes were the nearest to the Tiber, and was with them that Rome and
period
it
a
aa
by
a
(p.
524s
Latium came most frequently into serious conflict, especially for the possession of Fidenae, which served the Veientes as a sort of téle de font on the left bank just as the Janiculum served the Romans on the right, and which was sometimes in the hands of the Latins, sometimes in those of the Etruscans. The relations of Rome with the somewhat more distant Caere were on the whole far more peaceful and friendly than those which we usually find subsisting between neighbours in early times. There are doubtless vague legends, reaching back to times of distant anti quity, about conflicts between Latium and Caere ; Mezentius the king of Caere, for instance, is asserted to have obtained great victories over the Latins, and to have imposed upon them a wine-tax; but evidence much more definite than that which attests a former state of feud is supplied by tradition as to an especially close connection between the two ancient centres of commercial and maritime intercourse in Latium and Etruria. Sure traces of any advance of the Etruscans beyond the Tiber, by land, are altogether wanting. It is true that Etruscans are named in the first ranks of the great barbarian host, which Aristodemus annihilated in 230 under the walls of Cumae 148) but, even we regard this account as deserving credit in all its details, only shows that the Etruscans had taken part in great plundering expedition. It far more important to observe that south of the Tiber no Etruscan settlement can be pointed out as having owed its origin to founders who came by land; and that no indication whatever discernible of any serious pressure by the Etruscans upon the Latin nation. The possession of the Janiculum and of both banks of the mouth of the Tiber remained, far as we can see, undis puted in the hands of the Romans. As to the migrations of bodies of Etruscans to Rome, we find an isolated state ment drawn from Tuscan annals, that Tuscan band, led
Caelius Vivenna of Volsinii and after his death by his
158
THE ETRUSCANS loo: 1
by
so a
is
(p.
is
a
it
if
;
can. 1! THE ETRUSCAN S
159
faithful companion Mastarna, was conducted by the latter to Rome. This may be trustworthy, although the derivation of the name of the Caelian Mount from this Caelius is evidently a philological invention, and even the addition that this Mastarna became king in Rome under the name of Servius Tullius is certainly nothing but an improbable conjecture of the archaeologists who busied themselves with legendary parallels. The name of the “Tuscan quarter” at the foot of the Palatine 64) points further to Etruscan settlements in Rome.
It can hardly, moreover, be doubted that the last regal The family which ruled over Rome, that of the Tarquins, was of Tarquin‘ Etruscan origin, whether belonged to Tarquinii, as the
legend asserts, or to Caere, where the family tomb of the Tarchnas has recently been discovered. The female name Tanaquil or Tanchvil interwoven with the legend, while
not Latin, common Etruria. But the traditional story --according to which Tarquin was the son of Greek who
had migrated from Corinth to Tarquinii, and came to settle
in Rome as metoz1€0s—-is neither history nor legend, and
the historical chain of events manifestly in this instance
not confused merely, but completely torn asunder. If anything more can be deduced from this tradition beyond
the bare and at bottom indifferent fact that at last family
of Tuscan descent swayed the regal sceptre in Rome,
can only be held as implying that this dominion of man
of Tuscan origin ought not to be viewed either as
dominion of the Tuscans or of any one Tuscan community
over Rome, or conversely as the dominion of Rome over southern Etruria. There in fact, no sufficient ground
either for the one hypothesis or for the other. The history
of the Tarquins had its arena in Latium, not in Etruria;
and Etruria, so far as we can see, during the whole regal
period exercised no influence of any essential moment on
either the language or customs of Rome, and did not at all
is,
in is
it (p.
a
ait is
a
a
is
a
it
The Etruscan constitu tion.
160 THE ETRUSCANS BOOK 1
interrupt the regular development of the Roman state or of the Latin league.
The cause of this comparatively passive attitude of Etruria towards the neighbouring land of Latium is probably to be sought partly in the struggles of the Etruscans with the Celts on the Po, which presumably the Celts did not cross until after the expulsion of the kings from Rome, and partly in the tendency of the Etruscan people towards seafaring and the acquisition of supremacy on the sea and seaboard -a tendency decidedly exhibited in their settlements in Campania, and of which we shall speak more fully in the next chapter.
The Tuscan constitution, like the Greek and Latin, was based on the gradual transition of the community to an urban life. The early direction of the national energies towards navigation, trade, and manufactures appears to have called into existence urban commonwealths, in the strict sense of the term, earlier in Etruria than elsewhere in Italy. Caere is the first of all the Italian towns that is mentioned in Greek records. On the other hand we find that the Etruscans had on the whole less of the ability and the
for war than the Romans and Sabellians: the un-Italian custom of employing mercenaries for fighting occurs among the Etruscans at a very early period. The oldest constitution of the communities must in its general outlines have resembled that of Rome. Kings or Lucumones ruled, possessing similar insignia and probably therefore a
similar plenitude of power with the Roman kings. A strict line of demarcation separated the nobles from the common people. The resemblance in the clan-organization is attested by the analogy of the system of names; only, among the Etruscans, descent on the mother’s side received much more consideration than in Roman law. The con
stitution of their league appears to have been very lax. It did not embrace the whole nation; the northern and the
disposition
can. I: THE ETRUSCAN S 16:
Campanian Etruscans were associated in confederacies of their own, just in the same way as the communities of Etruria proper. Each of these leagues consisted of twelve communities, which recognized a metropolis, especially for purposes of worship, and a federal head or rather a high priest, but appear to have been substantially equal in respect of rights; while some of them at least were so powerful that neither could a hegemony establish itself, nor could the central authority attain consolidation. In Etruria proper Volsinii was the metropolis ; of the rest of its twelve towns we know by trustworthy tradition only Perusia, Vetulonium, Volci, and Tarquinii. It was, however, quite as unusual for the Etruscans really to act in concert, as it was for the Latin confederacy to do otherwise. Wars were ordinarily carried on by a single community, which endea voured to interest in its cause such of its neighbours as it could; and when an exceptional case occurred in which war was resolved on by the league, individual towns very frequently kept aloof from The Etruscan confederations appear to have been from the first—still more than the other Italian leagues formed on similar basis of national
affinity-deficient
in firm and paramount central authority.
VOL.
I
1I
a
it. a
Relations of Italy with other lands.
CHAPTER X
THE HELLENES IN ITALY-MARITIME SUPREMACY OF THE TUSCANS AND CARTHAGINIANS
IN the history of the nations of antiquity a gradual dawn ushered in the day; and in their case too the dawn was in the east. While the Italian peninsula still lay enveloped in the dim twilight of morning, the regions of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean had already emerged into the full light of a varied and richly developed civilization. It falls
to the lot of most nations in the early stages of their deve lopment to be taught and trained by some rival sister nation; and such was destined to be in an eminent degree the lot of the peoples of Italy. The circumstances of its geographical position, however, prevented this influence from being ‘brought to bear upon the peninsula by land.
No trace is to be found of any resort in early times to the diflicult route by land between Italy and Greece. There were in all probability from time immemorial tracks for purposes of traflic, leading from Italy to the lands beyond the Alps; the oldest route of the amber trade from the Baltic joined the Mediterranean at the mouth of the Po— on which account the delta of the Po appears in Greek legend as the home of amber-and this route was joined by another leading across the peninsula over the Apennines to Pisae ; but from these regions no elements of civilization could come to the Italians. It was the seafaring nations
I6: THE HELLENES IN ITALY BOOK
crrar. 1 THE HELLENES IN ITALY
163
of the east that brought to Italy whatever foreign culture reached it in early times.
The oldest civilized nation on the shores of the Mediter- lfhoeni
ranean, the Egyptians, were not a seafaring people, and therefore exercised no influence on Italy. But the same may be with almost equal truth aflirmed of the Phoenicians. It is true that, issuing from their narrow home on the extreme eastern verge of the Mediterranean, they were the first of all known races to venture forth in floating houses on the bosom of the deep, at first for the purpose of fishing and dredging, but soon also for the prosecution of trade. They were the first to open up maritime commerce; and at an incredibly early period they traversed the Mediter ranean even to its furthest extremity in the west. Maritime stations of the Phoenicians appear on almost all its coasts earlier than those of the Hellenes: in Hellas itself, in Crete and Cyprus, in Egypt, Libya, and Spain, and likewise on the western Italian main. Thucydides tells us that all around Sicily, before the Greeks came thither or at least before they had established themselves there in any con siderable numbers, the Phoenicians had set up their factories on the headlands and islets, not with a view to gain terri tory, but for the sake of trading with the natives. But it was otherwise in the case of continental Italy. No sure proof has hitherto been given of the existence of any Phoenician settlement there excepting one, a Punic factory at Caere, the memory of which has been preserved partly by the appellation Pum'cum given to a little village on the Caerite coast, partly by the other name of the town of Caere itself, Agylla, which is not, as idle fiction asserts, of
Pelasgic origin, but is a Phoenician word signifying the “ round town ”-precisely the appearance which Caere pre sents when seen from the sea. That this station and any similar establishments which may have elsewhere existed on the coasts of Italy were neither of much importance nor of
m
Greeks in Italy.
long standing, is evident from their having disappeared almost without leaving a trace. We have not the smallest reason to think them older than the Hellenic settlements of a similar kind on the same coasts. An evidence of no slight weight that Latium at least first became acquainted with the men of Canaan through the medium of the Hellenes is furnished by the Latin appellation “Poeni,” which is borrowed from the Greek. All the oldest relations, indeed,
of the Italians to the civilization of the east point decidedly towards Greece; and the rise of the Phoenician factory at Caere may be very well explained, without resorting to the pre-Hellenic period, by the subsequent well-known relations between the commercial state of Caere and Carthage. In fact, when we recall the circumstance that the earliest navi gation was and continued to be essentially of a coasting character, it is plain that scarcely any country on the Mediterranean lay so remote from the Phoenicians as the Italian mainland. They could only reach it either fi'om
the west coast of Greece or from Sicily; and it may well be believed that the Seamanship of the Hellenes became developed early enough to anticipate the Phoenicians in braving the dangers of the Adriatic and of the Tyrrhene seas. There is no ground therefore for the assumption that any direct influence was originally exercised by the Phoenicians over the Italians. To the subsequent relations between the Phoenicians holding the supremacy of the western Mediterranean and the Italians inhabiting the shores of the Tyrrhene sea our narrative will return in the sequel.
To all appearance, therefore, the Hellenic mariners were the first among the inhabitants of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean to navigate the coasts of Italy. Of the
important questions however as to the region from which, and as to the period at which, the Greek seafarers came thither, only the former admits of being answered with
I54
THE HELLENES IN ITALY 800! I
CHAP. x THE HELLENES IN ITALY
165
some degree of precision and fulness. The Aeolian and Home of . . . . . theGreek
Ionian coast of Asia Minor was the region where Hellenic immi_ maritime traflic first became developed on a large scale, grant! and whence issued the Greeks who explored the interior of
the Black Sea on the one hand and the coasts of Italy on
the other. The name of the Ionian Sea, which was retained by the waters intervening between Epirus and Sicily, and that of the Ionian gulf, the term by which the Greeks in earlier times designated the Adriatic Sea, are memorials of the fact that the southern and eastern coasts of Italy were once discovered by seafarers from Ionia. The oldest Greek settlement in Italy, Kyme, was, as its name and legend tell, founded by the town of the same name on the Anatolian coast. According to trustworthy Hellenic tradi tion, the Phocaeans of Asia Minor were the first of the
Hellenes to traverse the more remote western sea. Other Greeks soon followed in the paths which those of Asia Minor had opened up; Ionians from Naxos and from Chalcis in Euboea, Achaeans, Locrians, Rhodians, Cor inthians, Megarians, Messenians, Spartans. After the dis covery of America the civilized nations of Europe vied with one another in sending out expeditions and forming settlements there ; and the new settlers when located amidst barbarians recognized their common character and common interests as civilized Europeans more strongly than they had done in their former home. So it was with the new discovery of the Greeks. The privilege of navigating the western waters and settling on the western land was not the exclusive property of a single Greek province or of a single Greek stock, but a common good for the whole Hellenic nation; and, just as in the formation of the new North American world, English and French, Dutch and German settlements became mingled and blended, Greek Sicily and “ Great Greece” became peopled by a mixture of all sorts of Hellenic races often so amalgamated as to
166 THE HELLEN ES IN ITALY ‘BOOK 1
be no longer distinguishable. Leaving out of account some settlements occupying a more isolated position-such as that of the Locrians with its offsets Hipponium and Medama, and the settlement of the Phocaeans which was not founded till towards the close of this period, Hyele (Velia, Elea)—we may distinguish in a general view three leading groups. The original Ionian group, comprehended under the name of the Chalcidian towns, included in Italy Cumae with the other Greek settlements at Vesuvius and Rhegium, and in Sicily Zankle (afterwards Messana), Naxos, Catana, Leontini, and Himera. The Achaean group embraced Sybaris and the greater part of the cities of
Magna Graecia. The Dorian group comprehended Syracuse, Gela, Agrigentum, and the majority of the Sicilian colonies, while in Italy nothing belonged to it but Taras (Tarentum) and its offset Heraclea. On the whole the preponderance lay with the immigrants who belonged to the more ancient Hellenic influx, that of the Ionians and the stocks settled in the Peloponnesus before the Doric immigration. Among the Dorians only the communities with a mixed population, such as Corinth and Megara, took a special part, whereas the purely Doric provinces had but a subordinate share in the movement. This result was naturally to be expected, for the Ionians were from ancient times a trading and sea faring people, while it was only at a comparatively late period that the Dorian stocks descended from their inland mountains to the seaboard, and they always kept aloof from maritime commerce. The different groups of immigrants are very clearly distinguishable, especially by their monetary standards. The Phocaean settlers coined according to the Babylonian standard which prevailed in Asia. The Chalcidian towns followed in the earliest times the Aeginetan, in other words, that which originally prevailed throughout all European Greece, and more especially the modification of it which is found occurring in Euboea. The Achaean
CHAP- x THE HELLENES IN ITALY 167
communities coined by the Corinthian standard ; and lastly
the Doric colonies followed that which Solon introduced
in Attica in the year of Rome 160, with the exception of 694. Tarentum and Heraclea, which in their principal pieces
adopted rather the standard of their Achaean neighbours than that of the Dorians in Sicily.
The dates of the earlier voyages and settlements will Time ofthe probably always remain enveloped in darkness. We may 25:53:‘, still, however, distinctly recognize a certain order of sequence. In the oldest Greek document, which belongs,
like the earliest intercourse with the west, to the Ionians of
Asia Minor-the Homeric poems-the horizon
extends beyond the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. Sailors driven by storms into the western sea might have brought to Asia Minor accounts of the existence of a western land and possibly also of its whirlpools and island-mountains vomiting fire: but in the age of the Homeric poetry there was an utter want of trustworthy information
Sicily and Italy, even in that Greek land which was the earliest to enter into intercourse with the west; and the story-tellers and poets of the east could without fear of contradiction fill the vacant realms of the west, as those of the west in their turn filled the fabulous east, with their castles in the air. In the poems of Hesiod the outlines of Italy and Sicily appear better defined; there is some acquaintance with the native names of tribes, mountains, and cities in both countries; but Italy is still regarded as a
group of islands. On the other hand, in all the literature subsequent to Hesiod, Sicily and even the whole coast of Italy appear as known, at least in a general sense, to the Hellenes. The order of succession of the Greek settlements may in like manner be ascertained with some degree of precision. Thucydides evidently regarded Cumae as the earliest settlement of note in the west; and certainly he was not mistaken. It is true that many a landing-place lay
scarcely
respecting
l68 THE HELLENES IN ITALY BOOK I
nearer at hand for the Greek mariner, but none were so well protected from storms and from barbarians as the island of Ischia, upon which the town was originally situated ; and that such were the prevailing considerations that led to this settlement, is evident from the very position which was subsequently selected for it on the mainland—the steep but well-protected cliff, which still bears to the present day the venerable name of the Anatolian mother-city. Nowhere in Italy, accordingly, were the scenes of the legends of Asia Minor so vividly and tenaciously localized as in the district of Cumae, where the earliest voyagers to the west, full of those legends of western wonders, first stepped upon the fabled land and left the traces of that world of story, which they believed that they were treading, in the rocks of the Sirens and the lake of Avernus leading to the lower world. On the supposition, moreover, that it was in Cumae that the Greeks first became the neighbours of the Italians, it is easy to explain why the name of that Italian stock which was settled immediately around Cumae, the name of Opicans, came to be employed by them for centuries afterwards to designate the Italians collectively. There is a further credible tradition, that a considerable interval elapsed between the settlement at Cumae and the main Hellenic immigration into Lower Italy and Sicily, and that in this
Ionians from Chalcis and from Naxos took the lead. Naxos in Sicily is said to have been the oldest of all the Greek towns founded by strict colonization in Italy or Sicily ; the Achaean and Dorian colonizations followed, but not until a later period.
It appears, however, to be quite impossible to fix the dates of this series of events with even approximate accuracy. The founding of the Achaean city of Sybaris
721. 708. in 33, and that of the Dorian city Tarentum in 46, are
immigration
the most ancient dates in Italian history, the correctness, or at least approximation to correctness, of
probably
can’. it THE HELLENES IN ITALY
169
which may be looked upon as established. But how far beyond that epoch the sending forth of the earlier Ionian colonies reached back, is quite as uncertain as is the age which gave birth to the poems of Hesiod or even of Homer.
If Herodotus is correct in the period which he assigns to Homer, the Greeks were still unacquainted with Italy a century before the foundation of Rome. The date thus 850. assigned however, like all other statements respecting the Homeric age, is matter not of testimony, but of inference;
and any one who carefully weighs the history of the Italian alphabets as well as the remarkable fact that the Italians had become acquainted with the Greek people before the name
“ Hellenes” had emerged for the race, and the Italians borrowed their designation for the Hellenes from the stock of the G111! ’ or Graeci that early fell into abeyance in Hellas,1 will be inclined to carry back the earliest intercourse of the
1 Whether the name of Graeci was originally associated with the interior of Epirus and the region of Dodona, or pertained rather to the Aetolians who perhaps earlier reached the western sea, may be left an open question ; it must at a remote period have belonged to a prominent stock
or aggregate of stocks of Greece proper and have passed over from these
to the nation as a whole. In the Eoai of Hesiod it appears as the older collective name for the nation, although it is manifest that it is intentionally
thrust aside and subordinated to that of Hellenes. The latter does not
occur in Homer, but, in addition to Hesiod, it is found in Archilochus
about the year 50, and it may very well have come into use considerably 700. earlier (Duncker, Gen/r. a’. Alt. iii. 18, 556). Already before this period, therefore, the Italians were so widely acquainted with the Greeks
that that name, which early fell into abeyance in Hellas, was retained by them as a collective name for the Greek nation, even when the latter itself adopted other modes of self-designation. It was withal only natural that foreigners should have attained to an earlier and clearer consciousness of the fact that the Hellenic stocks belonged to one race than the latter them selves, and that hence the collective designation should have become more definitely fixed among the former than with the latter-not the less. that it was not taken directly from the well-known Hellenes who dwelt the nearest to them. It is difficult to see how we can reconcile with this fact the state ment that a century before the foundation of Rome Italy was still quite unknown to the Greeks of Asia Minor. We shall speak of the alphabet below ; its history yields entirely similar results. It may perhaps be characterized as a rash step to reject the statement of Herodotus respecting the age of Homer on the strength of such considerations ; but is there no rashness in following implicitly the guidance of tradition in questions of this kind 7
170
THE HELLENES IN ITALY 800K I
Italians with the Greeks to an age considerably more remote.
The history of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks forms no part of the history of Italy; the Hellenic colonists of the migration. west always retained the closest connection with their original home and participated in the national festivals and privileges of Hellenes. But it is of importance even as
bearing on Italy, that we should indicate the diversities of character that prevailed in the Greek settlements there, and at least exhibit some of the leading features which enabled the Greek colonization to exercise so varied an influence on Italy.
Of all the Greek settlements, that which retained most thoroughly its distinctive character and was least affected by influences from without was the settlement which gave birth to the league of the Achaean cities, composed of the towns of Siris, Pandosia, Metabus or Metapontum, Sybaris with its offsets Posidonia and Laus, Croton, Caulonia, Temesa,
Terina, and Pyxus. These colonists, taken as a whole, belonged to a Greet‘. stock which steadfastly adhered to its own peculiar dialect, having closest aflinity with the Doric, and for long retained no less steadfastly the old national Hellenic mode of writing, instead of adopting the more recent alphabet which had elsewhere come into general use ; and which preserved its own nationality, as distinguished alike from the barbarians and from other Greeks, by the firm bond of a federal constitution. The language of Polybius regarding the Achaean symmachy in the Peloponnesus may be applied also to these Italian Achaeans; “Not only did they live in federal and friendly communion, but they made use of like laws, like weights, measures, and coins, as well as of the same
and judges. ”
This league of the Achaean cities was strictly a coloniza
tion. The cities had no harbours-Croton alone had a
Character of the Greek im
magistrates, councillors,
CHAD. 2 THE HELLENES IN ITALY
17!
paltry roadstead—and they had no commerce of their own ; the Sybarite prided himself on growing gray between the bridges of his lagoon-city, and Milesians and Etruscans
and sold for him. These Achaean Greeks, however, were not merely in possession of a narrow belt along the coast, but ruled from sea to sea in the “land of wine” and “of oxen” (Oivw-rpt’a, ’Im)t[a) or the “great Hellas,” the native agicultural population was compelled
to farm their lands and to pay to them tribute in the character of clients or even of serfs. Sybaris-in its time
the largest city in Italy—exercised dominion over four barbarian tribes and five-and-twenty townships, and was
able to found Laus and Posidonia on the other sea. The exceedingly fertile low grounds of the Crathis and Bradanus yielded a superabundant produce to the Sybarites and Metapontines—it was there perhaps that grain was first cultivated for exportation. The height of prosperity which these states in an incredibly short time attained is strikingly attested by the only surviving works of art of these Italian Achaeans, their coins of chaste antiquely beautiful work manship—the earliest monuments of art and writing in Italy which we possess, as it can be shown that they had already begun to be coined in 174. These coins show 580. that the Achaeans of the west did not simply participate in
the noble development of plastic art that was at this very time taking place in the motherland, but were even superior in technical skill. For, while the silver pieces which were in use about that time in Greece proper and among the Dorians in Italy were thick, often stamped only
on one side, and in general without inscription, the Italian Achaeans with great and independent skill struck from two similar dies partly cut in relief, partly sunk, large thin silver coins always furnished with inscriptions, and display
ing the advanced organization of a civilized state in the mode of impression, by which they were carefully protected
bought
I72
THE HELLENES IN ITALY BOOK 1
from the process of counterfeiting usual in that age-the plating of inferior metal with thin silver-foil.
Nevertheless this rapid bloom bore no fruit. Even Greeks speedily lost all elasticity of body and of mind in a life of indolence, in which their energies were never tried either by vigorous resistance on the part of the natives or by hard labour of their own. None of the brilliant names in Greek art or literature shed glory on the Italian
Achaeans, while Sicily could claim ever so many of them, and even in Italy the Chalcidian Rhegium could produce its Ibycus and the Doric Tarentum its Archytas. With this people, among whom the spit was for ever turning on the hearth, nothing flourished from the outset but boxing. The rigid aristocracy which early gained the helm in the several communities, and which found in case of need a sure reserve of support in the federal power, prevented the rise of tyrants ; but the danger to be apprehended was that the government of the best might be converted into a government of the few, especially if the privileged families in the different communities should combine to assist each other in carrying out their designs. Such was the pre dominant aim in the combination of mutually pledged "friends ” which bore the name of Pythagoras. It enjoined the principle that the ruling class should be “honoured like gods,” and that the subject class should be “held in subservience like beasts,” and by such theory and practice
a formidable reaction, which terminated in the annihilation of the Pythagorean “friends” and the renewal of the ancient federal constitution. But frantic party feuds, insurrections en mil-$86 of the slaves, social abuses of all sorts, attempts to supply in practice an impracticable state philosophy, in short, all the evils of demoralized civilization never ceased to rage in the Achaean communities, till under the accumulated pressure their political power utterly broke down.
provoked
CHAP- it THE HELLENES IN ITALY
173
It is no matter of wonder therefore that the Achaeans settled in Italy exercised less influence on its civilization than the other Greek settlements. An agricultural people, they had less occasion than those engaged in commerce to extend their influence beyond their political bounds. With in their own dominions they enslaved the native population and crushed the germs of their national development as Italians, while they refused to open up to them by means of complete Hellenization a new career. In this way the Greek characteristics, which were able elsewhere to retain a vigorous vitality notwithstanding all political misfortunes, disappeared more rapidly, more completely, and more ingloriously in Sybaris and Metapontum, in Croton and Posidonia, than in any other region ; and the bilingual mongrel peoples, that arose in subsequent times out of the remains of the native Italians and Achaeans and the more recent immigrants of Sabellian descent, never attained any real prosperity. This catastrophe, however, belongs in point of time to the succeeding period.