MAS NEGATIVE NO 92-80761 1 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, m its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR DURUY, VICTOR TITLE: HISTORY OF ROME AND THE ROMAN . PLACE: LONDON DATE: 1 883-86 COLUMBIA UNIVEl^ITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOCR A PHIC MICROFORM TARHFT Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record i b.74 V Duniy, Victor i, c?, Jean Victor, 1811-1894. History of Rome and the Romau people, from its origin to tlic establislnnent of tlie Christian empire. By Victor Duruv ... Ed. l)v the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy ... London, Kelly & CO., 1883-86. 6 v.in-42: fronts, (v. ^5) illus., plates (part col.) ports., maps, plans. Restrictions on Use: 1. Rome— Hist. I. MahafTy, John Pcntland, 1839- cd. Library of Congress ^.p-.^^yc DG209.D96 5-107 Additions .-J FILM S\ZE:_3££(\^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA 53 DATE FILMED:„i^_-:_cy=a- TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO:^ IB IIB .?15=_ INITIALS„ -^Jl HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS INC WGODBRin n^TT V .->. >.vr o. N^ Z w c: Association for information and Image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter iiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 3 4 5 Imiliiiiliiiiliiiil 6 7 8 9 10 n 12 13 14 iliiiiliii Jmijm Jiiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiili ^ 15 mm ITT TTT I TTT Inches 1.0 I.I 1.25 1^ V^ 2.5 W22 ■ 3.6 2.2 US ■(11.14 14.0 1.4 2.0 1.8 1.6 MRNUFfiCTURED TO RUM STRNDflRDS BY RPPLIED IMRGE. INC. a^ .^ r % 6 ■a ^<*V^ ' ^/» V^i >.' to '^'^'^t ^1 4 Colmnbia ®ni»cm'tp intl)fCit?cfltcttigork THE LIBRARIES » ( ^.VV' 3 V'' 9:' ''^ **^ :e* .♦-.l ^p^ ^r«» A* :7*^ •*"i 'i f*\ *.< "'■'■'.. >- J ->. ^^'.j^'. " r -■*^M^ -^s V^;-^ » a' o I HISTORY OF ROME AND THE R03fAN PEOPLE. ! I \ . L, ' fflSTOEY OP ROME AND THE ROMAN PEOPLE, FKOM ITS ORIGIN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN EMPIRE, BY PBWTED BV „a w C »^"^ * ^' T» S,S"STO.-0-™-"^ t } V 1 ' If .. ■ % 1 ■i "•J VICTOR DURUY, MBMBKK O. THE .».^,™tK. KX-MZN^,,,, ok PUBUC I»STHUC„0«. «. EDITED BY THE BEV. J. P. MAHAFFY. PROKESSOK OP ^CWr H,«TOHV. THZ»ITV COL.KGK. DUBUN. MJMEROUS CHKOMO-LITHOGEAPHS. VOLUME I. WITH 590 WOOD ENGRAVINGS n MAPS. 4 PLANS AND 8 CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHS, LONDON ; KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER 1883. %^ [All rif/hts reserved.] SQUARE. ./ *^. 1 X \ . EDITOR'S PREFACE. Copyright (1883) by ESTES & LAURIAT. ^All Hf/kts reserved.] ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL. / > / , It is the duty of those who offer to the public so large a Avork on a subject already treated in English books, to justify its position and explain the principles followed in translating and editing it. Strange to say, though some of the greatest English historians have devoted themselves to Eoman history, there does not exist any standard English work on the whole subject. Portions of it have been thoroughly handled, but a complete survey is not to be found except in little handbooks ; so that the Englishman or American who wants as a work of reference for his library a history of Rome down to the close of its pagan days, has hitherto been unable to find it. Even if he can read French and German, he will encounter the same diffi- culty, nor is it in any way satisfactory to supply the want by two or three special histories. No doubt the English edition of Mommsen's history, the large work of Merivale, and the incomparable Gibbon cover the ground, but they cover it writing from widely different standpoints, in various styles, and with- out any general index which could enable the ordinary reader to find any fact required. Moreover, the very original and suggestive work of Mommsen on the early history of Eome is totally unsuited for ordinary readers and for ordinary re- ference, inasmuch as he treats with silent contempt most of the popular stories, and re-arranges the renmants of tradition according to new and peculiar principles of his own. To a public ignorant of his special researches — his Rlhnische Forseh- unijen^ and Uimmche^ iStaatsrecht — the history, published without PREFACE. k references or explanations, must be often quite unintelligible. The account of the early reforms in the Constitution, and of the relations of the Three Assemblies, are so totally opposed to the accounts in ordinary English histories, that the thoughtful reader is completely at a loss to find out when all these novelties were discovered, or how they are to be justified. An edition of this fine book, with some such information in footnotes, would have made it a work of far greater value; for it represents a school of thought which is as yet quite foreign to England, and which, imder the able expositions of Kubino, Mommsen, Soltau and others, bids fair to displace the views of Niebuhr. even when corrected and modified by Schwegler, Lange, and Clason.^ But as yet these matters are within the field of controversy, and to assume all his own views as proved, may indeed be admitted as lawful in the historian, but cannot be regarded as satisfactory in a work professing to give all the facts of Eoman history. The broad difference between the older school of Niebuhr and that of Mommsen is this : that while Niebuhr sifts tradition, and tries to infer from it what are the real facts of early Eoman history, Mommsen only uses tradition to corroborate the inferences drawn concerning early Eoman history from an analysis of the traditional facts and usages still surviving in historical days, and explained as survivals by critical Eoman historians. Thus, the usages in appointing a dictator or consul lead him to infer that of old the kings were appointed in like manner, these magistrates having taken the place of the king. Such researches are naturally only of value in reconstructing early constitutional history. The work of Duruy does not adopt this method, and stands on the ground of Niebuhr, or rather of Schwegler, whose valuable historv, like that of our own. Thirlwall, is regaining its real position after some years of obscuration by a more brilliant, but not impartial, rival. Indeed, the newer critical school in Germany cannot yet, and perhaps never will, furnish a real ' The first glimpse of these new lighta in English is to he fonnd in Mr. Seeley's Inti-o- (luction to Ins edition of Li>y; lime's iil^-vrry on the Roman Constifnfim, and his HUtory are original and independent lalniurs on the general lines of Niebuhr. PREFACE. history of early Eome, such as Niebuhr's, Ihne's, Schwegler's, or the present, but only acute and often convincing essays on the constitution. It Avas beyond my duty to introduce these newer views by way of footnotes, even though often convinced * of their ti'uth, for I undertook to edit Duruy's great work, and not to supply anything more. Accordingly I have confined myself here and there to mentioning a fact, or suggesting a ' different view of some event, but have avoided stating any conflicting theory. Additional books of reference, however, and these principally of the newer school above described, have been sometimes cited, and a great deal has been done to improve another capital feature of the book— the illustrations. In this respect Duruy's book stands alone, giving the reader all kinds of illustration and of local colour, so as to let him read the history of Eome, as far as possible, in Italy, and among the remains of that history, with all the lights which archa3ological research can now afford us. In many places I have left out a cut which seemed of little authority, and supplied from photographs (collected in Italy and Sicily) better and truer pictures. I have had recourse to contemporary art, and given some ideal pictures of great events in Eoman history as imagined by artists learned in the local coloui- and the dress of the period. Here and there I have also ventured to curtail the descriptions of battles, which are borrowed from the ancient historians, as they were composed from pui-ely rhetorical con- siderations, and have no claim to accuracy. Enough, and more than enough, has been left to show the views of these patriotic historians. If is a perpetual cause of offence and ' annoyance in the extant classical historians, that instead of giving us some intelligible account of military movements, they supply us with the most vulgar and often absurd platitudes concern- ing tactics, and with the invented harangues of the respective leaders. As regards the translation of the book, it has been done by Mr. Clarke and by Miss Eipley, and then revised carefully, so that we may hope to have produced a faithful version of the original, so far as any translation can claim to be faithful; but let no reader expect that we have turned a French book into a h PREFACE. really English book, a task perhaps impossible, and at all events, requiring a lifetime of labour and consideration. To translate six great volumes is a veiy different task from composing a paragraph • of idiomatic English to represent a paragraph of another language. We cannot, therefore, hope to have banished all traces of the original from our version, nor did we deem it desirable to attempt such a labour. The work is professedly a translation, and many . readers may not be displeased at a certain foreign accent, which in \f spoken Eng&^h is so attractive. Thin. Coll., Dublin. ]H8iJ. \' \ # .^y. ~~— -.,»^ (: INTRODUCTION. , THE prp:-eoman epoch I. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 6 \ Coin of Antoninus representing Italv.' ? » HOEACE was afraid of the sea; he called it Oceanus dis- sociabilts, the element which separates; and yet it was even for the ancients, the element which unites. Looking at the mountains, which run from Galicia to the Cau- casus, from Armenia to the Persian GuK, from the region of the Syrtes to the Pillars of Hercules, we recognize the higher parts of an immense basin, the bottom of which is filled by the Mediter- ranean. These limits, marked out by geography, are also, for antiquity, the limits of history, which never, save toAvards Persia, departed far from the coasts of the Meditemmean. Without this sea, the space it occupies would have been the continuation of the ' Tlie letters tr. pot. an abbreviation of "Tribunicia Potestas/' signify the tribunician power with wliidi the Emperors were invested ; the letters cos. in. mean that Antoninus was, or liad been, Consul for the thinl time; and s.c. that it was by order of the Senate, "Senatus Consulto,'* that the piece of money was coined. Antoninus having had his third Consulship in A.i). 140, and the fourtli in U.'), the medal is either of that year or one of the four following. The Senate of the Empire only coined bronze money. The first trib. pot dated from the day of the-prince's accession; since Trajan's time, all the succeeding ones dated from the 1st of January. Hence the number of the frib. pot. gives the number of the years of the reign. B ^^ X \ u INTRODUCTION. African Sahara— an impassable desert; by means of it, on the contrary, the people settled on its shores have interchanged their ideas and their wealth, and if we except those ancient societies of the distant East, which always have remained apart from Euro- pean progress, it is around this coast that the first civi^'zed nations have dwelt. Italy therefore, by its position, between Greece, Spain, and Gaul, and by its elongated shape, which extends almost to the shores of Africa and towards the East, is in truth the centre of the ancient world, at once the nearest point to the three continents, which the Mediten*anean washes and unites. Geo- graphy explahis only a portion of history, but that portion it explains well; the rest belongs to men. According as they show in their administration wisdom or folly, they turn to good or evil the work of nature. The situation of Italy, therefore, will easily account for her varied destinies in ancient times, and in modem up to a recent period; it will account for the vigour and energy she manifested outside her limits so long as her inhabitants formed an united people, surrounded by divided tribes ; later, for the evils which oversvhelmed her from all points of the horizon, when her power war exhausted and her unity destroyed; it accounts for Italy, in a word, mistress of the world around her, and Italy, the prize for which all her neighbours contend. There is another important consideration. If the position occupied by Italy at the very centre of the ancient world favoured her fortune in the days of her strength, and procured her so many enemies in the time of her weakness, was not this very weakness, which at first delivered the peninsula to the Eomans, and after them, for fourteen centuries, to the stranger, chiefiy due to her natui-al conformation ? Surrounded on three sides by the sea, and on the fourth by the Alps, Italy is a peninsula, which stretches towards the south in two points, while, at the north, it widens into a semi-cii'cle of lofty mountains, above which towers majestically, with its sparkling snoAV, the summit sometimes called by the Lombards ^^ La Eosa delP' Italia." The summit next in height to Mont Blanc is this Monte Eosa, it is not COO feet lower than the giant of Europe.^ Italy, then, consists of two parts, a peninsular part ' Mt. Elbourz, in the Caucasus, is now known to be the highest (18,500ft.). 83 CO O ® a c B 2 THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. V and a continental part, each distinct by their configuration and their history. The one, a vast plain, formed from the alluvia of tlie great river which traverses it, has been at all times the battle- field of Eui'opean ambition ; the other, a narrow ridge of mountains, hollowed by rapid ton-ents and rivers, and shaken by volcanoes, has almost always had an opposite fate. This peninsula, which is Italy proper, is one of the most divided countries in the world. In its innumerable valleys, many of which are quite isolated, its inhabitants have acquired that love of in- dependence which mountain populations have ever shown, but with it that other quality which compromises this much loved liberty — the desire of keeping VTio themselves. Every valley will have its state, every village its god. Never would Italy have come forth from its obscurity, had there not arisen in the midst of her tribes an active principle of combination. By dint of ability, of courage, and of perseverance, the Senate and its legions triumphed as well over natui-al obstacles as over the interests and passions protected by these ramparts. Eome united together all the Italian population, and made of the whole peninsula a single polity. But, like the oak bent down and half split by Milo, which rises again, when the strength of the old athlete is exhausted, and seizes him in its turn, Nature, for the moment overcome by Eoman energy, recovered her sway, and when Eome fell, Italy, once more free, returned to her constant divisions, up to the time when the modern idea of great nationalities recovered for her that which, twenty-three centuries ago, had been attained by the ablest policy supported by the most powerful military organization. Italy was destined, then, by geographical position, to play a great part in the affairs of the world, whether she acted beyond her limits, or whether she became, herself, the prize of heroic struggles. Eome, too, is not an accident — a chance in the history of the peninsula ; it is the moment when the Italians, united for the first time, attained the promised end of their common efforts — the power begotten of union. Undoubtedly history has often been obliged to say, with Napoleon, '^ Italy is too long and too divided." But when there were found, from the Alps to Malta, a common people and a common interest, an incomparable prosperity became the glorious lot of this beautiful country, which possessed A VI INTRODUCTION. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. Vll 3,500 miles of coast -lino, with its brave population of monn- taineers and sailors, with its feriile provinces, with its natnral harbonrs at the foot of majestic forests — a country which liad the command of two seas, and held the key of the passage from one to the other of the two great basins of the Mediter- ranean. BetAveen the East, now decaying through anarchy, and the West, still new to civilization, Italy, united and disciplined, naturally took the lead. This stage of humanity took ten centuries to dawn, grow, and spread, and its history forms A\hat is called the History of Rome. A modern poet, has, in a single line, given an exact descrip- tion of this country : Cli' Apennin parte eT mar circonda e TAlpe. * The Alps, which divide Italy from the rest of Europe, extend, from Savona to Fiume, for a distance of about 1,150 kilometres (720 miles); the breadth of the numntain-mass is from 130 to 180 kilometres (82 to 113 miles) under the meridians of S. Gothard and the Septimer, of more than 200 kilometres (143 miles) in the Tyrol.'* The perpetual snow, piled on the summits, forms an immense glacier, the melting of which feeds the rivers of upper Italy, and which traces against the sky its brilliant outline. But the water-shed, being nearer to Italy than to Germany, does not divide this broad mass into equal parts. Like all the great mountain chains of Europe^ the Alps haAc their slope less steep toAvards the North, whence all the invasions have come, and their precipitous descent towards the South, the side which has received them all.^ On the French and German side the mountains run to the plain by long spin's, which break the descent, while, from the Piedmont side Mont Blanc appears like a wall of gi-anite, sheer * Which the Apemiine divides, and the sea surrounds, and the Alps. ^ From St. Gothaixi to the Straits of Messina, Italy measures 6i>5 miles, with a mean breadth of from 8S to 100 miles; in area, 185,000 square miles. ^ With the exception of the Caucasus, whose northern slope is much steeper than that of the south. * This is true, especially for the Maritime, Cottian, Graian and reiniino Alps; but the Helvetian and Rhaetian Alps send forth to the south lonor spurs, formincr the hi^h valleys of the Ticinus, of the Adda, the Adige and the Brenta. Geographically, these valleys belong to Italy (canton of the Ticino, the Valteline, and part of the Tyrol), but they have always been inhabited by races foreign to the peninsula, which have never protected her against invasions from the north. for about 10,000 feet down from its summit. Man stops at the foot of these cliffs, on which hold neither grass nor snow ; and Northern Italy, having little Alpine pasture land, is not like the Dauphine, Switzerland, and the Tyrol/ defended by a race of brave mountaineers. to 20 30 -J 1 1_ *0 KiL. —J The LiwiTor the Alps & Apennines. Tliis difference between the incline and extent of the two sides indicates one of the causes Avhich ensured the first successes of the expeditions directed against Italy. Once masters of the northern side, the invaders had only a march of a day or These Alps are covered with beautiful forests, which Venice, at the time of her power, tumed to profit ; intractable mountaineers live there, like the inhabitants of the Sette Communi. One of tlie cliaract eristics of the Julian Alps is the number of grottoes and subterranean channels which they embrace. From the river Isonzo to the frontiers of Bosnia there are more than a thousand, and the natives of the country say that there are as many streams below the soil as there are over it. Channels of this kind, when not filled with water, afford an entry into the Sette Gmununi. ^ The question of the boundary between the Alps and the Apennines has been long a subject of debate ; the engineers have decided it by making a railroad above Sarona over the Col d'Altase, which is not 1,600 feet in height, whence one descends into the famous valleys of the Bormida and the Tanaro. A \ VIU 1^'TUUDLCT10X. • ll two to bring them into the richest eoimtry.' Tims Italy has never been able to escape from invasions or to keep aloof from European -wars, despite her formidable barrier of the Alps, with their colossal summits, "which, when seen close," said Napoleon, "seem like giants of ice, commissioned to defend the approach to that beautiful couutry."- The Alps are joined, near Savona, by the Apennines, which traverse the whole peninsula, or rather, which have formed it and given it its character. Their mean height in Liguria is 1,000 metres (3,275 feet), but in Tuscany they are much higher, where the ridges of Pontremoli, between Sarzana and Parma, of Fiumalbo, between Lucca and Modcna, of Futa, be- tween Florence and Bologna, attain the height of 3,300 to 3,900 feet. Thus Etruria was protected for a long time by these mountains against the Cis-Alpiue Gauls, ' and, for some mouths, against Hannibal. The highest summits of the whole chain of the Apenuines are to the east of Rome, in the country of the Marsians and the \estmi: Aelino, 8,180 feet; and Monte Como 9,520 feet, whence can be seen the two seas which wash Italy, and even the moun- tains of lUyria on thf» Eastern shore of the Adriatic. At this height a peak of the Alps or the Pyrenees* would be covered with perpetual snow ; in the climate of Eome it is not cold enough to form a glacier, and Monte Como loses its snow at the end of July ; but it always preserves its Alpine landscape, with the bears and the chamois of great mountains. Thi-ee branches separate at the west from the centml chain, and cover with their ramifications a considerable part of Etruria Latium, and Campania. One of these branches, after sinking to the level of the plain, rises at its extremity in a rock, almost insular to the promontory of Circe (Monte Circello), where is shown the grotto of the mighty sorceress. Tiberius, who, on the question * Augustus understood it, and in order to dpfpml Ttoi». i. . „ • j .1 t> wl,o wiBhed on J to defe„d the Italun ..de, was forced to retreat without a battle behittd the I'o 1 ' • \\ \ m :-i| THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. XI of (lemons, believed neither in those of the past nor in those of the present, had a villa bnilt near this dreaded spot. From the Eastern side of the Apennines there are only some hills detached, which descend straight towards the Adriatic. But, like Vesuvius on the opposite coast (3,948 feet), Monte Gargano forms, over the Gulf of Manfredonia, a solitary group, of which one s'ummit rises to the height of 5,283 feet. Ancient forests cover this mountain, ever beaten by the furious winds which toss the Adriatic. Below Venosa (Venusia) the Apennines separate into two bmnches, which sun-ound the Gulf of Taranto; the one runs through the land of Bari and Otranto, and ends in a gentle slope at Capo di Leuca ; the other forms, through the two C^alabrias, a succession of Coin of Venusia.^ undulated tablelands, one of which, the Sila, 4,910 feet^ high, is not less than fifty miles long from Cosenza to Catanzaro. Covered Cape Santa Maria di Leuca. formerly with impenetrable forests, the Sila was the shelter of fugitive slaves (Bruttians), and was the last retreat of ' On the obverse the head of Jupiter ; on the reverse, an eagle bearing a thunderbolt ; the letters ak (.ks) signify that the piece is bronze money, and the five ooooo that it was a quincunx ; that is to say, that it weighed 5 oz., the as libralis or Roman poiuid weighing 12 oz. Rome never struck the quincunx ; they are only found in the South of Italy. " The highest top of the Sila, the Monte Nero, is nearly 6,000 feet high. f "I I Xll IMliUDUCTlON. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. Xlll II llamiibal iu Italy. Now fine pastures have partly taken tho place of these forests, whence Rome and Syracuse obtained their timber. But the temperature there is always low for an Italian country, and notwithstanding its position in lat. 38®, snow remains during six months of the year.^ Still further to the south, one of the summits of the Aspromonte measures 4,3G8 feet high. Furthermore, while beyond Capo di Leuca there is only the Ionian Sea, beyond the lighthouse of Messina, we come to Etna and the triangle of the Sicilian mountains, an evident continuation of the chain of the Apennines. The two slopes of the Apennines do not differ less than the two sides of the Alps.^ On the narrow shore, which is washed by the Ujiper or Adriatic Sea, are rich pasture lands, woody hills, separated by the deep beds of ton*ents, a flat shore, no ports [importmsum litusy no islands and a stormy sea, enclosed between two chains of mountains, like a long valley where the winds are pent in and rage at every obstacle they meet. On the western side, on the contrary, the Apennines arc more remote from the sea, and great plains, Avatered by tranquil rivers, great gulfs, natm-al harbours, numerous islands, as well as a sea usually calm, promote agriculture, navigation, and commerce. Hence a population of three distinct and opposite kinds : mariners about the ports, husbandmen in the plains, and shepherds in the mountains ; or, to call them by their historical names, the Italiotes and Etruscans, Home and the Latins, the Marsians and tho Samnites.* Yet these plains of Campania, of Latium, of Etruria, ' Brugui^re, Orographie de l^Europe. =^ However, Apulia, with its extinct volcano, its great plains, its Lake Lesina, its marshes, situated to the north and to the south of Mount Gargano; bevond this the marshy but extremely fertile lands watered by the Gulf of Taranto ; lastly, the' numerous harbours of this coast, reproduce some of the features of the Western Coast. \ AU the Islands of the Adriatic, with the exception of the unimportant group of the Tremiti, are on the Illyrian coast, where they form an inextricable labyrinth, the resort of pirates, who have in all times levied contributions on the commerce of the Adriatic. * All the extinct as well as active volcanoes are west of the Apennines, except IMount \ ultur m Apuha. It is these numerous volcanoes which have driven the sea far frr)m the foot of the Apemiines, and have enlarged this coast, whereas the opposite shore, where not a single volcano is to be seen, is so narrow ; whence come also those lakes in the midst of ancient craters and perhaps a part of the marslies. It is known that in ir,.-S the Lucrine lake was changed into a marsh by a volcanic eruption. The lowest part of the Pontine Marshes is on a line joining StromboU to the ancient craters of Bolsena and Vico. and of Apulia, notwithstanding their extent, cover but a very small part of a peninsula, which may be described generally as a country bristling with mountains, and intersected by deep valleys. Why need we wonder at persistent political divisions in a country so divided by nature herself ?—Aelian counted up as many as 1,197 cities, each of which had possessed, or aspired to, an indepen- dent existence. The Apennines possess neither glaciers, nor great rivers, nor the pointed peaks of the Alps, nor the colossal masses of the Pyrenees. Yet their summits, bare and rugged, their flanks often strii)ped and barren, the deep and wild ravines, which furrow them, all contrast with the soft outlines and the rich vegetation of the sub-Apennine mountains. Add to this, at every step, beauti- ful i'uins, recalling splendid traditions, the brightness of the sky, great lakes, rivers which tumble from the mountains, volcanoes with cities at their foot, and everywhere along the horizon the sparkling sea, calm and smooth, or terrible when its waves, lashed by the Sirocco, or by submarine convulsions, buffet the shore, and beat noAV upon Amalfi, now upon BaisD or Paestum. Europe has no active volcanoes but in the peninsula and islands of Italy. In ancient times, subterranean fires w^ere at work from the Carinthian Alps, where are found some rocks of igneous origin: these reach as far as the island of Malta, a part of which has sunk into the sea.^ The basaltic mountains of Southern TjtoI, and of the districts of Verona, Yicenza, and Padua ; near the Po the catastrophe of Yelleja buried by an earthquake ; in Tuscany, subterranean noises, continual shocks, and those sudden disturbances, which made Etruria the land of prodigies; on the banks of the Tiber, the tradition of Cacus vomiting forth flames,' the gulf of Curtius, the volcanic matter which forms the very soil of Eome, and of all its hills, the Janiculum excepted; the streams of lava from the hills of Alba and Tusculum ; the immense crater (38 miles in circumference), the sunken edge of which shows us the charming lake of Albano > The Travels of Major de Valenthienne: The volcanic action used to reach still further in the same direction. Many extinct volcanoes and lava are found in the regency of Tunis towards El-Kef (Sicca Veneria). Cp. La Regmce de Tunis, by M. Pelissier de Reynaud ^ This legend is true so far as concerns the recollection of the volcanic eruptions of Latium, but it is false in placing them on the Aventine, the abode of Cacus. ? XIV INTRODUCTION. HHi and that of Xomi, which tho Eomans used to call tho ^liiTor of Diana; tho legend of Ctecidus building at Prtrnesti^ walls of flames; the enormous pile of lava and debris on the sides of Mount Yidtur ;^ the islands rising fn^n the sea, of which Li vy speaks ; the Phlegi'iean fields, the ancient eruptions of the island of Ischia, of Vesuvius, and of Etna, and so many extinct craters all these show that the whole of Italy was once situated on an immense volcanic centre. At the present time the activity of the subteiTanean fires seems to be concentrated in the middle of this line, in Vesuvius, whose eruptions are always threatening the charming towns Avhich insist on remaining close to this formidable neighbour; in Etna, which, in one of its convulsions, tore away Sicily from Italy,^ and in the Lipari Islands situated in the centre of the seismic sphere of the Meditemmean. In the north we find only craters half-filled up\ the volcanic hills of Rome, of Viterbo, and of St. Agatha, near Sessa, the hot streams and springs of Tuscany, the fires or ^'hot springs'' of Pietra, Mala, and Barigazzo, and lastly those of the ^'Orto deir Inferno," the Garden of Ilell.^ Before the year 79 a.d. Vesuvius appeared to be an extinct volcano; population and culture had reached its siunmit, when, suddenly reviving, it buried Ilerculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabia' imder an enormous mass of ashes and dust. In the year 472, according to Procopius, such was the violence of the eruption, that the ashes Avere can-ied by the winds as far as Constantinople. In 1794 one of these streams of incandescent lava, which are some- times 8 miles long, from 300 to 1,200 feet in breadth, and from 7// 24 to 30 feet in depth, destroyed the beautiful town of Ton-e ( del Greco. Stones were hurled to the distance of 1,300 yards; vegetation far away Avas destroyed by mephitic gases; and within a radius of 10 miles, people went with torches at mid-day. ^ Tata (Lett, sul Monte Volture), considers this extinct crater as one of the most terrible of pre-bistoric Italy. •' Tlie name of tbe toTv-n of Khegium (now Reggio) on tbe Strait, sigiiiifies « rupture." ^ Lakes Avernus, Lucrine, Albano, Nemi, Gabii, Regillo, San Guiliano, Bracciano, &c. Earthquakes are stiU frequent in tbe neigbbourbood of Belluna and Rassano. ' Witb regai-d to tbe " Salse " of tbe neigbbourbood of Parma, Ileggio (di Emilia), Modena and Bologna, wbieb are also called volcanoes of mud, we must not confound tbem with true volcanoes, altbougb tbey possess some of tbe features of volcanic eruptions. In tbe Salse, car- buretted hydrogen, the inflammable gas of the marshes, predominates. 3 =3 o 3 03 2; \\ i THE GEOURArHY OF ITALY. XVU Huiiiholdt has observed that the frequency of the eruptions v^aries inversely with the size of the volcano. Since the crater of Vesuvius has diminished, its eruptions, though less violent, have become almost annual. Its terrors are no more, its curiosity remains. Kich travellers come from all parts, and the IN'eapolitans, who have short memories, while exhuming Herculaneum and Pompeii, say of their volcano, " It is the mountain which vomits gold.'' In 1G69, the inhabitants of C-atania had likewise ceased to be- lieve in the old tales of the fury of Etna^ when an inmiense stream of lava came down upon their town, passed through the walls, and formed in the sea a gigantic mole in front of the har- bour. Fortunately, this formidable volcano, whose base is 113 miles in circumference, from whose summit there is a view of 750 miles in extent, and which has grown, by excessive piles of lava, to the height of 10,870 feet, has very rarely any eruptions. Stromboli, on the contrary, in tlie Lipari Islands, shows from afar by night its diadem of fire, by day a dense mantle of smoke. Enclosed between Etna, Vesuvius and Stromboli, as in a triangle of fire. Southern Italy is often shaken to her foundations. During the last three centm'ies no less than a thousand earthquakes are recorded, as if that part of the peninsula were lying on a bed of moving lava. That of 1538^ cleft the soil near Pozzuoli, and there came forth from it Monte Nuovo, 459 feet high, which filled up the Lucrine Lake, now only marked by a small pond. In 1783 the whole of Calabria was wrecked, and forty thousand people perished. The sea its(*lf shared these horrible convulsions; it receded, and then returned 42 feet above its level. Sometimes new islands appear ; thus have risen one after another the Lipari Islands. In 1831 an English man-of-war, on the open sea off the coast of Sicily, felt some violent shocks, and it was thought she had groTUided : it was a new volcano opening. Some days after an island appeared about 230 feet high. The English and the Neapolitans were already disputing its ownership, when the sea took back in a storm the volcanoes gift.^ For Southern Italy, the danger lies in subterranean fires, for ' Livy speaks (iv. 21) of numerous earthquakes in Central Italy and in Rome itself in 434. The overflowing of the Albau lake, during the war with the Veientines, is perhaps due to an event of tliis kind. ^ In these same parts the cable from Cagliari to Malta was twice bmken in 1858 near Maretimo by submarine eruptions. xvni INTRODUCTION. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. XIX IS'orthern and ^Yestern Italy it lies in water, either stagnant and pestilential, or over-flowing and innndating the country and filling up the ports with sand. From Turin to Venice, in th(^ rich i)lain watered hy tlie Po, between the Apennines and the Alps, not a single hill is to be seen; and consequently the ton-ents, which rush down from the belt of snoAvy mountains, expose it to dreadfid ravages by their inundations.' These toiTcnts have, indeed, created the whole plain, by filling up with alluvial deposits the gulf which the Adriatic Sea had formed there, and whose existence is proved by the remains of marine animals found in the environs of Piacenza and Milan,2 as well as by the sea-fish Avhich still liaunt its lakes. Springing from Mount A^iso, and rapidly swelled by the watei-s which nm do^ni from the slopes of the Alpine Giant,^ the Po is the gi-eatest river of Italy, and one of the most celebrated in the world. If it had a free outlet into the Adriatic, it would open to navigation and commerce a magnificent temtoiy. lUit the condition of all rivers, flowing into seas, which, like the :\Iediterranean, liave no tides, renders them unfit for sea navigation. The Italian torrents bring to the Po quantities of mud and sand, which raise its bed^ and form at its mouth that delta before which the sea recedes each year about 220 feet. Adria, which preceded Venice in the command of the Adriatic, is at the present day more than 19 miles inland ; Spina, another great seaport was, in the time of Strabo, 30 stadia from the coast, 1 « . . Sic aggerlbus ruptis «|iunn spunieus amnis, Exiit oppositasque evicif giirgite moles, Fertur in ana fureiis . . . Cum stabiilis armenta tiilit. (Vergil ,En., ii. 496). - Ramazzini believed al^*o that the Avliole country of Modeua covers a subterranean lake. This would explain tlie prodigy, which startled tlie whtde Senate, of fish which came forth fronj the earth under the plough-share of the IJoian peasant. Near Xarbonne there had also been a subterranean lake, where tliey used to fish with a lance. Cf. Strabo IV. 1. f). They are found in many places. ^ The height of Mount Viso is 1lV'>'>0 feet. Tlie tribiitaries of the Po : on the riglit bank, the Tanaro, the Trebbia, whose banks have Wen the scene of great battles; the Keno. where was the Island of tlie Triumvii-s ; on the left bank, the Ticino, the Adda, the largest tributan- of the Po, the Oglio, and the Mincio. ^ Napoleon I. thought of having a new bed dug for the Po ; for in its pi-esent state im- minent dangers tineaten the country wlneli it traverses in the lower part of its course, where tlie rising of its bed has caused a rise in the level of the waters which overflow the sin-face of the countr}-. (De Prony, Hechenhes stir le Sy^thne hydmulique dt- V Italic). During the last two centuries only M. de Prony has calculated the prolongation of the Often and often in tl>e middle ages, Florence, .vbich, by the way, was built on a dri«i up marsb, was ..ear being carried away by the Arno. In 165.i, K.venna was flooded 1^- the Ronco and the Montone : and in the last century Bologna and Ferrara have many t.mes beetr on he point of coming to blows, as the Provetifak and Avignonnais did, on the subject of the Durance, to decide the spot •, -here the Reno should join it. Thanks to the numerous cavities where during the winter the water of its sources stores itself, the Tiber does not smk much at its summer level. , ,r ^i i j ^c ^ Other >vater-cour8es of peninsular Italy : at the West, the Magra, the boundary of Tuscany and Liguria, 30 miles in length; the Chiana, the Nera. and the Teverone (Amo), tributaries of the Tiber; the Garigliano (Liris), 70 miles ; the Yolturno, 83; the bele; the Lao: at the East, the Pisatello (Rubico) ; the Metauro; the Esino; the Tronto, 56 miles; the Pescara (Aternus), 83 ; the Sangro, 83 ; the Biferno, 58; the Fortore, 81 ; and the Ofanto, 114. » There is some doubt on this point, for the lake of Bolsena, which some travellers (Dennis, Etmna i., p. 514) and some learned men (Delesse, iieme de geol. 18. /) regard as a crater. nt I XXIV INTHODICTION. greatest depth, does not reach 30 feet, and it will soon ha e the fate of Lake Fucino. 3SLi-^^^=^ 12*loE.dfCr, 12°.'i5'Z.dECr. Scale 280.000 Crave pat Eiiucd,12,r.DuA^y-Trouin, The present condition of the Pontine Marshes. Stagnant waters cover a part of the coast to the "West and to the South : it is the realm of fever. The younger Pliny speaks of the unhealthiness of the coasts of Etruria, where the Mareninia, which the Etruscans had once drained, was re-appearing. In Latium the sea formerlv reached to the foot of the mountains of Sit^tia and THK GEOGRAPHY OP ITALY. XXV rrivernum, about 9 miles in from the present coast- from the tin,e of Straho, the whole coast from Ardea to Antium was marshy and unhealthv; at Antium the Pontine marshes commenced. Cam- ,,,,, ,ad the n.arshes of Minturn. and of Lmternum Father Z^^ the Greeks of Buxentum, of Elea, of Sybans, and of Meta- pontum had to dig thousands of canals to dram the soil before putting in the plough. Apu- lia, as far as Mount Yultur, had been a vast lagoon, as well as the country around mWSmmm^mm^^ the mouths of the Po, fully 101) miles south of its modern mouth.- Lombardy also Avas, for a long time, an immense mmni Coin of Buxentum. marsh, and to the Etruscans are attributed the first embankments of the Po. The banks of the Trebia, the territories of Parma, of ^lodena, and of Bologna, had not been chained till the works of .Emilius Scaurus, who, during his censorship (109 B.C.), made navigable canals between Parma and Placentia.^ There is nothing so charming and so treacherous as those plains of the 'Mal'aria;' a clear sky, fertile land, where an ocean of verdure waves imder the sea-breeze ; all around there is calm and silence ; ^ . , ^, , ,4 ^ , . , Com of Metapoutum.* an atmosphere mild and warm, whicH seems to bring life but carries death. " In the Maremma," says an Italian proverb, '^ one grows rich in a year, but dies in sLx months." « .... La Maremma, Dilettevole molto e poco sana."^ How many peoples, once flourishing and powerful, are sleeping here their last sleep! Cities also can Aii^—Oppida posse mon, ' De Prony, Descr. Hydrog. et Hist, des Marais Pontins, pp. 73 and 176. 2 IMiny, Hist. Nat. iii. 20. Cuvier, Disc, sur les Revolutions du Globe, p. 216. » In 187 B.C. the Consul ^]mihis Lepidus continued the Flaminiau Road from Kimini to Bologna, and to Placentia, and from thence to Aquileia, kyKVKKoviitvoQ ra 'ikt] (Stiabo V. i. 11. In the year 160 B.C. the Consul Cethegus received as his province the duty of drammg the Pontine Marshes (Li\T, i-pitome, xlvi). * On the obverse) this medal bears the head of the hero, Leucippos, the founder of the city ; on the reverse, an ear of corn with a bird on the leaf. ' * Very delightful and very unwholesome.' i ^n XXVI INTRODUfTION. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. XXVll ^ said tlio poet Eutilius, avIhmi ooiit(Mni)lating, fiftoeii eonturios apjo, the cruinl)ling ruins of a groat town of Etruria. To restrain and direct their streams was then, for the Italians, not only a means, as with other people, of gaining lands for agri- culture, but a question of life and death. These lakes at the summit of moTintains, these rivers ovei-flowing their hanks every spring, or changing their beds, these marshes, which under an Italian sun so quickly breed the plague, compelled them to constant efforts. AVhenever they stopped, all that they had concpiered with so much trouble reverted to its pristine state.^ To-day Baite, the delightful retreat of the Eoman nobles; Ptrstum, with its fields of roses so much beloved by Yergil — tej)f\Ii romria Pwsti ; rich Capua, Cumoe, which was once the most important city of Italy, Sybaris, which was the most voluptuous, are in the midst of stag- nant and fetid waters, in a fever-breeding plain, ^ where the decaying? soil consumes more men than it can feed.' Pestilential miasma, solitude, and silence have also conquered the shores of the Gulf of Taranto, once covered with so many toA^ns ; leprosy and elephantiasis in Apulia and Calabria exhibit the hideous diseases of the inter-tropical regions, traversed by ^* untamed waters." In Tuscany, 120 miles of coast line, in Latium, 82 square miles of land, have been abandoned to poisonous influences. Here the ^^Tath of man has aided that of nature. Rome had ruined Etruria and exterminated the Yolscians ; but water invaded the depopulated country; the malaria, extending gradually from Pisa to TeiTacina, reached Eome herself; and the eternal city expiates now, in the midst of her Avastes and her unhealthy climate, the merciless war waged by her legions.* At the point where but latelv the Maremma of Tuscany and that of the States of the Church join the saddest of solitudes meets the eye; not a hut nor a tree to be seen, but huge fields of asphodel, the flower of the tomb. One day, about fifty years ago, a vault, hidden under the grass, gave way under the heavy tread of an ox; it was a funeral chamber. Excavations were prosecuted. In a little time 2000 vases ^ Muratori (P^er. Ital Seripf. ii. 601, and Anf.Ifnl dho. 21) has shown how quickly the drained lands became marshy again asi.soon as cultivation is suspended. ^ Cicero, de Be/), ii. G., said of Home: "Locum .... in regione pestilenti salubrem," and Livy, V. 54, " saluberrimos colles." and other objects of art were discovered,' and Etruscan civilization was reclaimed from oblivion. The name of the rich city which had buried so many marvel, in its tombs is not mentioned by any of the Eoman hlstonans^ ,,, ,„n,t have remained unknown but for an --f -^ -^-h .aentioned its defeat and the triumph of its conqueror.- The Vul- cientes had fought the last battle for Etruscan liberty. How heavy were the hands of Rome and of Time, and how many flourishmg cities they have destroved ! But again, how many wonders does the Italian soil reserve for the futui-e, when the malaria is expelled, and the toAvns it has slain shall deliver up their secrets.^' Bordering on the great Alps, and reaching to Africa, Italy has every climate, and can have all kinds of culture. In this double respect she is divided into four regions : the valley of the Po the slopes of the Apennines turned towards the Tuscan Sea, the' plains of the Peninsula, and the two points in which it terminates.* . Calabria, Apulia, and part of the coast of the Abruzzi have almost the sky and the productions of Africa: a climate clear . M Noel des Vergers has narrated with eloquence the emotion he felt, when, in a., ex- cavatio! 'that he made in the same nee^polis of Vulei: "At the last blow of the p,ek. the ,"^w.-^h formed the entrance to the crypt, gave way, and the hght of the torches tlhnnmed lu^L where nothing had for more than twet.ty cemuries disturbed darkness and s.lence^ ancle. t Etruria arose to our view in the days of her splendour. On he.r fun ral coues, warriors, covered with their armour, seemed to he resting af.er the^bat, les they had foughlwith the Romans, or with our ancestors, the Gauls-forms, dresses, stuffs and colours were S forafewmi,m.es,.he„all vanislted as the outer air penetrated n..o the cr.^ where ou m.kering torches threatened at tirst to be extinguished. It was a calling up of the past, which lasted not even the brief moment of a dream, and passed away, as .t were, to pmnsh us for our rash curiosity, ^^ ^ .^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^.^^ ^^ ^j j,,^ ^^^^ Found Iving with his arms and ornaments, Which, at a touch of air, a breath of heaven. Slipped into ashes, was found no more.' Tennyson.'] While these frail remains crumbled into dust in contact with the air the atmosphere became clearer We then saw ourselves surrounded by another population due to the artists of Etruria. Mural paintings adorned the crypt all round, and seemed to come to hfe with the flash of our '"''^'"'iw. Capit, ad. ann. 473. Triumph of T. Coruncanius in 280 for his victories over the Vulcientes and yolsinienses. , . ^ , « • "t,,^ ,„,eal.hv countries, where a thick vegetation covers the rums, protect so we^^ agaitust curiositv even the monuments which are there, that a century ago the temples of Ptestum were nit known, and also a few years ago, the curious necropolis of Castel d Asso, of Xorchia and of Soana. «^i^oi. * In anticiuity Italy abounded more in woods and marshes, and the winter was colder. ['■•I XXVIU INTRODUrnoX. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. XXIX and dry, but scorching ; the pahn-trco, which, at Rcggio, some times ripens its fruit, the aloes, the medhir, the orange and the lemon ; on the coast the olives, which ai'e the source, as formerly, of the wealth of the country ; further up, for 2000 feet, forests of chestnut trees covering a part of the Sila. But from Pisa to the middle of Campania, between the sea and the foot of the moun- tains, the malaria reigns ; the soil is abandoned to herdsmen, and although very fertile, waits for the laboiu- of man to produce its old return. Already, in Tuscany, tenant-farming is driving back the Maremma, and the land is peopled again whci^ner it is drained. Above these plains, on the first slopes of the Apennines, from Provence to Calabria, there extends the district of the olive, the mulberry tree, the arbutus, the myrtle, the laurel, and the vine. This latter gi'ows so freely that it may be seen reaching the top of the poplars which support it ; and, in the time of Pliny, a statue of Jupiter used to be shown at Populonia carved in a vine triuik. Further up, on the mountain, come chestnut trees, oaks, and elms ; then fir trees and larch. The summer snow and the freezing Avind remind one of Switzerland but for the flood of dazzling light from the Italian sky. But it is in the valley of the Po, when coming down from the Alps, that the traveller receives his first and most pleasant im- pressions. From Turin, as far as Milan, he keeps in view the line of the glaciers, which the setting sim colours with brilliant tints of rose and purple, and makes them glitter like a magnificent con- flagration spreading along the sides and on the simimits of the mountains. In spite of the vicinity of the perjietual snow the cold does not descend far on this rapid slope ; and when the sun bursts forth in the immense amphitheatre of the valley of the Po, its rays, [This is proved, for historical times, not only hy allusions like Horace's "Vides ut altastet nive candidum Soracte/' &c. ; but by the researches of Hehn, in his well-known work on tlie spread of domestic animals and plants in antiquity. — Ed.'] ^ On the obverse, the head of Minerva with helmet ; on the reverse, a crescent and a star with the woi*ds pvplv, written from right to left in Etruscan characters. Puplu was the commencement of the name Populonia. ->/ Coin of Populonia.' aiTcsted and reflected by the wall of the Alps, raise the temperature, and scorching heat succeeds suddenly the cold aii- of the lofty sum- mits. But the number of the streams, the rapidity of their courses, the direction of the valley, which opens on the Adriatic and receives all its breezes, cool the atmosphere, and give Lombardy a most de- lightful climate. The inexhaustible fertility of the soil, enriched by the deposits of so many rivers, causes everywhere a very rich vegetation. In one night, it is said, grass which has been cut shoots up afresh,' and the land, which no culture exhausts, never lies fallow. Such is the general aspect of Italy — a land of continual conti-asts : plains and uiountains, snow and scorching heat, dry and raging torrents, limi)id lakes formed in ancient craters, and pestilential marshes concealing beneath the herbage once populous cities. At every step a contrast: the vegetation of Africa at the foot of the Apennines; on their sammits the vegetation of the north. Here, under the clearest sky, the malaria, bringing death in one night to the sleeping traveller; there, lands of inex- haustible fertility,' and above, the volcano with its threatening lava. Elsewhere, in the space of a few leagues, sixty-nine craters and thi-ee entombed towns. At the north, rivers which inundate the lands and repel the sea; at the south, earthquakes opening unfathomable depths or overthrowing mountains. Every climate, every property of the soil combined — in short, a reduced pictui-e of the ancient world,' yet with its natural peculiarities strongly marked. " Et quantum longis carpent armenta diebus Exigua tantum gelidus ros nocte reponet." (Virg., Georg., ii. 201. ) Varro {de Re rmt. i. 7) said more prosaically, " In the plain of Rosea let fall a stake, to-morrow it is liidden in tlie grass." =» In Etruria and in some other parts of Italy the land produced 15-fold, and elsewhere 10-fold (Varro. de Re riume and its envinms he finds it formed, like the rest of the i)eninsula, from the two-fold action of volcanoes and water. Eemains have tlu^re been found of the elephant, the mastodon, the rhinoceros, and tlie hippo- potamus, proving that at a certain period of geological time, Latinm formed a part of a vast continent with an African tc^nperature, and one in which great rivers ran through vast plains. At anotluu* epoch, when the glaciers descended so far into the valley of the Po that their moraines were not far from the Adriatic, the Tuscan Sea covered the Eoman plain. It fornunl in it a semi-circular gulf, of Avhich Soracte and the promontory of Circei were the lunullands.' At the bottom of this primordial sea, volcanoes burst fortli, and their liquid lava was deposited by the water in horizontal l)cds, which, at the present day, from Eome as far as Eadicofani, are found mingled with organic remains. When this lava has become solidified by time and the action of water, it becomes the peperino, the close-gi-ained tufo of which Eome, both under the Kings and the Iiepublic, was built. When the lava remains in a Ijower Eofypt.'' In anotlier passap-e Ravenna recalls to him Alexandria. See in the 4th chapter of the (>tli l)ook. thp different causes lie assions for the superiority of Italy. It has even been established that all the ^eolotrical formations are represented in Italy, aiid althonjjh raininpr operations are not well prosecuted tliey orive rise to an annual exportation of G(MJ,(XXJ tons of the value of 100 millions (of francs). ^ It is considered that the C'ampapna di Koma from C'ivita Vecchia to Terracina is i)l miles in lenprth. and that from the Mediterranean to the mountains its brea0()). 8 Pelasgic Remains. 1. "Rovianum. 2. Volatemr. 3. Lista. 4. Olivano. 5. Veii. 6. Signia. 7. Arpinum. :i !i! fti •I I PELASGIANS AND UMBRIANS. xliii the coast. At the T^orth, in the low plains of the Po, and along the Western coast from the Arao, there were Siculi, the founders of Tibur, a district of which was called the Sicelion ; ' at the South- west, the Chonians, Morgetes, and, above all, (Enotrians, who had, like the Dorians of Sparta, public meals ; at the South-east, Daunians, Peucetians and Messapians, divided into Calabrians and Salentines, and said by tradition to come from Crete; at the East, lastly, Libumians, of that Illyrian race, which we must perhaps identify with the Pelasgic/ The Tyrrhenians were probably one of these Pelasgic nations. According to a Greek tradition, which agrees with Egyptian records, they come from Lydia. " In the days of King Atys, son of Manes, there was a great famine throughout the land of Lydia. The King resolved to divide his kingdom into two equal parts, and made his people draw lots to decide which part should remain in the land, and which should go into exile. He was to continue to rule over those who remained; the emigrants were to have his son, Tyrsenus, as their chief. The lots were drawn, and those who were destined to depart came down to Smyrna, built ships, put in them the necessaries of life, and went in search of a hospitable land. Having coasted for a long time, they reached the shore of XJmbria, where they founded the towns which they inhabit to this day. They discontinued the name of Lydians, and called themselves Tyrseni, after the name of their king's son, who had acted as their guide." ^ These towns, of which Herodotus speaks, were built to the north of the mouth of the Tiber, and consequently very * There is still near Tivoli a ralle di Siciliano. * From a number of testimonies it seems to result that people of the Illyrian race covered the whole of the eastern coast of Italy, exactly opposite lUyria, while the western shore was occupied by Pelasgians, and Micali (ii. 356) identifies these two people. This is also the opinion of Dalmatian critics, who have found a strong analogy between the Oscan, which is akin to Latin, and the remains of the ancient Illyrian, preserved in the dialect of the Skippetars. Grote admits the relationship of the (Enotrians, the Siculians, &c., with the Epirotes. "All," he says, " have the same language, the same customs, the same origin, and can be comprised under the name of Pelasgians." He adds : " They were not very widely separated from the ruder branches of the Hellenic race " {History of 6^/Y^ce, vol. iii. p. 468). The Pelasgic influence can be recognised in the oldest religion of Rome, especially in the worship of Vesta, and is found in the Sibylline .books which recommended the building of a temple to the Dioscuri, the worship of the Bona Dea, and the sacrifice of two Gauls and two Greeks. Lastly, Samothrace, the centre of the Pelasgic religion, had her relationship with llome acknowledged by the Senate. Cf. Plut., Marcellus, 30. ' Herodotus, i. 94. Dionysius of Halicamassus, Antiq. Rom., i. 27—30. I xliv INTRODUCTION. close to Rome. They were Alsium, Agylla or C^re/ Pyrgi, which was their port, Tarqiiinii, which played so great a part in Eoman history, and perhaps, at the mouth of the Amo, the city of Pisa, the population of which spoke Greek. The story of Herodotus is fabulous, but it may allude to a real emigration. In the time of the Emperors this tradition was national both at Sardis and in Etruria.^ Whatever be their origin, the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians possessed a power which spread far their name; for, notwithstanding the conquest of the country by the llasena, the Greeks never recognized any people between the Tiber and the Arno but ''the glorious Tyn-henians,"^ and the Athenians have consecrated, in the beautiful frieze of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates' the memory of the exploits of one of tlieir gods against the pirates who came fortli from the harbours of Tyrrlienia. But, while admitting the existence of these Tyn-henians, it is not necessary to sacrifice the Etruscans to them. The Romans, who certainly had not learnt it from the Greeks, called the Rasena, their neighbours, Tusci or Etrusci,' and the Eugubine tables, an Umbrian monument, also call them Turscum ; a plain proof that the name of the Tyrrhenians was national also in Etruria. ^Tiat can this native use of two names mean, if not the co-existence of two nations? After the conquest, the Tyn-henians were neither exterminated nor banished; their name even prevailed with foreign nations, as in England, the name of Anglo-Saxons over that of the Norman Conquerors; and the subsequent progress of Etruscan power appeared to be that of the ancient Tyrrhenians. The Pelasgians, then, formed along the western coast of the peninsula a first sti-atum of population, which was soon covered by other nations. In the midst of these new races, the ancient masters of Italy, like the Pelasgians of Greece, lost their language, their manners, their liberty, and even the remembrance of what they had been. Nothing remained of them but the Cyclopean walls of * See p. 34 n. 1. Dionysius of Ilalicarnassus {Ihid. i. 20) makes Pisa a Pelasgian city. ^ Tac. Ann. iv. 5o, and Strabo. V. i. 2. ' Hesiod. Theog., 1015 and 1016. * [Pictured in Stuart & Revett's Antiquities of Athens, and since in all the histories of Greek art. It dates from 335 b.c. — Ed.'\ ' Tlie Greeks said Tvpprjvoi and 'Tvpa,]voi, wlienoe from tlie Etruscan form, Turscum, we easily arrive at Tusci, Etrusci and Etruria. PELASGIANS AND UMBRIANS. xlv Etruria and of Latium, enormous blocks of stone, set without cement, which have withstood the ravages of time as well as of man.' Some Pelasgians, however, escaped, and yielding to the impulse for invasion, Avhich was at work from north to south. The Cabeiri. gained by slow degrees the great island to which the Siculi gave their name, and where the Morgetes followed them.- Those who preferred the rule of the foreigner to exile, formed in many parts of Italy an inferior class, who rested faithful, in their degradation, to that habit of labour, which was one of the characteristics of their race. In (Enotria the low or servile occupations, that is to say, all arts and manufactures,^ fell to their lot, as in Attica, where * " At Segni the walls, composed of enormous blocks, form a triple enclosure. At Alatri we still see a Pelasgian citadel. The walls are 40 feet high, and some stones are 8 to 9 feet long. The lintel of one of the gates of the town is formed of three blocks placed side by side. These stones have been carefully cut and set with skill. The joining of the stones is perfect. It is a work of giants, but of clever giants" (Ampere, VHistoire romaine a Rome, vol. i. p. 135.) For the description of these monuments see Abeken, Mittel Italien vor den Zeiten Jtbmischer Herrschaft. ^ Thucydides (vi. 2) shows the Siculi fleeing into Sicily before the Opici. Mt is to Temesa (Tempsa, in Bruttium) that the Taphians came to exchange brass for glittering iron {Odys., A 184). In the time of Thucydides, the Siculi still inhabited this town. Stephanus Byz. (sub. voc. xioi) says that the Italian Greeks [Italiotes] treated the Pelasgians as the Spartans did the Ilelots. xlvi INTRODUCTION. the building of the citadel of Athens was entrusted to them, so that the much vaunted Etruscan arts, the figures in bronze* or terra-cotta, the drawings in relief, the painted vases,* like those of Corinth, etc., would be the work of the Pelasgians, who remained as slaves and artisans under the Etruscan Lucumons. Their religion was as obscure as their history. It was con- nected with the worship of the Cabeiri of Samothrace, Axieros, Axiokersa, Axioker- sos, and Casmilos, cosmic deities, personifications of earthly fire and celestial fire, the religion of a nation of miners and smiths. Later on the Cabeiri were identi- fied with Greek divinities. Thus on a famous Hermes of the Vatican Axiokersos is associated with Apollo-IIelios, Axiokersa with Venus, and Casmilos, '' the ordainer," with Eros. Axieros, the supreme god, remained above the trinity who emanated from him. It has been said that all the ancient religions have been the worship 'of nature naturalizing (nafurantis), of nature naturalized [natumtwy The expression is barbarous but it is JTist. Of these The Cabeiri. [See p. xlix.j * According to tradition it was the Pelasgic Telchines — lialf men, half sprites — who had discovered the art of working metals, and who ha«l made the first images of the gods. Niehuhr has remarked the singular coincidence wliich exists in Latin and in Greek between the words for a house, a field, a plough, luisbandry, wine, oil, milk, oxen, pigs, sheep, apples (he could have added metallum, aryentum, ars and agere, with their derivatives, abacwt, X'c), and generally all the words concerning agriculture and a peaceful life ; while all the objects which belong to war or hunting, duellum, ensisy sagitta, ha^tta, are denoted by words foreign to Greek, This fact is explained if we consider that the peaceful and industrious Pelasgians formed the foundation of the population in Greece and Italy, especially in Latium, where the Siculians remained mingled with the Casci. [Niebuhr's acute remark anticipated what Pictet and others have shown to result from the common Aryan, not Pelasgian, ancestiy of Greeks and llomans before they settled in either country. The common roots indicate what culture each race brought with it into its adopted home. — Ed.'] ^ We must not forget the direct importation of these things from Attica. — Ed. o CM o P- PELASGIANS AND UMBRIANS. xlix religions the first belonged to simple naturalism; the second have given rise to anthropomorphism, in which all terminate. The Cabeiri, being considered the cause of things, the symbol of generation played an important part in their figurative worship and history. On a Tusco-Tyrrhenian mirror of the fourth century before our era, two of the three Cabeiri, transformed into the Dioscuri Castor and Pollux, are seen in the act of killing the youngest under the eyes of Venus, who opens the cista in which the remains of the god are to be placed, and in the presence of the wise Minerva, calmly and serenely witnessing his death, which is no real death. Life in reality comes from death ; the god will revive when Mercury has touched him with his magic wand. The initiation into the mysteries of the Island of Samothrace remained an act of deep piety w^ith the Eomans as with the Greeks. Eome was, by the legend, even put in direct relation with the Pelasgic Island. The Palladium and the Penates, carried away by ^neas from the flames of Troy, to be the pledge of power to the eternal city, were taken by the Pelasgian Dardanus, it is said, from Samothrace to the banks of the Scamander, whence they passed to Eome. Vesta, the goddess of the inextinguishable fire, who played so great a part in the Italian religions, must also have been a deity of the Pelasgians ; but she belonged to all the people of the Aryan race, for she was the feminine representative of the Agni of the Vedas. The Pelasgians, and those who imitated their method of building, rendered a service to the pretended descendants of the Trojans, which has not been sufficiently noticed. The Cyclopean walls, with which they surrounded so many towns of central Italy, saved Eome in the Second Punic War, by preventing Hannibal from occupying a single one of those impregnable fortresses which defended the approaches to the ^^Ager Eomanus." During sixteen years the great Carthaginian held little beyond the enclosm^e of his camp.^ ' See the Rovue Archeol, for December, 1877. ^ See plate of the walls of Norba. Twenty centuries ago this town, taken and burnt down by Sylla, ceased to exist, but its walls are the most curious Italian specimen of the architecture called Cyclopean. The town was built on a declivity commanding the Pontine Marshes. The enclosure remains almost entire; it has no tower to defend the foot of the wall, but the principal gate is flanked by two quasi-bastions. ^ 1 LNTKODl'CTION. PELA.SGIANS AND UMBKIANS. K For two centuries the Pelasgians had the mastery of Italy, when the Sicanians^ expelled from Spain by a Celtic invasion, and some Ligurians, who had come from Gaul,' spread themselves along the shores of the MediteiTanean from the Pyrenees to the Amo. In Italy, they occupied, imder various names, a great part of Cis- Alpine Gaul and the two slopes of the northern Apennines. Their constant attacks, especially those of the Sicanians,^ who had advanced furthest south, forced the Siculians to leave the banks of the Amo. It Avas the beginning of the disasters of that nation, which pretended to be indigenous in order to prove its right to the possession of Italy. When, four centuries hiter, the Etruscans descended from their mountains, they drove the Ingurians from the rich valley of the Amo, and confined them Avithin the banks of the Macra. How- ever, bloody tights still took i)lace for a long time between the two nations, and notwithstanding their advanced post of Luna, the Etruscans were unable to maintain themselves in peaceable possession of the fertile lands watered by the Serchio (Ausar).^ Is'ot far, on the 8an Pellegrino, the highest summit of the northem Apemiines (5,150 feet), and in the impracticable defiles, from which the Macra descends, the Apuans dwelt, Avho, from their lofty mountains, watching the roads and the plain, gave neither truce nor respite to the merchants and traders of Tuscany. Divided into as many little states as they had valleys, and always in arms against each other, these nations preserved, how- ever, the general name of Ligurians and some of the customs common to all their tribes — respect for the character of the fetials and the custom of proclaiming war by ambassadors. Their manners also were alike everywhere. They were those of poor moun- taineers upon whom nature had bestowed courage and strength, in place of the wealth of a fertile soil.* The women laboiuTd, like ^ For a long time the Lipfuriaiis were believed to be Iberians. " Their language is Indo- European," saysM.d'Ar)x)is de Jubainville {Les premiers Habitants de VEurope)\ "it is Celtic,** adds M. Maury {Comptes rendus de I'Avad. des Inscript., 1S70). M, Ern. Desjardins discusses tiiis question in the second volume of his (reotjraphie anciemte de la Gaule, and arrives at the same conclusions. ^ Thucydides (vi. 2) admits the Sicanians as an Iberian tribe, wf ci ,) dXi'iOua tvpioKtrai. ^ The country of Lucca, watered by tlie Serchio, is called the gaixlen of Tuscany, which is itself one of the most fertile couniries of Italy. ■* " Ass>uetum malo Li^nu'em '' (Verg., Georg.y ii. 16S). I the men, at the hardest work, and hired themselves out for the harvest in the neighbouring countries, while their husbands traversed the sea in their frail ships as far as Sardinia and Africa, to the detriment of the rich merchants of Marseilles, of Etruria, and of Carthage.^ They had no towns, except Genoa, their common market, but numerous small villages, hidden in the mountains, where the Eoman generals never found anything worth taking. A few prisoners, and long rows of chariots loaded Avith rude arms, were ever the only ornaments of their triumphs over the Ligurians.^ Few people had so high a reputation for hard work, for sobriety, and valour. During forty years, their isolated tribes held in check the Roman power in their mountains ; which succeeded in overpowering them only by forcing them away from that ungrateful soil,^ Avhere they saw famine ever threatening them, but where they possessed that which they esteemed their chief good, their liberty. At the other extremity of Cis-Alphie Gaul dwelt the Veneti. The two nations are contrasted, like their countries. In the midst of those beautiful i)laiiis, fertilised by the mud of so many rivers, under the mildest climate of Italy, the Yeneti, or the ^^ victorious,"^ as they were called — exchanged their poverty and valour for effeminate and timid manners. They had, it is said, fifty toA^Tis, and Padua, their capital, manufactured fine woollen stuffs and cloths, which, by means of the Brenta and the port of Malamocco, they exported to distant countries; their horses were in great demand for the (31ympic races, and they travelled to Greece and Sicily to sell the yellow amber, which they obtained from the Baltic. Their industry and commerce accumulated wealth, which often tempted the pirates of the Adriatic. But never were they seen in arms ; and they ^ Poseidonius (ap. Strab. III. iv. 17, and Diod. v. 39). The descendants still go to the coasts of Sai-dinia and Algeria to get fish and coral, which the Ligurian sea does not afToi-d them, because of the depth of its water near the coast. " Livy, xl. 34. ^ Forty thousand Apuans, the bravest of the Ligurians, were transported into the country of the Ilii-pini, and thirty tunes, if there is no mistake in tlie text of Pliny (iii. 6), the Ingaunians were compelled to change their abode. '' Ingaunis Luguribus agro tricies dato." This is the Asiatic system of fttroiKKTic, which we know from early Greek, and from Hebrew history. — Ed.] * This is the sense given by Ilesychius to the word Ileneti, sub. voc, 'Ei^truag ttwXo VS' II 1 INTRUDl'CTIUN. PELASGIANS AND UMIJKIAXS. li For two centuries the Pelasgians had the mastery of Italy, when the Sieanians, expelled from Spain by a Celtic invasion, and some Lignrians, who had come from Ganl/ spread themselves along the shores of the Mediten-anean from the Pyrenees to the Anio. In Italy, they occupied, under various names, a great part of Cis- Alpine Gaul and the two slopes of the northern Apennines. Their constant attacks, especially those of the Sicanians,^ who had advanced furthest south, forced the Siculians to leave the banks of the Amo. It was the beginning of the disasters of that nation, which pretended to be indigenous in order to prove its right to the possession of Italy. When, four centuries later, the Etruscans descended from their mountains, thev drove the liigurians from the rich vallev of the Amo, and contined them within the banks of the ^lacra. How- ever, bloody fights btill took ])lace for a long time between the tAvo nations, and notwithstanding their advanced post of Luna, the Etruscans were luiable to maintain themselves in peaceable possession of the fertile lands watered by the Serchio (Ausar).' lisot far, on the San Pi^U^grino, the highest summit of the northern Apennines (5,150 feet), and in the impracticable defiles, from which the Macra descends, the Apuans dwelt, who, from their lofty mountains, watching the roads and the plain, gave neither truce nor respite to the merchants and traders of Tuscany. Divided into as manv little states as thev had vallevs, and always in arms against each other, these nations preserved, how- CA'er, the general name of Ligurians and some of the customs common to all their tribes — respect for the character of the fetiah and the custom of proclaiming war by ambassadors. Their manners also were alike evervwhere. Thev were those of poor moun- taineers upon whom nature had bestowed courage and strength, in place of the wealth of a fertile soil.^ The women laboiu'cd, like ^ For a long time the Lifriniaiis were believed to Le Iberians. " Tlieir language is Indo- European," says M. d'Arlx)is de Jubainville ( Les premiers Habitant'* de VEnrope); " it is Celtic," adds M. Maury {Comptes riudus de I'Acad. des Inscript., ]f<70). M. Ern. Desjardins discusses tiiis question in the second volume of his Geoq vt »'/ oKifitia tvpitncirai. ^ The country of Lucca, watered by tlie Serchio, is called the gai-den of Tuscany, which is itself one of the most fertile countries of Italy. * " Asf«uetum malo Li^urem'* (Verg., Gcort/., ii. 168). the men, at the hardest work, and hired themselves out for the harvest in the neighbouring countries, while tlieir husbands traversed the sea in their frail ships as far as Sardinia and Africa, to the detriment of the rich merchants of Marseilles, of Etruria, and of Carthage.^ They had no towns, except Genoa, their common market, but numerous small villages, hidden in the mountains, where the Roman generals never found anything worth taking. A few prisoners, and long rows of chariots loaded with rude arms, Avere ever the only ornaments of their triumphs over the Ligimans.'^ Few people had so high a reputation for hard Avork, for sobriety, and valour. During forty years, their isolated tribes held in check the lioman power in tlieir mountains ; which succeeded in overpowering them only by forcing them away from that ungrateful soil,"^ Av-here they saw famine ever threatening them, but where they possessed that which they esteemed their chief good, their liberty. At the other extremity of Cis-Alpine Gaid dwelt the Yeneti. The two nations are contrasted, like their countries. In the midst of those beautiful plains, fertilised by the nuid of so many rivers, under the mildest climate of Italy, the Yeneti, or the '^ victorious,'-^ as they were called — exchanged their poverty and valour for effeminate and timid manners. They had, it is said, fifty toA\Tis, and Padua, their capital, manufactured fine woollen stuffs and cloths, which, by means of the Ik-enta and the port of Malamocco, they exported to distant countries; their horses were in great demand for the Olympic races, and they travelled to Greece and Sicily to sell the yellow amber, which they obtained from the Baltic. Their industry and commerce accumulated wealth, Avhich often tempted the pirates of the Adi'iatic. But never were they seen in arms ; and they * Poseidonius (ap. Strab. III. iv. 17, and Diod. v. 3U). The descendants still go to the coasts of Sai-dinia and Algeria to get fish and coral, which the Liguriaii sea does not afford them, because of the depth of its water near the coast. '' Livy, xl. ;34. * Forty thousand Apuans, the bravest of the Ligurians, were transported into the country of the Ilirpini, and thirty times, if there is no mistake in tlie text of Pliny (iii. 6), the Ingaunians were compelled to change their abode. *' Ingaunis Luguribus agro tricies dato." This is the Asiatic system of ^tTuiKiaic, which we know from early Greek, and from Hebrew history. — Ed.^ * This is the sense given by Ilesychius to the word Ileneti, sub. voc, 'Eptricag TrwXovg. lii INTRODUCTION. accepted disgracefully, without battle, without a struggle, the Eonian domination : a luxurious life had early sapped their courage. Having entered Italy with the Lihurnians of lllyria, or having come, perhaps, from the borders of the Danube,^ the Veneti had been driven into the mountains of Verona, of Trent, and Brescia, by the Euganei, who had possessed the country before them, and"^ who had given their name to a chain of volcanic hills between Este and Padua. To the north of the Yeneti, the Cami, probably of Celtic origin, covered the foot of the mountains, which have taken their name, and some wild Illyrians had taken possession of Istria. At a period probably contemporaneous with the invasion of the Ligurians, the Umbrians- {Amm—iho noble, the brave) arrived, who, after bloody battles, took possession of all the countries possessed by the Siculi in the plains of the To. Pursuing their conquests along the Adriatic, they drove towards the south the Liburnians, who left only a few of their number (Prtetutians and Pelignians)^ on the banks of the Prexara, and penetrated as far as Monte Gargano, where tlunr name is still preserved.'* At the west of the Apennines they subdued a part of the country between the Tiber and the Arao.' The Sicani, who had settled there, found themselves involved in the ruin of the Siculi, and many bands of these two nations united and emigrated beyond the Tiber. But they met there with new enemies ; the natives, encouraged by their disasters, drove them gradually towards the country of the (Enotrians, who, in their turn, forced them to go with the Morgetes, and find a last asylum in the island which they called by their name. The * Mannert declares them to be of Slave origin. ^ The Gallic origin of the Umbrians accredited by antiquity, has been revived by modern writers. But the inscriptions found in Umltria, on the frontier, it is true, of the Sabine country, tell of a Latin tongue ; we must then connect tlie Umbrians with the Sabellian Osei. Pliny (iii. 14) says of them, " gens ant iq\iissima Italiae." The recent works of M. Br^al have proved that Umbrian was an Italian dialect, which, after all, does not solve the ethnological question. M. Em. Desjardins makes them a Ligurian people ; M. d'Arbois de Jubainville makes them akin to the Latins. ^ Ovid, who was himself Pelignian, gives to tliese people a Sabine origin {Fast. iii. 05). * Scylax (Pen'plas,^. 6). See the map of the kingdom of Naples by Rizzi Zannoni. At the centre of the group of mountains are found, besides the " Valle degli Umbri," other localities named Catino d'Umbra, Umbricchio, Cognetto d'Umbri (Micali, i. 71). '^ The Umbro takes its name from them. PELASGIANS AND UMBRI AXS. liii Sicanians shared a second time their fate, and passed after them into Sicily.^ Ilc^irs of the Pelasgians of the north of Italy, the Umbrians ruled from the Alps to the Tiber on the one side, and as far as Monte Gargano on the other. They divided this vast territory into three provinces : Isombria, or Lower XJmbria, in the partly inundated plains of the Lower Po ; Ollumbria, or Upper Umbria, between the Adriatic and the Apennines ; Yilumbria, or Maritime Um- bria, between the Apennines and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Like the CV4ts and the Germans, they dwelt in open villages in the middle of the plains, disdaining to screen their courage behind high walls, but therefore exposed after a defeat to irretrievable disasters. It is said that when the Etrus- cans came do^vn into Lom- bardy, the Umbrians, being conquered, lost at one blow three hundred villages. How- ever, in the mountainous cantons of Ullumbria, after the example of the Tyrr- Libral as of Tuder.- ' Dionys. (i. 73) and Thucydides (vi. 2) fix this migration as having taken place two hundred years after the Trojan war, of course without certainty. ^ Tuder (Todi), or, as it is called on the money, tvtkre, was early an important city. \\ hat is left of the walls resembles, in its greater regularity and absence of rudeness, those of Volaterrae and Perusia. It will be observed that its money, which dates perhaps from the fourth century B.C., is of remarkable elegance. PELASGIANS AND UMBRIANS. It Uv IXTRODICTIOX. honian cities Avhieh wore in the noighbourhood, their towns were built on the sunmiits, and surrounded with ramparts;' thus Tuder, close to the Tiber; Xuceria, at the foot of the Apennines; - • ' 1 ,, ■■,>»^.,..;-iifc^./aryi«^,-.»f>. Fragment of Eupfubine Tables (from Iguvium). T^amia, on a rock Avhich commands the Xar; Mevania, Interamna, Sarsina, Sentinum, etc., which by their construction, are proof of a more timid, but also more advanced, civilization. For three centurii^s the empire of the Umbrians gained for that people a reputation of great power; but it was broken by 1 These fortineations are perhaps the work of the Etniscans. for Umbria remained subject to them for a long time. " Umbria vero pars Tuscia? " (Serv. in Mn xu. 753) Liyy (v. 3.3) says, without any restriction, that the Tuscan empire embraced the whole w.dth of Italy, from '^^^'''^M^Breal the leai-ned author of the vrork entitled Z^.^ Tahle.<< 7i://.7»/ftme>', has been ki.id enough *to give me this passage from Table V. in both Etruscan and Latin characters. It contains two decrees given bv the brotherhood of .priests who caused the Eugubine tables to be engraved The first decree, of which only the end is here reproduced, is in l^truscan letters, the second is in Latin letters: but the language of the two documents is the same-it i8 Umbrian. AVe only give a transcription of the commencement :— '•Ehveiklu feia fratreks ute kvestur panta muta adferture si. Jto'jationem faciat fratricm aid qiiastor quanta multa adfertnn n't. Panta muta fratru Atiiediu mestru karu pure ulu Ijenurent. Quantajn multam fratrum Attidior'um major pars qui illuc vmcrint adferture eru pepurkurent heriK. Etantu nuitu adferture si. adfertori e.^fuJ(, xii. 14, Ivi INTRODLTTION. while the mass of the nation made common cause with the Etrus- cans, the Oamertes treated with Eome on a footing of perfect equality; Ocriculum also obtained the Eoman alliance, but the Sarsinates dared to attack the legions alone, and fiu-nished the consuls with two triumphs. Pliny still counted, in his time, in Tmbria, forty-seven distinct tribes,' and this separation of the urban and rustic populations, this passion for local independence, this rivalry between toA\Tis, was always the normal state of the Eomagna, of the marches of Ancona, and of almost the whole of Italy. In the fifteenth century, just as in ancient times, there were in the Eomagna communities of peasants entirely free, and all the towns formed jealous municipalities.^ Thus it happened that this energetic race, which had no knowledge of the litigious spirit of the Eomans, and with whom might settled riglit,=* these men that Napoleon declared to be the best soldiers in Italy, have, thanks to their divisions, submitted quietly to the ascendancy of Eome, and came ultimately to obey the weakest of governments. ' Pliny, Nat Hist., iii. 14. ^ See L. Ranke, History of the Popes, ii. 198. ' '0/i/3p(koi orav TrpoQ a\\t)\ovQ txioffiv <(^('tKapTii (Nic. Daiuasc, ap. Stob. Fior., 10, 70.). Here we have the judicial duel of the middle a^res. Tliey said, too; 'ApayKalop n vixav h cnroBviiffKHv. Ibid., 7, 39). ■ — T 1 J. <. s s it c • A^ > H i. > v V c i- <^ * C- ii * "- ^ ^ \ t I! « 4 > S % w * •— ^ i4 N >> \> 0-^ .2 1 * V * * ^ cr CO *• -d % 7^ ' > ^^ •» ^ V dO P "^ -' -^ Etruscan 1 4f - » « « u- • « CO I ■f V 5- > > v« 6 >- 00 c L_ y 0- ^ ^ Q- c » % i V ^ > > > 9 >- Cr 1 __ j_ L. 1 ^— ' H o C Ph rif p:^ QO QQ H ir^ c C CO s a 3 a eS 4 'o t2.'w A ^ cc m n H m « — a. 7^ > S :s * < < nn *• c^ Ul LJ S5 • V. > t^ ♦ ^ oo * * m ry H- — 3^ > r ^ < * o * rn: m o — » ^ 1 r ^ S k < oc^ rN <<^ M CD © — >^ - ^^ ffl g ft W f^ N I H W h^ M 3Q ^ 02 "^ as o^ o o aj S3 02 C <5 ^^ 03 .r> ^5 2 rt o s s o o 8 ^ '^ S fee S 2 S ^ o § ^ CD Si od .^H O o o oT ou oD a> Cd (4-1 ^ O .a- >. a OS -fj •«^ si 3-1 t— < • 1.^ 1-^ t^ •A 0) s Iv Vlll INTKODrCTION. III. THE ETRUSCANS. OVU western civilization has its mysteries, like the ohl East; Etruria is to us what Egypt was before Chaiiipollion. We know very well that it was inhabited by an industrious people, skilled in commerce, art and war, rivalling the Greeks at the same time that thev were undcM* their intiuence, and for a long time powerful and formidable in the ^[editerranean ; but this people has disappeared, leaving us for its riddh* an uTiknown language, for a proof of what it once was, innumerabh* monuments, vases, statues, bas-reliefs, oniauients, objects precious both for workmanship and for materials — a people rich enou.gh to bury with its chiefs the means wherewith to pay an army or build a to^m ; industricms enough to flood Italy Avith its products, and civilized enough to cover its monuments and tombs with inscriptions.^ But all this is mute, and modem science, wholly baffled, has hitherto been unable to interpret more than twenty words or so of the Etruscan language.- Their portraits which they have left us on their tombs tell us nothing more of tlunn. These obese and thicks(4 men, with aquiUne noses and retreating foreheads, have nothing in common with the Hellenic or Italiote type, and are not of the same race as the thin-featured people represented on their vases. AVhence did they come ? The ancients themselves did not ' See plate. M. de Long^^rier says of tliis monument, wliicli was found at Cervetri (C^eTe) : 'It is directly connected witli tlie Corintliian art of the seventh century, so that this tomb may give us an exact idea of what that of Demaratus, the father of Tarquin the Elder, must have been.'' {Mu.«ee Napoleon III., explanation of pi. Lxxx.) [The tomb here represented on the plate is very similar to that now in the British Museum.] Let us note that the Etruscans interred their dead, and did not burn them; the contrarv was the case in the later times of the repu))lic and untler the empire, [or rather both customs prevailed. — ii A A f\ ^ /^ f\ /^R n f\IAftK C D D > > c D > ^ s 7 ^ ^ 3 3€ J^3 ^ r 7 ^ ^ ^ 1 1 L 1 1 i: I i 4: f z ^ B J^ ^ d BBH ^ae e ® o 1 O0<>0 O0 1 1 1 1 1 1 • 1 J vl y vl >J vj vV\ ^ \A/1 m wm nHi ^ v^ip^wvf^ v\ /v\ ^ H v\H M 11 i/| ^ ^ M ^ P -:) 1 1 7 1 717 \A A\ M M /A /A M d S D ^ C an ^ ^ ^ e ^ 5 Z ^Zl -1- T > t / +tTir Tfiy V V V V YV vvr V Y 0® 9 i Y >]. >]/ Y si/ vl/ 4/ 4/ ^ ? 8 8 888 8 8 Some Etruscan Alphabets. I Ixii INTKODUrnoN. THE ETKISCANS. Ixiii J .i I i know. Deceived by the name of the Tyrrhenians, who had pre- ceded the Etruscans north of tlie Tiher, the Greeks took them for Pelasgians, and represented them as having travelled from Thessaly and Asia Minor into Tuscany. But, on the testimony of Dionysius of Ilalicarnassus, their language, their laws, their customs, and their religion had nothing in common with those of the Pelasgians. Xiebuhr and Otf. ^liiller consider that the Eti'uscans, or Easena, as they called themselves, came from the mountains of Eha?tia.^ As a matter of fact, there is no reason why the Etruscans, who placed the abode of their gods in the north, and gave*' them the Scandi- navian name of Ases,^ should not be regarded as an Asiatic ti'ibe, Avhich, after having penetrated into Europe by the defiles of the Caucasus, by which the (loths afterwards passed, had left on the south the peninsula of the Balkans occupied by the Pelasgian races, and had ascinided the valley of the Danube as far as the Tyrolese Alps. Priestly rule, division into stiictly separated classes, and the predominance of fatalism are characteristics more and more marked in proportion as we traci^ back the course of centitries and approach more nearlv to Asia. Etruscan civilization has also in common Avitli Semitic literatures tlu^ omission of the short vowels, the reduplication of the consonants, and the AViiting from right to left. The dwarf Tages reminds us of the clever dwarfs and magicians of Scandinavia ; Avhilst the obese figures found at Cervetri ; the g(H-gons, of which there are so many representations; the gods with four wings, two spread, and two drooped towards the earth; the splnnxes, the monst(^rs which guard the approaches to the mansions of the dead; the animals unknown to Italy, lions and panthers, ' Livv(v.:«),Plmy (iii.20),aii:cans Avho took refuge in the Alps after the conquest of Lonibardy hy the Gauls. Niebuhr supposes that the singular language of Grceden, in southern Tyrol, is a remnant of the Etruscan language. Many names of places there recall the Ilasena, and the nuiseum of Trent preserves vases and small figures in bronze with Etruscan inscriptions discovered in that province. Quite recently, hi 1S77, there were found in the Valteline, not far from Como, some Etruscan objects of great antiquity {liec. Arch, Sept. 1S77, p. 204). Ogiuli tried to prove in the Giornalt Acndiro the relationship of the Germans and Etruscans. M. Noel des Vergers, who has souglit for the Mjlution of the problem esx)ecially in tiie study of figured monuments, is disposed to accept the tradition of Herodotus as to their Lydian origin. But the plastic arts may have been introduced into Etruria later than the arrival of the Etruscans, by commerce, or previously to it I y the Tyrrhenians. In short, the problem will remain insoluble until we decipher the Etru>can language. ^ - Fest. s. V. "Sinistne aves." ^ '• -Esir . . . Errusc-a lingua D^us vocaretur," (Suet. Oct. 1)7). devouring one another; the Egyptian scaraba3i, the good and evil o-enii, like the devs of Persia, which conduct souls to the lower world; finally, a quantity of details of ornamentation, show either borrowing from the East, or memories of their early home. We have above compared the two industrious and universally per- secuted races of the Finns and Pelasgians ; we might also compare Etruscan figures. (Atlas of Micali, pi. xnj.' the two peoples who have taken their place; the enigmatical lan CM o a o o OS o I "v THE ETRUSCANS. Ixvii works of drainage,' the Cyclopean constrnctions, the pretended knowledge of omens and the industrious activity of the Etruscans, to the influence, counsels and example of these Pelasgians,*'^ who are said to have excavated the tunnels from Lake Copais through a mountain, to have built the fortifications, still remaining, of Argos, 4 Chimsera in the Gallery of Florence. (Micali, Atlas, pi. xiii.) Mycenae and Tiryns, and who passed for magicians on account of their learning ? Moreover this people never had the spirit of hostility towards strangers ; the tradition of Demaratus, the mixture of Umhrian, Oscan, Ligurian and Sabellian names in the Etruscan inscriptions, and finally the introduction of the gods and arts of Greece, show with what facility they admitted men and things of other countries. One particular feature of Etruscan manners is, however, in absolute contradiction to the Greek manners. This sensual people loved to heighten pleasure by scenes of death. They were accus- tomed to human sacrifices ; they decorated their tombs with scenes of into Rome. At Caere there have been found inscriptions thought to he Pelasgian. Moreover^ Caere and Tarquinii had each its treasure house at Delphi, like Sparta and Athens, and the painted vases of Tarquinii are exactly similar to those of Corinth. We might call to mind, too, the religious character of the people of Caere and the reputation they had of liaving always abstained from piracy. ' See Noel des Vergers' Etniria and the Etruscans, yol. i. p. 06. Tlie railway through the Martnnma has led to the discovery of a quantity of subterranean conduits for draining the soil. ' [To account for the Etruscans by referring them to the Pelasgi, and that, too, by f2 THE ETRUSCANS. Ixix Ixviii INTRODUCTION. '% ' % m. blood ;' and gave to their neigliboui's of the sc^veii hills those gladia- tioiial games which the toAvns of half the Koman world imitated.*- The ruin of the Umbrians was accomplished, said the Etruscan annals,^ 434 years before the foundation of Eomo. The Easena succeeded to their power, and increased it by fo\n- centuries of conquests. From Tuscany, the principal seat of their twelve tribes, they subdued Und)ria itself with a part of Picenum, where traces of theii- occupation are to be found.' Beyond the Tiber, Fidenie, Crustumeria and Tusculum, colonised by them, open the road to- wards the coimtry of the Yolscians and Eutulians,'' who were brought into subjection; and towards CVimpania, a new Etruria was founded 800 years before our era, of which the principal cities were Yolturnum, afterwards called C'apua, Nola, Acenne, Ilerculaneum and Pompeii.' From the cliffs of Sorrento, Avhich were crowTied by the temple of the Etruscan Minerva, they watched any vessels hardy enough to venture into the gulfs of Naples or Salerno, and their long galleys cruised as far as the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia, where they had settlements. ^^Then almost the whole peninsula, from the Alps to the Straits of Messina, was attributing to the latter all sorts of works without any conclusive evidence, is indeed t^ explain obscuru7n per obscuriu.^, and gives new point to Niebuhr's remark already (quoted by the author above, p. 39. — EdJ] 1 This design, taken from pi. xxi. of the AtlaM of Noel des Vergers, represents Achilles immolatincr capt'ives to the manes of Patrochus. Tliis is the reading of the names written over the head of each figure, and M. Bi-eal's rendering of them, going from left to right: — \CHMENRUN ( Agameumon) ; Hintiiial Patrucles (Ghost of Patrochis) ; \vp (?) • Aciile (\chilles); Truials (Trojanns); Charx (Charon): Aivas Tlmums (Ajax 'lelamomus-) ; Truials (Trojans) ; Aivas Vilatas (^Ajax Oileus). This scene of mui-der corre.spondt.i .h. NNtdl with the manners of the Etruscans that, when they wished to repi-esent an episode of the Iha. Censor., 17, Dionysius said five hundred years; it is useless to add that these chronological data are valueless. * Pliny, Nat. Hist., iii. 5. • ,.,.,.; » Some tombs have been discovered at Ai-dea, the capital of tlie Ilutuli, which appear to belong to the Etruscans, and the citadelof that town, more imposing than those of Etruria, is built like them, of enormous stones. « Livy, iv. 37; Cato, ap. Veil Pat ere, i. 7; Polybir.s, ii. 17. Lanzi adds to these five towns Nocera, Calatia, Teauum, Cales, Suessa, .Eseruia and Atella. -♦ under their sway,"^ and the two seas which wash the shores of Italy took and still kec^p, the one the name of this people, Tuscum Mare, the sea of Tuscany ; the other of its colony of AdHa, the Adiiatic. Unhappily, there was no union in this vast dominion. The Etruscans were everywhere, on the banks of the Po, the Arno and the Tiber, at the foot of the Alps and in Campania, on the Adriatic and on the Tyrrhenian Sea ; but where was Etruria ? Like Attica under Cecrops, like the iEolians and lonians in Asia, the Achaeans in Greece, the Salentines and Lucanians in Italy, the Etruscans were divided, in each country occupied by them, into twelve in- dependent tribes, which were united by a federal bond, without any Tuscan Ploughman.- gc^nornl league fen* the whole nation. For instance, when any grave circumstances occiu-red in Etruria proper, the chiefs of each city assembled at the temple of Yoltumna, in the temtory of Yolsinii, to hv'dt there ccmcerning the interests of the country, or to celebrate, under the presidency of a supreme pontiff, the national feasts.^ In the days of their conquests, the union was doubtless very close, and the chief of one of the twelve tribes, being proclaimed general- issimo, exercised an unlimited power, indicated by the twelve lictors furnished by the twelve cities, with tlieir fasces surmounted by ' Cato, ap. Serv. in Ain., xi. 567. Livy repeats it in almost tlie same terms in different places (i. 2.; V. 33). - This group hi bronze, found at Arezzo, is thought to be connected with the legend of the l)lrth of Tages. ^ Livy, v.i. ; and ahewhere, prificlj)es Etrurue. t• Bronze vases found at Bologna. generally placed on high hills, like so many fortresses dominating the country. Wamors, husbandmen and merchants, they fought, di-ained the marshes, and dug harbours. India and Egypt, believing themselves eternal, spent centuries on majestic but idle monuments. Greece covered her promontories with temples, her roads Avith statues, the streets and open spaces of her toAVTis Avith porticoes. Here it w^as the disinterested genius for the arts, there a profoundly re- ligious sentiment and the hope of an endless existence. But Etruria kneAV that she and her gods must die, and anxious to live and THE ETRUSCANS. Ixxiii enjoy life before that anticipated end, she lavished time and men only on useful Avorks, making roads, opening canals, turning aside rivers, suiTounding toAvns Avith impregnable Avails. In Upper Italy, Mantua thus rose in the middle of a lake on the Mincio, a position to this day the strongest in the peninsula. Its metropolis F(4sina (Bologna), on the Bono, claims to liaA^e founded Perugia^ also, and Pliny calls it the capital of Circumpadane Bronze Jewels.*^ Etruria. Melpum on the Adda was able to stand against the Gauls for two ci^nturies ; and Adi'ia, between the Po and the Adige, was surrounded by canals which, connecting the seven lakes of the Po, called the seven seas, rendered the delta of the river healthy. The Avaters, confined or let off, prepared the fertile lands for agiiculture; toAVTis multiplied there, and from Piedmont to ' iSi/m* 7M/., viii. 600. ^ » For tlie dt'soription of these objects, see Annaks du Dull. Archeol. 18/4, vol. xlvi. p. 249, seq. and in the Atlas, vol. x., pi. x. seq. Ixxiv INTRODUCTION. the Adige, there are found Etruscan inscriptions, bronzes, painted vases, &c., relics of the rule of an industrious people. Etruscan Jewels and Earrings/ In Tuscany, the Yalley of the Amo and that of the Chiana were drained, the Maremma made healthy, and six of the twelve capitals built upon that coast, now uninhabitable. Wliile the towns carved marble, cast iron- and bronze, modelled clay into elegant ^ These jewels are taken from Noel des Vergers' Aflfut. * The excellent ore of the Isle of Elba was brought to Populonia, where large foundries were established. The isle is oiilv separated from the continent by a channel 10 kilom. wide (6 miles). [The mines are still workel Ixxiv YllSl'?i, cVl k- k, tf^. 'N, * . w ♦•TT)T!m}- iJUiisUioi; mSm- -^<^v [lUlllt I » i d '^^^ iifliii»itaaiiiii«iiii^ ' If ti »\V1TS THE ETRrSCANS. Ixxv vases, sculptured innumoraWe bas-reliefs, chased rich armour and precious jewels, and worked up linen for the priests, wool for Bronze Arms^ (pa^re Ixxiv). the people, hemp for cordage, and wood f.n- ships; a skilled agriculture, closely hound up with religion, and an eqm able division of land, which gave to each citizen his farm,' enriched the land, and covered it with a healthy population. Thus ^^^s realized that problem which antiquity was so seldom able to solve : large . Bron.. buckUn- an,l a.„,» found in a ton.b called that of tl.e warrior at Corneto /T.w.nlnlll iie.e Atlas i>l th,- ll'il'- d-- riH-it. Arclwol., \o\. X., 'pl- y.- ^ ' "rerr. ouft«r. causa. va.-.icula,i„, l,on,inib,.s a.tribu.a" (Varro. a,.. Plularg. „, Geory. ii. 109.) /.■ Ixxvi INTRODUCTION. towns in the midst of a fertile country, industry and agriculture, wealth and strength : sic fort is Etrnria c rev it. ^' Meanwhile, from the numerous parts of the coast, from T.una, the town of the Marble Walls;'- from Pisa, which was then nearer the sea than now; from Telamon, once a vast harbour, now only a swamp ; from Graviscee ; from Populouia ; from Cosa ; from Pyrgi , from the two Adrias ;^ from Herculaneum ; from Pompeii, there sailed vessels destined for commerce, or cruising from the Pillars of Hercules to the coasts of Asia Minor and Egypt. More hardy adventurers went to Gaul to seek the tin of the islands of the Cassiterides, necessary in the manufacture of bronze ; further still, to the shores of the Baltic, to seek the yellow amber of which the women made their ornaments, and which was said by the Greeks to be formed of the tcnirs of the daughters of the Sun weeping the death of Phal'thon. Silver coins of Populonia found in the Duehv of Posen show the route followed bv the Etruscan merchants across the European continent. Carthage closed against Coins of Populouia with a Gorgon's head, reverse smooth.* them the Straits of Gndes, bevond which thev were desirous of leading a cohmy to a large island of the Atlantic, which she had just discovered;' but she gave up to them the Tyrrhenian sea. Every strange vessel which they met westward of Italy was treated as a prize, unless some convention protected it.*' AVhen the - Vergil, Georg. ii., 52^. ' Near Carrara, the Quarry where there is a mountain of white marble. ' The most famous between the Po and the Adige still bears the same name, l>ut is more tlian 14 miles from the sea ; the other, Atri, in Piceuum, is o miles from the Adriatic. * These medals give a full-face representation of the Etruscan (Jorgon, which is seen on so great a number of vases and terra-cot tas ; but she no longer has the hideous head which the ancient monuments of Etruria gave her. The Greeks had the Gorgon, too, but they disliked ugliness; when they liad made her terribl;*, they made her beautiful, and Lucian ends bv saying that it was by lier beauty she exercised her fatal p')wer of clianging thost« who looked upon her to stone. [liionavdo's famous Metlusa suggests the same idea. — Ed.") Diod, V. 20. 'SavTtKtui; vvvi'ifitan> i(t\i'(T(n'Tn; Kiii Tu\\oi'<2 \onvovr BuXarToKnoT l\rrnvTH^. ^ Aristotle, Vol. iii. tJ. THE ETRUSCANS. Ixxvii seas '> Phc»ciuans (ulm(^ in 53() lu., to seek another country in these the Etruscans uni- ted with the Car- thaginians against those Greeks, whom the two nations met and fought everywhere. But this union could not last. The l^irthagiiiians who, for their commerce with Gaul and Spain, needed busi- ness settlements in Corsica and Sar- dinia, established themselves in those two islands in spite of treaties. Thence sprung up violent animosities, and an anxiety on the part of the Carthaginians to ally themsdves with the Ilomans.^ Tlu^ hatred of Car- thage was danger- ous, yet less so than the rivalry of the Greeks who occu- pied the most ini- ' Shown by treaties of 601), 348, and 279 B.C. ■•* This com, with the sign of the wheel and the anchor, is a dupondim, or piece worth two asses, r^ ■ ( ^...n t^n aaaes were made; but which are marked on the two sides of the anchor. Corns of even ten asses were all these bronze umltiples of the monetary unit are rare. Bronze Coin attributed to the Etrusco-Umbrian town of Gamers.^ M • w Ixxviii INTRODUCTION. THE ETRUSCANS. Ixxix portant commercial positions in iSicily, in Southern Italy, and as far as the centre of C^ampania; and who, through Cunue, menaced the Etruscan colony on the borders of the Yoltumo. As early as the middle of the sixth century, some Cnidians established them- A Lucumon's Helmet.^ selves in the Lipari islands, whence they harassed the whole of the Tuscan commerce. Being attacked by a numerous tieet they gained the victory, and in the joy of this unhoped-for triumph, they dedicated as many statues at Delphi as they had taken vessels.* Khodes, too, showed among its trophies the iron-bound beaks of the TjTThenian vessels, and the tyrant of Ehegium, Anaxilaos, drove * [This helmet waa found in 1817 in the bed of the Alpheus, and is now in the British Museum.] ^ Pausanias, x., 12 and 16. Thucyd., iii. 88. them from the Straits of Sicily by fortifying the entrance.' The Etruscans, therefore, sided with Athens against Syracuse. Hiero made them pay dearly for this alliance. In conjunction with Cumse, Syracuse inflicted on the Etruscans a defeat which marked the decline of their maritime power (474), and of w^hich Pindar sung : — " Son of Saturn, I conjui^e thee, cause the Phoenician and the soldier of Tyrrhenia to remain at their own hearths, taught by the affront that their fleet received before Cumae, and by the evils that the lord of Syracuse A\TOUght upon them, when victorious he cast all their brilliant youth headlong from the heights of the swift poops into the waves, and drew Greece from the yoke of slavery." Hiero made an offering to Zeus of Olympia of the helmet of one of the Lucumons killed in this battle, with this inscription which he had caused to be engraved on it: *^ Hiero son of Deinomenes and the Syracusans [have consecrated] to Zeus the Tyrrhenian [arms] from Cum-ae." ^ From all quarters enemies then rose up against the Etruscans. Threatened on the north by the Gauls, in the centre by Eome, and on the south by the Greeks and Samnites, they lost Lombardy, the left bank of the Tiber, and Campania, where the Samnites made themselves masters of Voltumum, slaying all the inhabitants in one night. At the end of the fifth century b.c. they retained only Tuscany. Moreover, divisions prevailed amongst them; in the midst of the public misfortune the league had been dissolved. Yeii, attacked by the Komans, was left to herself, just as Clusium was abandoned when threatened by the Gauls. Such selfishness brought its own punishment. Yeii succumbed, Caere became a Eoman municipality, and Sutrium and IN^epeta were occupied by Latin colonies. These disasters taught them no lesson, and Etruria viewed with indifference the earlier efforts of the Samnites. At last, however, she saw that it was a question of the liberty of Italy, and she roused herself fully. But she was crushed at Lake Yadimo ; a second defeat completed the work. This w^as the last blood shed for the cause of independence. For some time longer the Etruscans, under the name of Italian allies, might think ' Strabo, VI. i. 5. ■•' Pindar, Pyth. i. 136, seq. Cf . plate ou last page. IH Ixxx INTRODUCTION. i I themselves free; but little by little the hand of Eome preesed more heavily on them, and at the end of a century, without any noticeable change, Etruria found herself a province of the Empire. Calm under the yoke, and sadly resigned to a fate which had been long predicted,^ this nation made no effort to strive against its destiny. They tried to forget, in luxury and the love of art, the loss of their liberty ; and preserving amid their sensual pleasures the ever-present idea of death, they continued to decorate their tombs with paintings, and to biuy in them thousands of objects, which in workmanship and material indicate extreme opulence. Etruria, in fact, was still rich; it will be seen what its toA\Tis gave to Scipio after sixteen years ot the severest warfare. But the economical revolution which followed the great wars of Eome reacted on the provinces. As in Latium and Campania, the slave took by slow degrees the place of the free man, the shepherd that of the husbandman, and small properties were lost in great domains. When Tiberius Gracchus traversed Etruria, on his retm-n from Numantia, he was alarmed at its dc^popnlation. Sylla completed its ruin by abandoning it to his soldiei*s as the price of the civil war; the Triumvirs gave it another visitation. Thence- forward Etruria never recovered. Her social organisation had perished; her language, too, was gone. From so much glory art and learaing, one thing only survived; up to the last days of the ancient world the Tuscan augur retained his fame with the countr}^ people. None could better read signs in the entrails of victims, in the lightning flashes, or in ordinaiy phenomena.^ It was a vain science which rested on the enervating dogma of fatalism, and which infected the nation with a deathlike torpor. The Etrurians played a considerable part, however, in the civilisation of Italy; not by their ideas, for they added nothing ' In the midst of the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, the Tuscan soothsayers declared that the great day of Etruria was drawing to a close. According to the calculations of their astronomical theology, the actual world would only last eight great days, or eight times 1,100 years, and one of these days of the world was accorded to each great people (Yarr. ap. Censor, 17), Cicero, in the Dream of Scipio, also believes in the periodic renewal of the world: '' Eluviones exustionesque lerrai-um quas accidere tempore certo necesse est " {de Hep., vi. 21). Virgil has clothed this grand idea with his magnificent poetry: " Aspice conrexo nutantem pondere mundum/' ^c. (Eel. iv. 50). =» Cicero, de Divin. ii. 12, 18. Euta, fulcra et ostenta were the three parts of the science of divination. THE ETUI SCANS. Ixxxi i '--'h ^ J ^1 to human thought ; nor by art, since as ivgards ideal work, theirs has little originality; but by their utilitarian conception of life, by their industry, and by the influence which they exorcised upon Eome. Livy calls the Etruscans the most religious of nations, the one which excelled in the practice of established ceremonies , the Fathers of the Church looked upon Etruiia as the mother of super- Gate of Volterra (p. lxxxii). stitions. We shall see that she deserved this report. Their augurs' doctrine was famous among the ancients. They believed tliat the great events of the worid were announced by signs, and they were right in believing it, if only, instead of observing the phenomena of physical nature, they had studied those of the moral order, since the best poHcy is that which discovers the n. Ixxxii IXTKOUIXTIU.N. signs of the times. lUit t\w augur's art was only a collcH^tion of puerile rules, wliieh liekl the mind in Ixaidage, and made first them, and then the Eomans, the greatest formalists in the world. If we except the Greeks, settled on the shores of the gulfs ol Naples and Tarentum, they were the most civilised of the Italian nations. Their artisans were skilful, their nobles loved pomp in their ceremonies, and magnificence in their dress ; and they gave Rome these tastes together with their hoi*se-races and athletic combats. They gave them, too, their massive architecture, which was a clumsy imitation of the Doric order. The temple of Jupiter on the Cai)itol derived from them that flattened look which suited so well the dull lioman imagination, but so ill the God of tin* lofty heavens.^ The gate of Yolaterra and the Cloaca Maxima prove that they knew^ how to construct arches and vaults, which the Greeks of the gmnd epoch had forgotten [or neglected]. The rude ogive of some Cyclopean gate had doubtless insj)ir(Kl ihvm with the idea, and architecture was endowed by them with a new and precious future. They do not appear to have tunK^l it to account for majestic constructions, as did the Romans of the Em- pire ; but they employed the vault in their canals and tunnels to carrv off the water and render the countrv health v. The senators of Rome, who lodged their gods in the Etruscan manner, lodged themselves like the Lucumons of Yeii or Tanpiinii : the atrium^ which Avas the characteristic feature of i)atrician villas, is borrowed from the Etniscans ; and froiii the Roman dtrium came the patio of the Spaniards, or Moors, and the Catholic cloister.* But whilst the Romans placed their tombs on the surface of \\\v soil as we do, the Etruscans dug funereal chambers undiTground, or in the rocky sides of their hills. Some of these, as for instance in the valley of C'astel d'Asso, have a singular likeness to those which are seen at Thebes in Egypt. Sometimes they raised strange structures over the excavation which contained their dead, of which the fabulous tomb of Porsenna Avould be the most complete repre- ^ [This wati mainly the result of the wide separation of the pillars, wliicli ^ive the Etnincan style a feeble and sprawling look as compared with the Greek. The effect of widening these inter-columnar spaces is very marked. — Ed.'] ^ [More probably this method of house-building was common to all the Aryans of Southern Europe, certainly to the Homeric Greeks, as well as the Italians. It ia the form now adopted all through the Mediterranean countries. — Ed.^ A-.^.'y ^^;W; tL < ^ o o < X u 3 a. w k.ia*-4.4-;ii-S-^-fc-; i^^O- f i-- ^.iniiiiiiipi III. w. ] xxxu IMU' Siiri; .. liriK's. !>•- . 1 I . ' ■ ! [»U(Tiie ];ul<\-., vviiiclj iiri.i \iv them, n?)(l i i i M ' ■ ■ a*. • ■ Xa|)1es and Tan iituii' (■uiiiiji.;i.s. Tilt , \\7i> ^iniisy imitution lof'tv Iietn'eii-. h vuniaii in the (]ir(cks of tin* iri p; thev aicliitiMt ''li.silllr • H boinl i iiiado Hrsi :i tit( H'.v* 0'luln\V<'(l ;-l ilir' J. riiti'i u. 1 1 an'Vii • il a^ •J ill*' ro« k\ !t:iliai; 1 p')iii|j Hi XX 'h^. I- -trucUiirs over th 11. ',,■1 ,- V E: I > •! '- 1), ' 'I Irl III \ U liirl •I! f the T] if> I T!0\V / irTiT5p|< w)r't 11 ■( , ui UI < o o < Q. UJ (A ,ti THE ETRUSCANS. Ixxxiii M m soiitatioii, if the dcscrii)tioii which the ancients have left us coukl be reduced to tlie conditions of probability. Yarro, if Pliny has copied him accurately^ had made himself the echo of vague memories which tradition had preserved and embellished in its otmi fashion. '' Porsenna," says he " was buried beneath the toAvn of Clusium, in the place where he had caused a square monument of hewn stone to be built. Each face is oOO feet long and 50 feet high. The base, which is square, enclosed an inextricable labyrinth. If anyone entered it without a ball of thread, he could not regain the outlet. Above this square are five pyramids, four at the angles and one in the middle, each 75 feet broad at the base, and a 150 feet high ; so exactly equal that with their summits they all bear a globe of brass and a kind of cap, from which bells are suspended by chains, which when moved by the wind, emit a prolonged sound, such as was heard at Dodona. Above the globe are four pyramids each 100 feet high. Above these last-mentioned pyramids, and on a single plat- form, were five pyramids, whose height Varro was ashamed to note. This height, according to Etruscan fables, was the same as that of the whole monument."^ It has been attempted to explain this impossible construction by saying that the pyramids were not placed upon one another, but upon retreating surfaces.^ This legend was, however, only half fabulous. Even at Chiusi, there have been discovered sepulchral chambers, forming a sort of labyrinth, through the narrow passages of which it is difficult to make one's way, and the Cucumclla of Yulci leads to the suppo- sition that the glorious king of Clusium had a sumptuous tomb. The Cucumclla, situated in a plain, now an uninhabitable waste, is a tumulus, or conical mound of earth, from 45 to 50 feet high, probably higher in ancient times, and 650 feet in circumference. Though it has been searched several times, this tumulus has not given up its secret. Tombs have been met with, it is true, in the excavations; but onlv the obscure dead had their last abode there, and like faithful servants, guarded the approaches to the place where their master reposed. The Lucumo and his kin were further in, in a central crypt, the access to which had been shut by a ' riiiiv, Nat. Hist., xxxvi. ID. * Ijuatremere de Quiiiry, Rccucil de Dissert, arch., 1836. g2 hi Ixxxiv INTRODrCTION. wall of siicli lliickiiess tlmt the workmoii could not break tlirou<:;li it. All efforts made to discover the entrance to this sini»ulnr monument were useless : the pyramids of E*^ypt have not dc^fended their sepulchral chambers so Avell. In the cuttings made round the outc^r Avail were found animals in basalt, Avinged sj)liinxes, lions standing or couched, watching over this palace of the dead to drive away the audacious visitor who should attempt to pass the gate. On the summit were still seen the bases of partially cnnnbled towers. With the help of these remains it was possible to restore The Cucumella. this mysterious tomb with some appearance of probability.' The edifice is utterly devoid of grace ; but purely Etniscan art had not that gift w^hich Greece received from Minerva, and strange as this construction appears, it is not more so than the tumulus of the Lydian king, Alyattes, on the banks of the Hermus.* To bury theii* chiefs under great tumuli was the custom of the Scythians, Germans, Celts, and Lydians, and consequently of the Telasgians: it is therefore quite natural to find it again in Etruria, especially in the region where the Tyrrhenians had settled. The ' This restoration was made under the direct ious of the Prince of Canino, whose domain comprise ^''•" «; •' ZuH-> ; also the Hull. an/,, for 1H03, p. 1^. The cut ,» taken from the Atla. of the •' For (he ,le.<.ription of these objects, see A.male^ ,lu B.ll. m:h. for 18,4, ,ol. xh.. P. i49 Seq.. ami in the Atlm, vol. x. pi. 10-1-'. }> Ixxxviii TNTRODUCTIOX. cups and jewels from the land of the Tyrrhenians were sought for everywhere ; and when, some years ago, the CVim- pana Museum brought these marvels to our knowledge, the modern goldsmith was obliged to conform for a time to the Etruscan fashion. Their figures have the rigidity of Egyptian statuary : th(^ style had not reached even that of -^gina. Yet they furnished Italv with many bronze and terra- cotta statues of large dimensions. TheEomans, who were niggardly even Blark Vases of Clusiuin (Cliiusi).* vi ^i • i ^i i i. With tlieir gods, thought that terra-cotta statues were a sufficient decoration for their temple^ of Jupiter Capitolinus, and they placed some of them upon the pediment.- They provided themselves yet more cheaply Avith statues of bronze, Avhen they carried off two thousand at the sack of Yolsinii. The ancients, who only learned very late to make wooden casks, w(*re the best potters in the woi'ld : our muscMuus contain more than fifteen thousand anti(pu» vases. The red pottery of Arezzo and the black pottery of Chiusi are purely Etniscan. Tlie form is souK^times odd, but often very elegant. The ornaments in reli(^f * which ch^coratc^ them, the fantastic animals ' Taken from Noel des Verf?ers' Affrt", pis. xvii. xviii. and xix. See the explatinfion of these cuts on pp. 12-14 of tlw same work. ^ [But it is not unlikely that the sam»' fashion existed in Greece Iwfnre tlu'v had h'arn fioiiri's in th«» p^^liment its«'lf. Ia/.] J Hack Vase of Clusiiim. THE ETRUSCANS. Ixxxix seen upon them — sphinxes, winged horses, griffins, and sirens — recall subjects familiar to Oriental artists, and lead us to the conclusion already propounded on the diverse sources of Etruscan civilization. Some of these vases might even be taken for Egyptian canapes^ those ui-ns of which the cover is formed by a man's head. Among the specimens which w^e give is a ewer in the shape of a fish; the Campana Museum has another in the form of a bird. The learned are agreed to consider these black vases as very ancient, and Juvenal asserted that good king Numa had no others— quis • • « Simpuvium ridere Numnc, nigi-umque catinum Ausus erat ? ^ As for the painted vases, they are copied from Greek vases, or else they were imported in the active commerce which Italy carried on with all the countries bordering on the eastern part of the MediteiTanean — Egypt, PhoDuicia, C'yprus, Ehodes, and, above all, both European and Asiatic Greece. The subjects most frequently represented on these vases are borrowed from the Epic cycle, from the mythology, and heroic traditions of Hellas. Whenever they reproduce myths peculiar to Etruria some reminiscence or imitation of the foreigner appears. Some vases of gilt bronze which were found at Yolsinii have figures which remind us of the most beautifid coins of Syracuse. We ought to give the Etruscans credit for having appren- ticed themselves to those who, in the domain of art, have been the masters of the whole Avorld, and for having preserved to us some of their master pieces. The most admirable of the antique vases come from the excavations at Chiusi," and since an inhabitant of Yulci esteemed a Panathenaic vase precious enough to be buried with him, let us put in evidence ^vhat Etruria loved as well as Avhat she manufactured. » Sat., vi. 343. ' The Francois Vase at Florence, of which a representation will he found in the Athc^ of the lustitut Archeolog. vol. iv. pi. IJV., LV., lvii. xc I^'TUOBUCTION. IV. OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. IN their central parts, eastward of Home and Latiuin, tlic Apennines have their highest peaks, their wildest valleys. There the Gran Sasso d'ltalia, the Yelino, the ^fajella, the Sibilla, and the Great Terniinillo raise their snow-capped heads above all the Apennine chain, and from their summits aiford a view of both the seas which wash the shores of Italy.^ But their sides are not gently sloped ; it seems as if they lacked space to extend them- selves. Theii' lines meet and break each other ; the valleys deepen into dark chasms, where the sun never reaches; the passes are narrow gorges; the water-courses toiTcnts. Everywhere there is the image of chaos. ' It is hell ! ' say the peasants.^ In all ages this place has been the refuge of bmve and intractable populations, and the most ancient tradititms place there the abode » of the Oscans and Sabellians, the true Italian race. Long driven back by foreign colonists, and, as it were, lost in the depths of the most sombre forests of the Apennines, these people at last claimed their share of the Italian sun. Wlience did they originally come? It is not knoAni ; but historic proba- bilities, strengthened by the affinity of language and religion,^' point to a common origin. The difference of the countries wherein they definitely settled doA^ii — the Sabellians in the numntains ; the Oscans in the plain — established between them differences of customs and perpetual hostilities, which obscured their original kinship. Of these two sister nations, the one, profiting by the feebleness of the Siculi, must have descended, undca* the identical names of Oscans, Opici, Ausoni, and Aurunci, into the plains of ^ [Tliis wild Alpine country repeats itself twice again as you go soutliward ; once along the boundaries of Apulia, where the Ahiuzzi, from Potenza down to the Monte Pollino, form a >*plendid chain, and again in Calahria, where the Sila mountains embrace a largo district of inaccessible Alpine country. — Ed.] " Thev call one of these vallevs Infenw di S. (%ilumha. ^ Tlie Samnites spoke Oscan, the language of the C'ampanian.s r.nd the Alellan farces written in that language were understood at Home. (Str.;''0, V. iii. 6.) I u OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. XCl Latium and C^impania, that ancient land of the Opici, which they had never, perhaps, entirely abandoned; the other must have in later times peopled with its colonies the summits of the Apennines and part of the Acbiatic coasts : the latter led, in their warlike n^mper, by the animals sacred to Mars ; the former by Janus and Saturn,' who taught them agriculture, and of whom they made gods of the' sun and the earth— the sun which fertilises, and the earth which produces. In the time of their power the Siculi had possessed the land of the Opici; but the miseries which the invasion had inflicted on the Pelasgians of the banks of the Po gradually spread over the whole race, and a lively reaction brought the indigenous inhabitants out of their Apennine catacombs, and put them in possession of the plains which the Siculi had occupied. The Casci or Aborigines, that is to say, the oldest inhabitants of the land began a movement which, though several times arrested by the conquests of the Etruscans, Gauls, and Greeks, finally resumed its course with Rome, and ended by substituting the indigenous i-ace for all these foreign nations. The latter, descending from the high land betAveen Ami- ternum and Eeate, established themselves south of the Tiber, Avhere, by their union with the Tmbrians, the Ausonians and the Siculi, who remained in the country, was formed the nation of the Frisci Latini^ which / occupied, between Tibur and the sea (33 miles), and from the Tiber to beyond the Alban Mount (19 miles), thirty villages, all independent.^ Alba Longa.^ In the first rank stood Alba Longa, which took the title of the Metropolis of Latium,' a title which Rome, founded three hundred ^ Dionys., Ant. Rm., i. 14 ; Nonius, xii. 3 ; Cic, Tu.sc., i. 12; Varro, de Ling. Lat., iv. 7 : Fest 8. V. - On the obverse, a helmeted liead of ^lercury ; on the reverse a Pegasus. But this Pegasus is neither the winged hoi-se of tlie Muses nor that of Aurora, the legends of which are of com- paratively recent origin ; he bears the tliunder and lightningof Jupiter, or rather, he is the light- ning itself, traversing the heavens at a bound (IlesicKl., Theog., 2S1 : ApoUod. ii. 3, § 2 and 4, § 2; Ovid, Metam., iv. 785 and vi. 110). This coin, of very clumsy workmanship, is very old, and may be assigne|uians, Sahines. Latins and Volscians. ^ On the ohverse, a tortoise with two o's, the mark of tlie sextans ; on the reverse, a wheel— rota, the root of the word Itiituli. ' " Ardeam IJiituli habebant, gens ut in ea regione atque in ea .X'tate divitiis pnepollens ' (Li\-y, i. 57). Coin attributed so the Ilutulians.' bv coiinii(4*ce and surnnuided by high walls. Saguntum, in t^pahi, was said to be its colony. Around this primitive Latium, which did not extend beyond the Numicius, and, which nourished a stout population of husband- men,^ were settled the ^quians, Hernicans, Volscians and Auruii- cans, all included by the Romans in the general term of Latin Wall of Alatri. people; further on, between the Liris and the Silarus, were the Ausonians. The iEquians, a little naticm of shepherds and hunters, in- satiable plunderers,^ had, instead of towns, only fortified villages, situated in inaccessible places. Quartered in the difficult region traversed by the upper Anio, they reached, by way of the moun- " . . . . Et nunc magnum mauet Ardea nomen ; Sed fortuna fuit." ' (Virg., Atn., vii. 412). Dionvs. {Ant. Horn., iv. 64) is still more expressive. » " Fortissimi viri et milites strenuissimi ex agricolis gignuntur^' (Plmy, ^«^v H^^^' xvm. o). - " Convectare juvat praedas et vivere rapto" (Virg., ACn^wx. 749.) XCIV INTRODrCTlON. OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. XCV taius, as far as Algidiis, a volcanic promontory, from which the Eoman territory might be seen, and whose forests covered their marcJi. Thence they suddenly poured into the plain, carrying off crops and herds ; and before the people could take arms, they had disaj^peared. Faithful, however, to their plighted word, tliey had established the fetial right which the Eonians had borrowed from them,^ but which they seem no longer to have recognised at the time Avhen, by their rapid incursions, they every year turned tlie attention of the people from their quarrels in the Forum. Not- withstanding their proximity to Rome and two centuries and a half of wars, they weri^ the last of the Italians to lay down arms. Less given to war and plunder, because their country was Volscian coin. richer, the Ileniicans, notwithstanding the rocks which covered it," formed a confederation, the principal members of which were the cities of Ferentinum, Alatrium and Anagnia.^ The imperishable walls of the two first -named towns, the linen books iv^herein Anagnia recorded her histoiy, her reputation for wealth, the temples that Marcus Aiu*elius found there at every step, and the circus where the deputies of the whole league assembled, bear witness to their culture, their religious si)irit, and their ancient might."^ Placed between two nations of warlike temper, the Hemicans displayed a pacific spirit, and early associated them- * Livy, i. 82. ^ "Saxosis in montibus " (Serv. in .En., vii. HS4): lie takes them for Sabines. ^ " Dives Anaguia "( Virg., .^n. vii. 684). Strabb (V. iii. 10) calls it illustrious* {iroXt^ d^ioXoyoq). * Ferentinum, on the Via Latina, between Anagnia and Frusino. Alatri»im, a town of the same nation, is seven miles from the former. Staves with the fortune of the Latins and Ronrdns against the .Equians and Yolscians. The Yolscians, who were more numerous, inhabited the country between the land of the Rutulians and the mountains which separate the upper valleys of th(^ Liris and Sagrus. The Etrus- cans, who were for some time masters of a part of theii' country, had there executed great works for cany- ing off the water, as they had done in the valh^ys of the Anio, C^hiana, and To, and had brought under cultivation lands which yielded tliirty and forty fold. These swamps, famous un- der the name of the routine Marshes, had been at first only a vast lagoon, separated from the sea, like that of Venice, by the long islands which Circe, Ulysses, Elpenor.^ afterwards formed the coast of Astura to Circeii. They were bounded toward the south by the island of J3a, which in later times was united to the continent under the name of the Promontory of Circeii." The superstitious fears which always people deep forests and wave-beaten rocks with strange and threatening powers, placed the abode of Circe, the dread enchantress, on this promontory, as in Celtic tradition the nine virgins of the island of Sein ruled the elements in tlie stormy seas of Armorica. This legend, which appears to be indigenous around the mountain, may be the remains ^ Tliis Etruscan mirror, taken from the FArmHsche Spier/el of Gerhard (vol. iv. pi. cdiii.,) was found at Tarquinii in imii, and represents Ulysses, aided by Elpenor, forcing the enchantress to restore the human form to his companions, whom she had changed mto swme. One of them stiU has a man's leg. The thres names in Etruscan characters are:-Cerca for Circe, Uthste for Ulysses, Felparun for Elpenor. ■•' Front., /;/«-•/. iv. 4. f • XCVl INTRODUCTION. OSCANS AND 8ABELLIANS. XCVll of an ancient belief. Is not Circe, Avhoni the Greeks con- nected with the ill-oniencHl family of the King of Colchis, hut Avho was said to be the daughter of the Sun, doubtless because in the morning, when tlu» plain is still in shadow, her mountain is lighted by the first rays of the rising sun — Circe, who changes forms, and compounds magic draughts of the herbs' her promontory still bears* — may she not be some Pelasgian divinity, a goddess of medicine, like the Greek ^sculai)ius, who was also an offspring of the Sun, and who, fallen with the defeat of her nation, was degi-aded to a di-ead sorceress by the new comers ? The Yolscians of the coast — with the island of Pontia and the stretch of coast which they possessed ; with the ports of An- tium and Astura, and tliat of Temicina, whicli has a circum- ference of no less than nine miles ; '' with the lessons or example of the Etruscans— could not fail to be skilful sailors; at all events they became formidable pirates. The whole Tyrrhenian Scni, as far as the lightliouse of :Messina, was infested by their cruisers, and the injuries they inflicted on the Tarentine commerce n(nirly re- sulted in a war between the Romans and Alexander' the Molossian king of Epinis. Yet Rome had already conquered Antium and desti-oyed its fleet. The Yolscians of the interior were no less dreaded in the plains of Latium and C^nnpania, and, after two hundred years of Nvar,^ Rome only got rid of them by exterminating them. In the time of Pliny,^ thirty-tlu-ee villages had already disappeared in the ' The crejm lacera abounds there (Mic. i. 273); Strabo (V. iii. 6) was also aware that poisonous herbs f^rew there hi ^reat numbers. Cf. \'irg. Alu. vii. 10, se:i. The memory of the diead enchantress still lives there, and not long ago no peasant could have been f<.und who would dare for any money to penetrate into the gi-otto said to be Circe's. (De Bonstetteii, Voyaye sur le theatre des sir derniers liros de VEneide, p. 73.) •-' Pliny, Nat. Hist., ii. 8o (87) ; iii. 11 (9) thought, as indeed the appearance of the region proves, tliat the promontory of Circeii had been once an island, which some were inclined to recognise as the problematic island of .Ea of Homer (Odyss., x. 13o). ' Dc Proiiy, " Mem sur les nlarais Pontins." " Anxur . . . oppidum vetere fortuna opuleu- tum." (Livy, iv. 59). Cf. Phny, Ibid. iii. 9. * Livy, vi. 21. " Volscos velut sorte quadam prope in aeternum exercendo Romano militi dctos." ' Phny, .V«/. Ilixt., iii. 9: "A Circeiis palus Pomptina est quem locum xxxiii. urbium fuisse Mucianus ter consul prodidit." In the whole of ancient Latium he mentions Hfty-five ruined towns. I romptinum, which in the age of Augustus was nothing but a deadly solitude.^ Beyond the Yolscians, as far as the Liris, in a country where the mountains only leave two narrow roads for the passage from Latium into Campania, dwelt the Aurunci. Heirs of the name of the great Italian race, they appear . to have preserved its lofty stature, it fierce and daring aspect.^ On their coasts, indeed, at Formia?, the giant Liestrygones^ were said to have lived. But in historic ages this nation remained in obscurity ; Livy only speaks of it in describing the pitiless war made by Rome in 314, and the destruction of three of its towns. Beyond the Liris the Romans considered Campania to begin, a relaxing and enervating country where no dominion has ever lasted more than a few generations, and where the earth itself, in its continual revolutions, seems to share the frailty of human things. The Lucrine lake, once so celebrated, has become a miry swamp, and Avernus, the 'mouth of hell,' has turned into a limpid lake. At Caserta a tomb has been foimd 90 feet under- gi'ound; and the lava-streams, which bear upon them Herculaneum and Tompeii, themselves hide a layer of arable soil and traces of ancient culture. 'There,' says Pliny, 'in that land of Bacchus and Ceres, where two springtides bloom, the Oscans, Greeks, Umbrians, Etruscans and Campanians contended in luxury and efpeminacy ; ' and Strabo, astonished that so many nations should in turn have ruled and endured slavery there, laid the blame on the mildness of the skies and the fertility of the soil ; whence, says Cicero, came all vices.'* The Oscans of Campania are in historic times only a popula- tion dominated and blending with foreign masters — Greeks estab- lished on the coast, Etruscans in the interior, and Samnites come doAvn from the Apennines. Some Ausonian tribes, like the Sidicini of Teanum and the Aurunci of Cales, alone retained their liberty among the mountains which separate the Yultumus from the Liris. ' Livy, vi. 12 : " Innumerabilem multitudinem liberorum capitum in eis fuisse locis, quae nunc, vix seminario exiguo militum relicto, servitia Romana ab solitudine vindicant." * Dionys., Ant. Rom., vi. 32, and Livy, ii. 26. ' Homer, Odyss. x. 89, 134. * Pliny, Nat. Hist., iii. 9, " . . . sumnmm Liberi Patris cum Cerere certamen." Cf. Florus, I. 16 ; Strabo, V. iv. 9 ; Cicero, de Lege Agrar. i. 6, 7, M I xcvm INTRODUCTION. OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. XCIX Ou the other side of the peiuiisula, in Apulia, tlie basis (^f the population was also of Ausoiiian origin, as is proved by tlie names of the towns of the interior, and by the use of Oscan spread over a great part of southern Italy. Originally, the Sabines, with whom almost all the Sabellian peoples are ccmnected,' dwelt in the high eountry of the uppei' Abruzzi, round about xVmitcnnum, whence issue the Velino, Fronto, ; a Wall of the town of Aurunci. and Pescara, and where the late melting of the snow sustains the pasturage when the sun is already scorching the plain. Thence they swept down ui)on the territory of Eeate, out of which they di-ove the Casci, and iuiived by way of Mount liUcretilis at the Tiber. On the north they pressed the Umbrians across the Nem ; on the south they occupied a part of the left bank of the Anio, ^ " Pateique Sabinus" (\'\rg., ALn., vii. 178). 2 Taken from the Ann. du Bull., vol. iv. 1639 I and in the eighth century they were, after the Etruscans, the most powerful people in the peninsula.^ The Sabines, shepherds and husbandmen, like all the Sabellians, lived in villages, and notwithstanding the large population, which brought under culture and peopled the land up to the sum- mits of the most rugged mountains, they had scarce any towns but Amitemum and Reate. Cures, the gathering place of all the nation, was only a large village. They were the Swiss of Italy : their habits were severe and religious; they were temperate, coui-ageous, and honest; they had the unostentatious but solid virtues of the mountaineer, and they remained in the eyes of Italy a living picture of ancient times.^ History, which recognises in them one of the principal elements of the Roman population, will not hesitate to refer to them the frugal and laborious life, the austere gravity, the respect for the gods, and the strictly constituted family which are found at Rome in the early centuries, and which were long preserved there.^ They resemble the ancient Romans, too, in their contempt for mental culture — in all their land not a single Sabine inscription has been found. When in these arid mountains famine seemed imminent or some w^ar was unsuccessful, they devoted to the gods, by a sacred springtime {yer sacrum)^ everything which was born in March or April. Even children were offered in sacrifice. In later times the gods grew milder, only cattle were immolated or redeemed ; and the children, when they reached the age of twenty, were conducted with veiled heads out of the territory, like those Scandinavian hordes, which, at fixed epochs, the law drove from the land in order to prevent famine. Oftentimes the god himseK protected these young colonies, sacrance acies vel Mamertini., and sent them divine guides. Thus of the animals sacred to Mars, a wood-pecker {picus) led the Piceni ; a wolf (hirpus) the Hirpini; and a wild bull the Samnites/ ' Livy, i. 30. =* " Severissimorum hominum, Sabinorum " (Gic, in Vat, 16) ; pro Lig. 2. " Dis- ciplina tetrica ac trisli veterum Sabinorum," (Livy, i. 18). ' Virg., Georg.f ii. 632 ; Servius iu jEn., viii. 638 : " Sabinorum mores populum Romanum secutum Cato dicit." * Fest 8.V. "ver sacrum;" Pliuv, Nat. Hist. iii. 18. During the second Punic war the h2 I INTRODUCTION. "From the Sabines," says Pliny,^ ''the Piceiitiiies are descended, by a sacred spring-time." But too many different races occui)ied this coast for an unmixed people to have resulted therefrom. In their fertile valleys the Picentines remained unaffected by all the Italian wars, and multiplied at leisure. Pliny asserts^ that when they submitted to Eome, in 268, they were 300,000 in number. Among them were counted the Pnetutians, who formed a distinct nation, settled in the liigh lands. By a singular chance, it was these poor mountaineers, scarce known to the historians of Eome, who gave their name to the centre of the peninsula, the Abruzzi. The vast province commonly called by the name of the Sam- nium, and which includes all the mountains south of Picenum, and the Sabine land as far as Magna Grecia, was divided between two confederations, formed of what were held to be the bravest nations in Italy. In the first league the Marsi and Peligni were most renowned for their coui-age. "Who shall triumph over the Marsi or with- out the Marsi?"* said they. Next to the Etruscan Aruspex there were no diviners more celebrated for their skill in reading signs, especially the flight of birds, than those of the Marsians. Among them we meet again with the ps^lli of Egypt, and the physician-sorcerers of the natives of the New World, who healed OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. CI Coin of Teate, capital of the Mairucini.-* Coin of the Frentani.' Romans made a similar vow, with the exception of the proscription of children. Livy, xxii. 9. Sabine traditions said, too, that Semo Sancus, also named Dius Fidius, the divine author of the Sahellian race, had substituted rites free from blood for human sacrifices. (Dionysius Ant. Rom. i. 38). ^ Hist. Nat. iii. 13. =» Ibid. ^ On the obverse, a head of PaHas, above five o*s, the sign of the quincunx ; on the reverse, this same mark, a crescent, an owl standing on a capital, and the word tiati. * Appian Bellnm civile i. 46. "Genus acre virum" (Virg. Georg ii. 167). " Fortissi- morum virorum, Marsorum et Ptelignorum " (Cic, in Vatin. 16). ' A head of Mercury with the word fbentben in Oscan characters ; on the reverse, Pegasus flying. See note 2. page 91. with the simples gathered in their mountains, and with their magic incantations, neniw: One family, which never intermarried with the rest, had the gift of charming vipers, with which the country of the Marsians abounded, and of rendering their bites harmless.'^ In the time of Elagabalus the reputation of the Marsian sorcerers still remained ; even to this day the jugglers who go to Rome and Naples to astonish the people by their tricks with serpents, whose poisonous fangs they have extracted, always come from what was once the lake of Celano {Fucinus'). Now it is St. Dominic of C^ullino who bestows this power; three thousand yeai-s ago it was a goddess held in great veneration in those same ^ places, the enchantress Angitia, sister of Circe, or perhaps Medea herself, of the gloomy race of Aeetes. Names change, but super- stition endures, when men remain under the influences of the same places and in the same state of ignorance. The country of the Marsians and Pelignians, situated in the heart of the Apennines, was the coldest in the peninsula:^ thus the flocks which in summer left the scorched plains of Apulia, went then as they do now to feed in the cool valleys of the Pelignians, who moreover produced excellent wax and the finest of flax.*^ Their stronghold of Cortiniuin was chosen during the Social war to serve, uiuhn^ the significant name of Italicay as the capital of the Italians who liad risen against Rome. The other gi-eat Sabellian league consisted of the Samnite people, who had more brilliant destinies, great riches, a name dreaded as far as Sicilv, as far even as Greece, but who paid for all this glory by feai-ful disasters. Being led, according to their legends, from the country of the Sabines to the mountains of Beneventum by the wild bull whose image is found on the coins of the Social war, the Samnites mingled with the Ausonian tribes, who remained in the Apennines, and spread from hill to liill as far as Apulia. » Cf. Ilor. Fjyod. xvii. 29. 2 Spargere qui somnos cantuque manuque solebat, Mulcebatque iras et morsus arte levabat. (Virg. ^n vii. 754). ' Lake Fucinus, tl.e are. of ^l.icl. waa 37,500 aores, and .l,e depth .58 feet, «a8 drained by freddo (TAbruzsn. » Pliny Nat. Hi^t. xi. 14; xix. 2. Cll INTRODUCTION. OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. cm While the Caiidini and Ilirpini ' settled on the slopes of Mount Taburnus, the foot of which reached to a valley rendered famous by them under the name of the Caudine Forks, the Frentani established themselves near the upper sea, and irregular bands of them passed over the Silarus and formed on the further side the nation of the Lucanians, which early separated itself from the league. This was composed of four nations (Caraceni, Pentn\ Ilirjn'ni and Cau(Uni) to whom belongs more particularly the glorious name of Samnites. Their country sun*ounded by the Sangro, Yolturno and Galore, is covered with rugged mountains (the Matese), which preserve the snow until ^lay- and of which the highest peak, Blount Miletto, rises to 6,500 feet. Thus the tlocks found fresh pasturage and abundant springs among these high valleys during the scorching summer. These constituted the wealth of the country. Their produce sold in the (ireek to^\^ls on the coast ; the pay Avliich thev often received under the title of auxiliary troops; but, above all, the booty which they brought back from their raids into Magna Grecia, accumulated great wealth in the hands of these warlike shepherds. In the time of the war against Rome the abundance of bronze in Samnium was so great that the younger Papirius carried off more than two million pounds of it;'^ and his colleague Carvilius had made, with nothing but the armour taken from the Samnite foot-soldiers, a colossal statue of Ju])it(»r, which he placed on the Capitol, and which could be seen from * Festus. s.v. mrpmo.«; Of. Stralw V.iv. 12; Serv. in JEn. x\. 17n. ^ Keppel-Craven. E.rcnrtwff in the Ahntzzi. ' Livy, X. 46. Saninife Warrior, after a Painted Vase in the Louvre. Medal of Samnium.^ the summit of the Alban Mount.' Like all warrior-nations, the Samnites exhibited thc^r luxury in their armour; bright colours shone on their war-dress, gold and silver on their bucklers. Each soldier of the higher classes, arming at his own cost, was anxious to prove his valour by the splendour of his arms. And yet the wealth of the army does not imply the wealth of the people. Calculating according to the numbers furnished by the historians of lionus the population of Samnium has been rated at two million souls.'^ This result is an evident exaggeration, like the premises on which it rests. If the Sam- nites were not able to arm against Home more than 80,000 foot soldiers and 8,000 cavalry, their population must have amounted at the most to GOO, 000 inhabitants. But it was sufficient for these stout soldiers, sometimes united under the supreme command of an omhmilur (imperator), to spread their raids and conquests all around their mountains. Their principal wealth consisted in their tlocks, but for six or seven months the snow covered the pastuiv in the mountains, s(. that it was necessary to descend into the plains.^ Hence came continual wars with neighbouring nations. Though united in the same league the four Samnite nations (uich forined under its mcddlx tutlcus a distinct and sovereign society, which often neglected the general interest to follow out particular enterprises. These sons of Mars, whose ancestors re- ligion and policy had exiled, remained faithful to their origin. They prefeiTcd to the bonds which give strength, the isolation which first gives liberty, but presently promotes slavery. ' riiny, Nat. Hist, xxxiv. 7 (18). ' Micali, Storia, etc. i. 287. , .. , ^ • r^ , » Obverse helmeted,the head of Mars, with the words Mutn embmdur, m Oscan cliaracters ; rt^verse, two chiefs taking oath over a pi^r, which a kneeling soldier holds, and tl>e legend c.PAAPi for Papi"^ i» ^^^'^'' characters. One C. Papius Mutilus was enthradur of the t^aninites in tlie Social ^Var, IK)— Si) B.C. i • . .i * We know that the tribnte levied on the cattle whicli passed from the plains to the mountains hi summer and back again in winter was the principal revenue of the kingdom of of Naples, in later times nearly £>G0,000 per anmim. The kings of Arragon had forced the tenants of the crown in Apulia to let Xhe flocks of the Ahruzzi pasture in tlie.r fields in winter. Inourowndavsthelandlonlsof ApuHa were obliged to keep tw,>-thirds of their land for 7, and Symonds, p. 241. ^mf CIV INTRODUCTION. If the thirteen Sabellian nations had boon nnitod, Italy was theirs. But the Lueanians were at enmity with the Saninites, the hitter with the Marsic confederation, the Marsians with the Sabines, and the Picentines remained strangers to all the moun- taineers' quarrels. Yet Kome, which represented, as no other ancient state had ever done, the opposite princi})le of political unity, only triumphed after the most painful efforts, and by ex- terminating this indomitable populaticm.^ She was, moreover, com- pelled to undertake the work of (l(\struction twice over. The Samnite and Second Punic Wars had alreadv made manv ruins and solitudes; but when the vengeance of Sulla had passed over that desolated land, Florus could say: ''In Sanniium itself it would be vain to seek for Samnium." The ruin was so complete that only a few monuments of those people are left us, and more than twenty of their toMUs have disappeared without leaving any trace behind. On the south-east, Tarentum and the great toTVTis of Apulia stayed the Samnites ; but towards the west the Etruscans of Campania were unable to defend that rich territory against them. Tired of their continual expeditions, the Etruscans thought to buy peace by sharing Avith the Sanmites their fields and towns. One night they were surprised and massacred (about 423); Yulturnum took the name of Capua, and that of Campanians distinguislu^l the new masters of the country.*^ The great (>reek city, Cumie, was then taken by assault, and a Campanian colony replaced a part of the massacred inhabitants, yet without making the Oscan language and Sabellian customs supersede the Greek.-^ These herdsmen, who in thc^r mountains raised fine breeds of horsc^s,'* became in the Campanian plains the Medal of Terina.* ^ Livy, and after him all the historians of Rome, have exaggerated tliis depopulation of Samnium, since according to the census preservtKi by Polybius, that country ould furnisli 77,000 soldiers after the first Punic War. Diod. xu. 31 : to tOvoQ tGip Ka^nrat'wv avviOTi). • ' See Livy, xl. 42, where the Cumaeans demand the substitution of Latin for Greek in public records. * Especially in those of tlie nirpiiii, whose country still rears an excellent breed. ' Silver coin. Obverse, a woman's head; reverse, the nymph Lygea seated. OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. CV best horsemen of the peninsula, and the renown which this con- quest won for them led the way to more. To the north, east and south they were surrounded by difficult countries and warlike nations, which blocked the road to fresh enterprises ; but the sea remained open, and they knew that beyond the gulfs of Ptestum and Terina there was booty to be obtained and adventures to be found in Sicily. Under the ancient and expressive name of Mamer- fiirn, the Campanian horsemen offered to serve anyone who would pay thorn. The rivalry between the Greek cities, the ambition of the tyrants of Syracuse, the Carthaginian invasion, and the cease- less war which "desolated the whole island, always provided them with purchasers for their valour. And this trade of mercenaries b(>came so lucrative that all the bravest of the Campanian youth passed over into the island, where the Mamertines were soon numerous enough to lay down the law and take their ovm way. But whilst beyond the straits they were become a power against which Carthage," Syracuse, and Pyrrhus strove in vain, their towns „u the banks of the Vulturnus were being enfeebled by the same migrations which increased the militarv colony in Sicily. As early as the middle of the fourth centurv, at Cumie Nola and Xuceria, the anci(>nt inhabitants became masters again, and if Capua maintained its supremacy over the neighbouring towns, it was only by losing all its Sabellian character. The effeminacy of the ancient manners reappeared, but stained with more cruelty! In funeral ceremonies there were com- bats of gladiators in honour of the dead; in the midst of the most sumptuous feasts, games of blood to enliven the guests,^ and constant murder and treason in public life. We have seen how the Samnites possessed themselves of the town by the massacre of their entertainers ; the first Roman soldiers who were placed there, Avishod, according to their example, to put the inhabitants to death. Dming the second Punic war, Capua ' Laurel .rowned head of Jupiter. Two soldiers joining swords, taking the oath over a pig. ■= Athena3us, iv. 30: Livy, ix. 40; Silius, xi, 51. Cohi of Capua.^ CVl INTRODUCTION. Coin of Lucania. sealed her alliiince with the Carthaoriiiiuiis by the blood of all the Romans settled within her walls, and PeroUa wished at his father's table to stab Hannibal. When finally, the legions re-entered it, all the senators of Capua celebrated their own funeral rites at a joyous feast, and drank poison in the last cup. No history is more bloody, and nowhere was life ever more effeminate. The Lucanians had a destiny both less sad and less brilliant. Following the chain of the Apcni- nines, this people entered ancient (Enotria, the coasts of which were occupied by Greek cities, and where Sybaris ruled from the gulf of Piestum to that of Tarentum. After having slowly increased in the mountains, their population came down upon the cultivat(Ml territory of the Greek cities, and toWcU'ds the middle of th(» fifth century, Pandosia, with th(^ neighbouring towns, fell into their power. Masters of the western shores, they turaed towards those of the Gulf of Tarentum, and placcnl the Greeks, already menaced on the south by the tyrants of Syi'acuse, between two dangers. Towards 430 b.c, they were al- ready contending against Thurii, and such was their progress in the space of thirty-six years, notwithstanding their small number, which did not exceed 34,000 combatants,' that a great (l(^f(^nsiye league, the first that the Greeks of this coast had made, was formed against them and Dionysius of Syracuse. The penalty of death was pronounced against the chief of the city whose troops should not haye assembled at the first news of th(^ approach of the barbarians (394 r>.e.») These measures were fruitless : three years afterwards, all tho youth of Thurii, desirous of roeapturiuj? th(> eity of Laus, were destroyed in a battle, whieh gave almost the whole Coin of Tluii'ii.- ' Ilelmetwl head of Mara : reverse liellona. ' Flead of Minorva an 1 tlie liull si freiui-ntly foiiml on Ihe coins of sonthern Italy " Diwlorns. xiv. I<»l-I(t'. ' Iliid, ill. OSCANS AND SAliELLlANS. cvu of Calabria into the hands of the Lucanians.' Dionysius the Younger, frightened in his turn, in spite of a treaty concluded with them in 300 b.c.,' traced from the gulf of Scylacium to that of Ilipponium a line of defence, intended to protect his Italian posses- sions against them.' This period marked the greatest extension of the Lucanians. Thenceforth they did nothing but give way, enfeebled as they were by the lack of harmony between their different cantons, each of which had its peculiar laws and its chief {meddix or prwfucns) Towards 356 B.C., the Bruttians make theii- appearance, whose revolt was countenanced by Dionysius, and little by little the frontier of Lucania receded as far as Laus and the Crathis. Shut m on the south by the Bruttians, who were as brave as themselves, they sought Compensation at the expense of the Greeks on the shores of the Gulf of Tarentum ; but this was only to call down upon them the arms of Archidamos, of Alexander the Molossian, and of the Spartan Clconymus. Later, their attacks on Thurii brought on the war with Eomc, which cost them their independence. Of all the Sabellian peoples, the Lucanians seem to have remained the most unpolished, and most eager for war and destniction. The civilisation which surrounded them was not powerful enough to penetrate into those rugged mountains, into those deep forests, where they sent their sons to hunt the bear, the wild boar and other game, in order to accustom them early to danger.^ Not very mimerous and often divided, they nevertheless kept the conquered population ri-orouslv enslaved, and extinguished in them even that Greek culture which had such vitality. "Having been barbarized," says Athenteus'' of the inhabitants of Posidonia, " having lost even their language, they had at least preserved a Greek festival, during which they gathered together to re-awaken tlie ancient traditions, . From Pandosia to Thnrinn,. and even as far as Rhegium, Scylax, who wrote ahont !)70 D.C., lino«s notliinR but Lurenians all along the coast. ^ Direl. xvi,6. ' ":,:!;;; xxi'ii'^i. [T.,e .iH hoar and the wolf are still found in these mountains, -'«^'fV."''r'''/"Tifd!m™u't7t'iive any r.al forgetfnlness of their Hellenie cult, ret^h t ; ,lJd tet^ples hefore then., and whieh now. even in the^ rnn,, are among o;st and most luggestive remains which modern Ilellen.sts can stndy.-^^.] . CVlll rNTRODUCTION. GREEKS AND GAULS. CIX to recall the beloved names and their lost countrs^ ; and then they parted weeping" — a sad and touching custom which attests a hard slavery. At the extremity of Eastern Calabria (the land of Otranto), inscriptions have been found which cannot be assigned to any known dialect.^ They had been left there by the lapygians, one of the most ancient nations of the peninsula. They seem to have ruled as far as Apulia ; but were early brought under Hellenic intluence, and began early to lose their nationality among the Greek colonists. V. GREEKS AND GAULS. WE have just spoken of truly Italian races, of those at least who with the exception of the Etruscans, made use of a sister language to the Hellenic, and who gave to Rome its popula- tion, its manners, and its laws. There remain two nations to study, the Greeks and the Gauls, who established themselves later in the peninsula. The latter harassed it for a long time by their raids for plunder ; the former opened it up to Hellenic civilisation. A few years ago Greek was still spoken in the neighbourhood of Locri;^ in the Calabrias, a sort of sacred dance resembles that which is represented on antique vases, iind, at Cardeto, the women have so well preserved the type of Hellenic beauty, that it is said of them, " They are Minervas." In the same way it has been thought that from Turin to Bologna, the per- sistent traces of the Celtic invasion^' are to be seen in the features and in the comparatively harsh and guttuml accent of the Piedmontese, Lombards, and Romagnols. The history of the Greek colonies in Italy is divided into two epochs. About the one, commencing in the eighth century before ^ [These Mesaapian texts are being deciphered by Deecke, and are related to Italic dialects. — L'd.] - [There are also five villages near Rari, where a Greek patois is still spoken, but Lenormant has lately proved, in his interesting work on Ma^fna Grecia, that all these remains of Greek date from the repopulation of these parts of tlie Byzantine P^mpire in the Uth-llth centuries, A.D., and not from old classical times, — Ed.] ^ Doctor Edwaixis, in his letter to Am. Thierry. oui- era, there can l.c no douLt ;> the other, aseribed to the fourteenth ceutui-y, has all historieal pn-babilities aguin.t it It is of conrse possible that, in the times which followed the Trojan war, after that great distm-banee of Greece, Hellenic troops, driven out of he mother country by revolutions, landed on the shores of Italy. But as to what is said of the settlement of Diomede in Daunia, or among the Veneti, who in the time of Strabo saenhced a white horto'him every year; of the companions of Xest- ^^ Idomeneus at Salentum-although Gnossus in Crete held hi. tomb- „f PhUoctetes at Petelia and Thurii, of Epeus at Metapontum, o tl^TTsojl.ci.m, of Evander, of Tibui-, of Telegonus son of Ruins of the Temple of Metapontum (Tavola dei Paladini). Ulysses, in Latium, at Tusculum, Tibur, Pneneste, Ardea, etc these legends, we may say, can only be regarded as poetica traditions invented by rhapsodists in order to give an illustrious origin to these towns. . Nothing was wanting to sanction these glorious genealogies : neither the songs of the poets, nor the blind or intei-ested eredulUy of the historians, nor even the venerated relics of the heroes. On . con these 8.h century dates, and their invention, Cf. n.y mur, of Greek Literature vol. i., XfV-B.—Ed.} 'i - - '-"fai*- ex INTltODL'CTlO^'. the banks of the Nuniicius, the coutemporaries of Augustus used to visit the tomb of ^Eneas, who had beeoine the Jupiter ludio-etes and every year the consuls and Eonian pontiffs offered sacrifices tliere. Circeii exhibited the cup of Ulysses and the tomb of Elpenor, one of his companions ' ; Lavinium, the undecaying ships of ^Eneas- and his Penates ; Thuiii, the bow and arrows of Hercules, given by Philoctetes; Macella, the tomb of this hero; Metapontum, the iron tools which Epeus used for making the Trojan horse 3; Luceria, the armour of Diomede' ; Maleventum, the boar's head of Calydon; Cumoe, the tusks of the Erymanthian boar. Thus the inliabitants of a to>vii of Armenia exhibited the remains of Xoah's Ark.^ No one any longer holds to these fabulous origins except those people of Eome, who still say : Siamo Romanl, and would willingly say like the Paduans : Sanguc Troiano, Moreover, even if we considered as authentic the first settlements of the Greek race in Italy, we could not allow them any historical importance ; for, left without intercourse with the mother-country, they lost the character of Hellenic cities, and when the Greeks an-ived in the eighth century, they found no further trace of these uncertain colonies. To this class of legendary nan-atives belong the traditions of the Trojan Antenor, founder of Padua, and of ^Eneas canying into Latium the Palladium of Troy. The Roman nobles desired to date from the Trojan war, like the French from the Crusaders. According to Herodotus, the first Greeks established in Japygia were Cretans whom a tempest had cast there. Induced by the fertility of the soil, they had burnt their ships and built Iria in the interior of the country. But the most ancient Grecian colony, of which the establishment is beyond doubt, is that of the Clial- cidians, founders of Cumae. Led by Ilippocles and Megasthenes, they ventured, says tradition, across unknoAVTi seas, guided in the day time by a dove, and at night by the sound of the mystic bronze.^ They built Cuma3 on a promontory which coumiands the » Strabo, V. iii. 6. ■■' Procopius, iv. '22. ^ Justin, XX. 2. * Pliny, Hist. Nat., iii. 26. - ' Jos., Ant. Jud. XX. 2. • Strabo.. V. iv. 4 . Traaiuv inn irpta^vTUTii rdv n SirAirwv Km rdv 'IraXivjTiSwv. With the GREEKS AND GAULS. CXl sea and the neighbouring plains, opposite the Isle of Ischia. Its prosperity was so rapid, owing to a position in the middle of the lYrrhonian coast, facing the best ports and in the most fertile country of Italy, that the colony was able to become in its turn a metropolis,^ to assist Eome and the Latins in the time of Porsemia, to shake off the yoke of the Etruscans of the North, and to con- tend on its own account with those of Campania. The battle of the year 474 b.c. resounded as far as Greece, where Pindar celebrated it But in 420 B.C. the Sanmites entered Cumie. Yet, notwithstand- ing, the estrangement and in spite of the barbarians, Cum.e re- mained for a long time Greek in language, manners and memories ; and every time a danger menaced Greece, she thought in her grief that she saw her gods weeping.'^ These tears repaid the songs of Pindar ^ I» this volcanic laud, ucar the Phlegrujan Fields aud the dark Avomus the (ireeks believed themselves to be at the gates of Hades. Cum«, Avhere, according to some tradition, Ulysses had ev,.ked the shades, became the abode of one of the Sibyls and of the cleverest necromancers of Italy ; each year many awe-struck pilgrims visited the holy place, to the great profit of the mhubi- tants." It was there, too, in this outpost of Greek civilisation, in the midst of these lonians full of the Komeric spirit, that the legends were elaborated, which brought so . y , Com ot Cuiiiae. many heroes from Greece mto Italy. After Cumsc and its direct colonies, the most famous of which is the New City, Naples, the other Chalcidian cities were Zancle, Chaleidians were mingled colonists from Cyme, o>, the coasts ot Asia Minor, where Homer sang. The father of Hesiod was born at C.vn,e, and llesiod mentions Latnu.s as the son of Llysses „„d Circe Eusebins in his ChvonMo, places this event in ICW. It is a very remote date. . ^n^nnded Dk.arCna or PuteoU, which served as its port, P«,-/M»,,e and ^caH.^, which edipsed it. Naples reckoned also amongst it founders .Athenians and Lretnans. These werfir . settled in the island of Ischia, whence they had been driven by a yolcan.c eruption. Xab., V iv. a) Avernns md the I.ucrine lake abounded in fish : " vectigaUa magna pr^be- "^^Z^^'^'L. of Apollo of Cum. was renewed at the time of the war of ^'t'SroTe'^^t:; been less content with such remuneration tl.an Pindar.-^,.] . A woman's head, and on the reve.-se the monster Scylla which defended tlje entrance of the Strlit of Messina. Tl>e X«iXX«.ov was the rock which bom.ds Bruttmm on the West. ' Cic, Tu8c. i. 5. CXll IXTRODUC TIOX. afterwards callod Messina, and rili(^<;inni, botli of wliicli guarded the entrance to the Straits of Sieily, hut whose military position was too important not to draw upon them numerous cahimities. T\w Mamertines, Avho took Messina by sur])rise and massacred all its male population, only did, what some years later, a Eoman legion repeated at Ehegium. The Dorians, \\:ho ruled in Sicily, were less numerous in Italy ; but they had Tarentum, which rivalliMl in powcu* and wealth Sybaris and Croton, and which preserved its independence longer than these two towns/ Eich offerings, deposited at the tem[)le of Delphi, still bore witness, in the time of Pausanias, to its vi(;tories over the Japygians, Messapians and Peucetians. It had also raised to its gods, as a token of its courage^ statues of a colossal height, and all in fighting attitude, but these could not defend it against Kome, and the concpieror who razc^l its walls left in derision the imagers of its warlike divinities. Ancona, founded about 880 B.C., in Picenum, by Syracusans, who lied from the tyranny of Dionysius the l^lder, was also Dorian. The most flourishing of the Achaean colonies was at first Sybaris, Avhich had snbdued the indigenous population of the coimtnes of viine and oxen ((Enotria and Ital//). At the end of a century, about 020 B.C., it possessed a temtory covercnl by twenty- five to\^7is, and could arm thi'ce hundrc^l thousand fighting men. But a century latca*, in 510, it was taken and destroyed by the Crotoniates. All Icmia, which traded with it, lamented its down- fall, and the Milesians went into mourning. Its land nsed to yield a hundredfold : ^ it is now only a deserted and marshy shore. Coin of Aiicona.- ^ Livy, xxvii. 16. Strabo says (vi. iii. 4): laxvaav c't iron o\ Tapavuvoi Kaff vtrtpfioXiiv. The wealth of Tarentum arose from its fisheries, from its manufacture [and dyeing] of the line wool of the country, and from its harbour, which was the best on the south coast. * Ancona in Greek sig'nifies elhoio, hence the half bent arm on the reverse. The ancients often rendered a name by a figure which gave the meaning of it. Thus certain coins of Sicily, the island with three promontories, have three legs pointed in different directions and miited at the top. The modern Sicilians have kept this emblem, the triquetra. ^ Varro, de Re rust., i. 44. [Tlie site of the town is not yet accurately known, but is somewhere under the Crathis, which was turned over it. The plain is really rich GREEKS AND GAULS. CXV Coin of Laus. On the western coast of Lucania, Laus, which the Lucanians destroyed after a great victory over the confederate Greeks, and Posidonia, whose imposing ruins ^ have rendered famous the now deserted town of Paestum, were colonies of Sybaris. Other Acheeans, invited by them, had settled at Metapontum, which owed great wealth to its agiiculture and to its harbour, now converted into a lagoon.^ Crotona had as rapid a prosperity as Sybaris, its rival, but one which lasted longer. Its walls, double as great in extent (100 stadia) indicate a more numerous population, whose renown for pugilistic combats [for cookery and for medicine] would also lead us to consider the population more energetic. Milo of Crotona is a well-knowTi name. The tyrants of Syracuse took it three times, and it had lost all importance when the Romans attacked it. Locri, of JEolian origin, never attained to so much power. Its doAVTifall, begun by Dionysius the Younger, was completed by Pyrrhus and Hannibal. ^^in of Crotona.^ The lonians had only two towns in Magna Clrecia : Elea, famous for its school of philosophy, and Thuiii, the principal founders of which were the Athenians. Hostile to the Lucanians and to Tarentum, Thurii, like its metropolis, entered early into the alliance of Rome. It is remarkable that all these to\^Tis had a rapid growth, and that a few years sufficed for them to become States, reckoning the number of their lighting men by Coin of Elea.* in grass and in cattle, but much visited by malaria. Excavations, accompanied by a change in the river's course, would probably bring to light the most interesting remains yet found in Italy.— ^rf.] The two temples and stoa of Paestum. '' Now Lago di Santa Ptsl igina. When the water is low, remains of ancient construc- tions are seen there. It was destroyed by the bands of Spartacus. Head of Juno Lacinia ; on the reverse, Hercules sitting. Helmeted Minerva;, lion couchant. I 2 ^^^^ INTRODVCTION. tUo hu.a.ed thousand. It was not only the ^^^ ^^J, Af.icu.. Greeia, the fertility of the soil, which, m tht ^Mi^>^ ani S of the wo Calabrias, excelled that of Sicily,' nor even the Sm o heir legislators, Charondas, Zaleucus, Panuenu es .md pl !on that effected this marvel ; but the clear-sighted policy ScWmit ed all sti-angers into the city,' and for some centunes Ion L:d t: Pelasgian populations of the -th of Italy into a grea Greek nation. Doubtless, distinctions were established, and thac ! p:bably in the capitals plebeians and nobl., in the couii^ serfs of the soil, and in the conquered to^vns -^^^<^ '^^^^\^ differences prevented neither umon nor strength. It A^as by tUi mean too, by this assimilation of conquered and conqueroi-s that mean^ too, oy preserved its discipline for a long Eome increased. iJut Kome prestiveu , . , -.i-,, i,„ Ume whereas the towns of Magna Greeia, undermined ^nthm by Sine divisions and menaced without by Carthage and bjxacus^^, r the tyrants of Sicily and the King of Epirus, ince^.^b^ hLssed by the Italian Gauls and the Samnites, -PJ- ^ ^^^ Lucanians, were, moreover, enfeebled by rivahies .vhich prepaied for the Romans an easy conquest. If Umbria owes its name to a Gallic tnbe, oiu lai have crossed the Alps the first time in a large body at a Miy eaX epoch.3 The invasion of the sixth centui-y is more certain . . u „.,/ //« fpi-rf de 1783. riu natural beauty . Dolomieu, Dissertation mr k t, emblement jk ten e Livy, V. 34, 36. Gallic tribes of the north-west, diiven back ..«aC^ J^ f>' ^ l y^ .# 1 L 1 1 A ^A^ ^ A f^ F^ D * « !ib a ^ 3 ^ ^ 1 1 ^ A 1 « t t « * « B H B a » ® O 0Ot O <> * 1 1 1 1 « >l >l K V >J vl nI 1/ \A/\VA v/v^ 'VX v^^ /vx ANA. ^ M r * « * « « OOO o o \ A 1 h /A MKlxi M tXl txi the incon- vertible wealth of land. To possess land was, as in the middle ao-es, not only the sign of power but power itself; for vast domains furnished a whole army of servants and dependents. Origiuullv these domains were equal,^ and the aristocracies, by their number and the equality of their members, were truly democracies. In the Greco-Italian states, generally formed by a few migrati(ms, colonies, or ^ucml S/'riiir/s, society existed before property. There were citizens before there were landowners, and when a town rose the soil could be divided geometrically: each citizen received an equal share. The principle of f.n.dal and continental Europe, that political rights flow from possession of propertv, was inverted by antiquity. At Laceda^mon it was as Dorians, as citizens and founders of the State, that the Spartans received 9,000 shares, and no new right sprang from that conces- sion of property. Hefore receiving their part of the promised land, the Hebrews were all equal, all members of God's people, and > Tlie pa^«a-e of Festi.a about the Etniscan vitual show eloarlv the saomlotal oharactH' of Etruscan le<;i>1atio„. It is reli-ion rul.'.. all thinRs : it was there written, sai.l he, '-hu,, nt.. con.lantur urlK-s, arrp. ie.les saerentur ; qua sanctitate^muri, quo jure portie, quo modo triDus, ceteraque ejusmodi ad belhim ac paceni perliuentia" ' .W Splrta. The 0000 shai-e.<. ^iven to the Spartans were inarlenah^^ [Rut t hi., was prohahly a moaern theory, devised in the time of Agis and Cleomenes, as ( Jrote ha.s oondus.vely shown in spite of the arguments of recent German crities.— Zi^-l »^-riTvvT VVTTOXS or ITALY. CXXV rOUTICAL ORGANISATION OF THE A>tItM NATIONS ■„ .« thev were before. In Egypt, at Cyroue, lu all tnc vji^<^«^ ^ ^ to P""^!^^;^ ;^^ . J,d wherever there arose, as at Eomc ana ^^^^^^^^ poor and oppvess^l, -1"^ ^i ^^^^^^^^^ too fomidable if to the poAvei hey had 3--«^ «-* of f-^^^- ,^° ""' ^ t \ pvpn Keligion was called to the these reforms even utiipio • ^,^,,- ,. on aid of civil law, and made to impud on , ur ., s-icrcd character. She it landed property a sacica .vas who divided the land, who bj piavci. til and sacrifices -kod the boun^^^ ! .rarasset et ipmm et haves saeros esse. tenninum cxai asset, eo i Tpnninus, This religion of property had its God Tenmms Ae immovable Guardian of land -arks, who, n r wni not fall back even before the tradition, will not la ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^_^^^^ „ ^.^^ ^^^ master of heaven a _ ^^^^ ^^^_ The God Terminus, after a an old prophecy, to Uim A> V , jj^^ „atue in the Louvre. ;,. ,.rrler to increase his domain, ai^ . Joshua XX. ; Pl«t. Xr- ; "-o"! ''■''^;^'^}:^o:!^o was both priest a.rd augur, an . The land to be marked out was tor tb «^' '-- ^ ^^^^,„,,y ,j „,e Gods, it was a enclosure wherein a religious -' -^^^^'^^'^"^^ divisio.ts which the aug- establts^ed n '-.""". ->- !:;\r— rr — ..n au.. was ^^j^:::^j^ aerial space, when he consu ^^^u^^darv stone, which by this conseci a CXXVl INTRODt'CnON. pensh." Xevcr has landed property been more energetically pro- tected, and with it the hereditary power of riches. Thus it was that Roman Society remained deeply aristocratic to its last day. This consecration of property was especially the work of the Etruscans, whose conquests and influence extended the use of it into a great part of the peninsula, and no divinity, says Varro, M-as more honoured in all Italy than the God of Limits'' On this double basis of religion and property rose the old aristocracy of Italy, and in late times that of Eome. Uniting these two elements of strength, which each separately confer power, what might not be its duration and ascendancy? As long indeed as the city did not assume the proportions of an Empire, no families arose possessing power by hereditary right. The magistrates were almost always elected annually, like the lucumos of Etruria, the meddix tuticus of the Campanians,^ and the prretor or dictator of the Latin cities. In grave circumstances a supreme chief was elected, such as the embmdur (impcrator) of the SabcUians, tli<> king whom the twelve Etruscan cities named, each sending him a lictor m token of the power over the whole of the nation' which was committed to him, such in short as that dictator of Tusculum, Egerius, who was recognised chief of the Latin confederation in order to undertake the dedication of the common temple of Arieia. In the heroic age, legend tells of kings in Latium ; but at the timJ of the foundation of Eome there were none left save in the little tovras of the Sabine temtorj-.- Even Alba no longer had aught but dictators ; and, in detestation of the royal name, popular stories were already repeated about the cruelties of Mezentius and of those tyrants who, struck by the Divine anger, had been buried with their palaces at the bottom of lake Albano. When the waters fell, it was thought that these guilty dwellings might be seen." On a hill, on the borders of a lake or on the steep banks of some ' Chid, Fatt. ii, 639-684. ' Livy xxiv, 10; Festus s.v. Tuticiu. ' Livy, i. 8. ' At a later epoch there were still ki„p» among the Daunians, Peucetian», Me»««Dian» «.d Lucamans (Strabo. v and vi. pa.,in. ; I.ivy, i. 17 ; P.u». x. 1.3., H„t they we,. 3 I^ only simple leaders in war, hke the Samnite embradur. pernaps ' Virg. yEn. viii. 7 and 481 ; Dionys. i. 71. POLITICAL ORGANIS.mON OF THE ANCIENT N.VTIONS OF ITALY. CXXVii river, but always in a position difficult of access,' rose the capital of each state, generally not very extensive, and fortified, especially in Etruria, with all the art of the times. Faesute, Rusellffi, Populonia and Cosa, the walls of which may still be seen, were only three miartei-s of a league round, Volaterrfe a league and-a-half, and Veil, the largest of all the Etruscan cities, less than two-and-a-half leagues. The Utin cities were not nearly so large, yet they, according to the Etruscan ritual followed in Latium, preserved a free space between the nearest buildings and the Avails, as Avell as between the wall and the cultivated fields. This was the pomeriim, the sacred boundary of the city, within which dwelt none but true citizens, that is to sav heads of families, the fathers or patricians with their servants and clients (ffenfes patnciw). Plebeians and foreigners remained outside the pomerium, without the political city. On a place set apart in the midst of the town the patricians assembled in arms' like the Germans and Gauls, to deliberate on their common interest. According to the Etruscan usage- they werc divided into tribes, curies and centuries, the number ot which was determined by a sort of sacred arithmetic. The Eu^ubine tables show that this division took place m Umbna Ukrwisc; but the Oscans and Sabellians, freer from sacerdotal fetters than the Etruscans, do not appear to have recognised that mysterious authority of number Avhich plays so great a part in Home. In states subjected to the authority of a powerful aristocracy, there is often found side by side with the docile population another population in revolt, which dwells in the depths of the forests and lives by pillage. These outlaws, the heroes of bar- barous times, must have been very numerous m ancient Italy, where, moreover, amid so many rival cities, the military spirit . Many towns ot modern Italy are still in the place of the ancient cities. That of Cpistiello commands the valley of the Liris, above the point where the escape channel of lake Fiicinus designed by Cresar and carried out by Claudius, opens. [T L recuUarcl..racter of Italian towns is still very striking to the traveller, especially m southern or'mltainous Italy. Owing to long injustice and weakness of home Kovei^ments^ and the raids of pirates up to the present century, isolated homesteads are a ^^^^^^^^^^^ the population live in villages perched like eagles nests on the top of tl.e rocks, from which they come down to till the slopes and valleys, and return in the evening.-£d.] ' Quir, lance; thence quiritc. and curia, the place where the qu.rites assembled " Feat. S.V. RUuales; Virg. yiw. x. 201. CXXVlll INTRODUCTION. RELIGIOUS ORGANISATION. CXXIX sustained by coiitinuiil warfare gave rise to bands of mercenaries who sold their services, like the condottieri of the middle ages, or made war on their own account.^ We shall see how the Mamertines fared in Sicily. The fortune of a few Tuscan chiefs was no less brilliant,^ and the Etruscan condottiere Mastama, the son-in-law and heir of Tarquin the Elder, involuntarily calls to mind that other condottiere, Francesco Sforza, son-in-law and successor of a duke of Milan. Eomulus himself, proscribed from the time of his birth, rejected by the patrician caste of Alba, associated in tradition^ with other condottieri similarly repulsed by the Etruscan aristocracy, appears to have been nothing but one of these warrior chiefs, who knew how to choose with marvellous instinct the admii-able position of Rome, and hide his eyrie between the river, the wooded hills, and the mai^shy plains which extend fi'om their foot to the Tiber. VII. RELIGIOUS ORGANISATION. Except in Etruria, ancient Italy had few mysteries or pro- found dogmas. Its religion was simple ; from the necessities of life and from the labours of the field ^ it derived the impressions of admiration or affright which that lovely . and changeable nature produced. In this essentially rural religion all services took place in the open air. The first fruits of the field and flock were offered to the God on the altar of sacrifice which stood before the temple, there were pious songs, prayers, religious dances, garlands of flowers and foliage suspended on the sacred walls, and when the faithful were rich enough for such an outlay, a few gi-ains of incense were bui-nt on the altar, and perfumes in the interior of ^ Livy (iv. 55. ; vi. 6) speaks of the bands who issued from the country of the Volscians, without leave from the national- council, and Dionys. (Ant. Rom. vii, 3.) of the mercenaries ■whom the Etruscans took into their pay. ^ Tac, Ann. iv. 65. * Dionys. Ant. Bom. iii. 37. There is also mention of Oppius of Tusculum, and of a Lsevus Cispius of Auagnia, in the time of Tullus Hostilius. (Varro, ap. Fest. Septimontium.) *■ The oldest Roman Almanack (Cot-p. Inscr. Lat. vol. i. p. 375) mentions none but rural festivals. the sanctuary, where the actual presence of the god filled the soul with pious awe. One of the features which distinguished these creeds of central Italy is the moral superiority of their gods: as, for instance, Vesta, the immaculate virgin who protects both the private and public hearth {focus puhlicusy the Penates, the pro- tectors of human life and of the city, Jupiter, arbiter of the physical and moral world, the sustaining father and supreme pre- server ; the Gods Terminus and Fidelity, who punish fraud and violence ; the Bona Dea, who fer- tilised the earth and rendered unions fruitful, though she her- self ever remained a Virgin,'^ and that touching worship of the Manes, dii manes., .which, re- storing life to those Avho had been loved, showed ancestors watching beyond the tomb over those whom they had left among the living. Three times every year the Manes left the infernal regions, and the son who had imitated the virtues of his fathers could see their revered shades. The Gods of Greece are so near to man, that they have all his weaknesses, those of the east are so far from him, that they do not really enter into his life at all, notwithstanding their numerous incarnations. The Italian gods, the guardians of ' Vesta is the A^i of the Veda. The Pelasgians had brought the worship of this divinity of fire from Asia. There were Vestals at Lavinium (Serv. in ^n. iii. 21.), at Tibur (Tivoli) and elsewhere. Tlie temple represented on page 131, was dedicated, according to some, to Vesta, according to others, to the Sibvl Albunea, « Domus Albunefe resonantis" (Hor. Odes I. vii, •12^ : others again see in it the temple of Hercules : it is Adhiic suhjudice. The mam point is that the ruin is lovely. To the right of the round temple there is another square one about which the same uncertainty exists. • -j • i » It is Varro who savs so, in Macrobius, Saturn I. xii. 27 . . " nee virum unquam viderit vel avirovisa sit": but others related her adventures, and her festivals, at least m the tmie of CjEsar, were considered as licentious, though all men were rigidly excluded from them. ^ After a miniature from the Vatican Vei-gil. ^ p Entrance of a shrine.' If. -a»ss.-"-»*i'*s cxxx INTRODUCTION. Ops, or Wealth. property, conjugal fidelity and justice, the protectors of agri- culture, the dispensers of all earthly good, preside over the actions of men without sharing their passions, hut also without raising their mind above selfish interests. Art and science feel the loss, morality gains/ We shall not find the Koman Olympus either teeming with life, light and beauty, like that of Greece; or profound, mysterious and terrible, like those of Egypt and India. We shall find its gods inglorious and practical," whom during long years, selfish worshippers dared only address with just prayei-s. Their service will be a means of preservation for a society devoid of enthusiasm, not an element of progress. These modest divhiities coidd not display the terrible require^ ments that are found in largtu* theogonies. They very i*arelv demanded hunuai blood on their altai-s;^ but they accepti'd a voluntary sacrifice, the redemption of the people by the devotion of a victim— a C'urtius, who closes the gulf in the heart of the city by leaping into it*^ and a Decius, who by his d(^ath changes defeat into victory. Another characteristic of the Italian gods multitude. Every town has its .tutelar divinity. Yisidianus, at Ocriculuui Yalentia, at C^asiniuu Delventius, at Mintunue :\rarica, among the Frentani Palina, at Satricum Matuta Good Succeas.' is their infinite At Narnia it is • S. Augustin (de Vir. Dei^xil 4) renmvks that Janus wa-s the hero of no questionable ad- venture. Ovid, however, has compromi.sed him somewhat {Fast. vi. 119, seq.), but in the time of Ovid, the sense of the ancient rites was lost. ■"* She holds some ears of corn. Gold coin of Pertinax, struck at the close of \\)'2 a.d. 3 Success (Bonus Eventm) standing, holding a bowl and ears of com; at his feet an altar burning. Bronze coin of Antonimis, struck l>y order of the Senate (S.C.), during his second consulship (Cos II.) in 13i> a.d. *Sii/o/-, seed; Oy>^, work in the fields; l'Yo/-a, flower; Jitmi^/*, youth ; Fid^s, f&ith; Con- cordia, concord: For.*, fortune ; Bonus Ecentu^, good success. [The reader will notice that* among Greek authors Xenophon alone following tht? homely side of the Socratic religion, exhi- bits this selfish and vulgar piety— Cf. my Social Life in Greece, p. 370. -Ed.'] ' See page 3, note 1. • This gulf was but ill closed by Curtius ; at least as far a.s we ai-e concerned ; for in modern times alone it has reopened three times, iu 170-2, 1715, and 1818 a.d. (Wey, Romtj p. :3t).). Temple of N'estu, of the Sybil or Hercules, ut Tivoli. K 2 RELIGIOUS ORGANISATION. CXXXIU Concord." Mater ; in the Sabine country. Nerio, who was identified by the \enB Claudia with the Eoman Bellona, the wife or sister of Mars.' To these must be added the numerous Semones or Indigetes, the nymphs, heroes, and deified vii-tues : CoBcordia, Flora, Toinona, Juventas, Pollentia, Eumina, Mena, Numeria, and the swarm of local divinities which Tertullian calls decwiones deos, and the gods of the lower world, LarvfD and Lemures, and those of the indigitammta, those books which were both collections of prayers whereof the priests kept the secret, and lists of divine beings whom Tertullian compares to the angels of the Bible; one might add that that they call to mind the samts of the popular beliefs of Eoman Catholic countries. Not only each town, but each family, each man, paid honour to special gods and to genii who protected his life and goods (Lares, Penates): there were gods for every act of man's life from the cradle to the gi-ave.' Thus at the close of the republic YaiTO could count as many as thirty thousand gods. With nations in theii- infancy, imperfect language supplies by the A-ariety of particular names, the absence of the general terms which represent the unity of the species. The Italians possessed so many deities only because their minds were incapable of rising to the conception of one only God,— a defect which lasted a long time with them, and which, with others, lasts even till now. , This divine democracy necessarily escaped from the control ot the greater gods and their pi-iests. This is the reason why religious • Nerio appears to have denoted sl^ngtl. ; the insoiiption is kno«-n rirtM DeUon,B ^^%t^^ (Concordia), seated, leaninfr with her elbow on a horn of plenty, and holding a patera. Oold coin ot the Emperor -Elins Iladrianus, struck in the second year of his tiibunitian power, and during his second consulship, coi^uently in the year lis *■"' » See in S. Augustine (de Civ. Dei. vi. 0) the manifold and very humble employ- ments of these gods after Varro, who himself had doubtless described them in the order of -indigitamenta, a oonceptione . . . usquead mortem . . . et dei qui pertinent ad ea qu^ s.nt hominis, sicuti est victus atque vestitus, etc." ' • . , • , * Youth (Jurentw) standing near an altar, in the form of a candelabrum, into which she throws a grain of incense, and holding a patera in her left hand. Youth.' CXXXIV INTRODUCTION. KELIGIOUS 0R(JANISATI0N. cxxxv toleration was one of the necessities of Eoman government, and if the patricians had not held the secn^t of the augur's science, of the symbolic formula? and ceremonies, they would not have been. able to add the ascendancy of re- ligion to that of birth and fortune*. Some gods had more numerous worshippers than others, such as Jupiter, god of air and light ; Janus, the Sun, who opened and closed th(* heavens and the vear ; Saturn, the ])rotector of rustic Two women Imniino- inoens*^ and perfumes upon two portable altars before an image of Mar?.' labour, whose hollow statue was tilled with the oil of tli(* olives he had caused to grow ; Mars, or Maspiter, the symbol of manly strength, also called Mavors, the god who slays; Bellona, the terrible sister of the god of war; Jimo Regina, queen of heaven, and also the helpful, So-^pita, in whom woman at all moments of her life found aid, but who favom-ed only chaste love and invio- late unions. The worship of these divinities was often the only bond which attached cities of the same origin to one another. Thus the Etruscans assembled at the temple of Yoltumna, the* Latins at the sacred wood of the goddess Ferentiua. at the temple of Jupiter Latialis on the Alban Mount, and in those of Venus, at Lavinium and Laurentum;- the ^qui Eutuli and Yolsci at the temple of Diana, at Aricia. Similar gatherings took place among the Sabines, * Taken from Marini, Gli Atti e momim. de 'fratelli Arrali, after a painting found at Rome, which Winckelmann has also reproduced in liis Mon. ineditt, pi. 177. ■* The worship of \'enus at Lavinium and Laur^ntum only dates from the epoch at which the legend of .^neas took form. There was no goddess bearing the name of Veims at Rome in the time of the kings, (Varro, in Auyurum librix fragm. of book vi ; Macrob., ^atur/t, I.xii. 8—15.) Samnites, Lucanians, Ligurians, etc. They were reall>^ Amphic tvouies over which religion presided, and which the Eomans abolished when they them- selves had made use of the Latin ferite to insure their supremacy in Latium. In religion, as in politics, the Etruscans were ( originally distinct from th(^ rest of the Italian nations, from whom they afterwards received gods or to whom they gave them. Their religious doctrines, a distant echo of the Great Asiatic theogonies, proclaimed the existence of a supreme bcnng, Tinia, the soul of the Avorld, who had for counsellors t h(^ (Hi cow.5('w^^''5— impersona- tions of the forces of present nature and destined to perish with her; for the Scandana- vian and Oriental belief in the A\()rld is found also in Etruria. These (Hi consent es could hurl thunder-bolts; but not more than one at a time. Tinia alone, who was identified with Jupiter, manifestcul his will bv three consecutive bolts. Thus he was repre- sented holding a lightning Head of Jupiter.^ destruction and renewal of the Thunderbolt with 12 forks. Tlumderbolt with 8 forks.- Hash with three point. Be.idc him w.ro ..ated Thah.a ox Juno, . Tl.efa„.ous ba,t found a, OtnooH. which i. supvo-l .0 be the Huest head of ..upUer that an.iqui,.v has left us (Wincklemann, History of Art, ^^-^ •' *^^' ,Wortwelve fl».«hes. ■' Large br