ROME ,•>• ■pi: = J- ,>- _•»"" > 8777 Central University Library university of California, San Diego Please Note: This item is subject to recall after two weeKs. Date Due . * t ■ > _ilAU-lU336- - CI 39 (1/90) UCSD Ub. HISTOKY OF KOME AITD THE ROMA^ PEOPLE. H ISTOIBE DES RoM« INS L;brairie: Hachette & c LEGIONNAIRE ROMAIN I'estauralion pur M. liailliDldi, an Miisee ilc .Saint-di-niiaiii. History of Rome, AND OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE, FROM ITS ORIGIN TO THIi INVASION OF THE BARBARIANS. By victor DURUY, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, EX-MINISTER OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, ETC. TRANSLATED BY M. M. RIPLEY AND IV. J. CLARKE. EDITED BY THE REV. J. P. MAHAFFY, PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY, TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. CDntaining obfr Z\\xn STijousaiiLi Engra^jinss, Cue Itiuiitirrti fBiaps anS }|3taw, AND NUMEROUS CHROMO-LITHOGRAPHS. Volume I. PUBLISHED BY C. F. JEWETT PUBLISHING COMPANY, BOSTON. Copyright, 188S, By Estes and Lauriat. EDITOE'S PREFACE. IT is the duty of those who offer to the iniblic so large a work 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 liistorians have devoted themselves to Roman history, there does not exist any standard English work on the whole subject. Por- tions of it have been thoroughly handled, but a complete survey is not to be found except in little handbooks ; so that the English- man 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 difficulty ; 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 stand- points, in various styles, and without 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 Rome is totally unsuited for ordinary readers and for ordinary reference, inasmuch as he treats with silent contempt most of the popular stories, and re-arranges the remnants of tra- dition according to new and peculiar principles of his own. To a public ignorant of his special researches, — his RomiscTie Forsch- uncjen and RomiscJies Staatsrecht, — the History, published with- out references or explanations, must be often quite unintelligible. 6 EDITOE'S PEEFACE. 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 foot-notes, 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, under the able expositions of Ruliino, 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 ))e regarded as satisfactory in a work professing to give all the facts of Roman history. The bi'oad difference between the older school of Niebuhr and that of Mommsen is this : that while Niebuhr sifts tradition, and tries to infer from it Avhat are the real facts of early Roman history, Mommsen only uses tradition to corroborate the inferences drawn concerning early Roman history from an analysis of the traditional facts and usages still surviving in historical days, and explained as survivals l\v critical Roman historians. Thus, tlie iisages in appointing a dictator or consul lead him to infer^that of old the kings were apj^ointed 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 History, 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 Ger- many cannot yet, and perhaps never will, furnish a real history of early Rome, such as Niebuhr's, Ihne's, Schwegler's, or the pres- ent, but only acute and often convincing essays on the Constitution. It was beyond my duty to introduce these newer views by way * The first glimpse of these new lights in English is to be found in l\Ir. Seeloy's Intro- duction to his edition of Livij ; Ihne's Essay on the Roman ConslUution and his Ilislortj are original and independent labors on the general lines of Niebuhr. EDITOR'S I'REFACE. 7 of foot-notes, even though often convinced of their truth; for I undertook to edit Diu'uy'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, hut have avoided stating any conflicting tlieory. 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 color, so as to let him read the history of Rome, as far as possible, in Italy, and among the remains of that history, with all the lights which archceoloo-ical research can now afford us. In many places I have left out a cut which seemed of little authority, and supplied from photo- graphs (collected in Italy and Sicily) better and truer pictures. T have had recourse to contemporary art, and given some ideal pic- tures of great events in Roman history, as imagined by artists learned in the local color 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 com- posed from purely rhetorical considerations, and have no claim to accuracy. Enough, and more than enough, has been left to show the views of these patriotic historians. It is a perpetual cause of offence and annoyance in the extant classical historians, that instead of giving us some intelligil^le account of military movements, they supply us with the most \mlgar and often absurd platitudes con- cerning tactics, and with the invented harangues of the respective leaders. I will add, in conclusion, that the publishers have met all my demands and requirements with the largest liberality. So far as they are concerned, everythmg has been done to make the book the best and the most complete which has yet appeared on Roman history. Trinity College, Dublin. TABLE OF CONTENTS. VOLUME I. INTRODUCTION. THE PEE-aOMAN EPOCU. PACE I. Geography of Italy 17 II. Ancient Population of Italy — Pelasgians and Uinbrians 44 III. Etruscans 60 IV. Oscaus and Sabelliaus 88 v. Greeks and Gauls 106 VI. Political Organization of the Ancient Nations of Italy . . . . . . 116 VII. Religious Organization 122 VIII. Summary 132 FIRST PEEIOD. KOME UNDER THE KINGS (753-510 B.C.). FORMATION OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE. CHAPTER I. TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF THE KINGS. I. Romulus (753-716) 137 II. Numa (715-673) 116 III. TuUus Hostilius (673-640) 150 IV. Ancus Marcius (640-616) . . . . - ,. 156 V. Tarquin tlie Elder (616-578) .157 VI. Servius Tullius (578-531.) . . 161 VII. Tarquinius Superbus (534-510) .166 CHAPTER n. CONSTITTJTION OF ROME DURING THE REGAl PERIOD. PRIMITIVE ORGANIZATION. I. Sources of Roman History 181 II. Probable Origin of Rome 185 III. Patricians aud Clients . . . . ' ISO IV. Senate and King ; Plebeians 194 10 TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. FAGB I. The Public Gods 199 11. The Domestic Gods 206 III. The Manes 210 IV. Naturalism of the Roman Religion and Formal Devotion 21C o V. Sacerdotal Colleges 222 VI. Public Festivals 232 CHAPTER IV. CHANGES IN RELIGION AND CONSTITUTION UNDEE THE THREE LAST KINGS. I. The Gods of Etruria at Rome ; Reforms of Tarquin the Elder 235 II. Reforms of Servius Tullius 239 III. Tarquiu the Proud ; Power of Rome at this Epoch 250 CHAPTER V. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. I. Character of Ancient Roman Society 255 II. Private Manners ,. . . . 260 III. Public Manners 267 SECOND PERIOD. ROME UNDER THE PATRICIAN CONSULS (509-367 B. c). — STRUGGLES WITHIN — WEAKNESS WITHOUT. CHAPTER Vl. INTERNAL HISTORY FROM 509 TO 470 B. C. I. Aristocratic Character of the Revolution of 509 ; the Consulship .... 272 II. The Tribunate 279 III. The Agrarian L. » . . ... 288 IV. Right of the Tnounes to accuse the Consuls and to bring forward Plebiscita . . 294- CHAPTER VII. MILITARY HISTORY OF ROME FROM THE DEATH OF TARQUIN TO THE DECEMVIRS (495-451 B. c). I. The Roman Territory in 495; Porsonna and Cassius 299' II. Coriolanus and the Volscians ; Cincinnatus and the Aequians 308 III. "War against Veii 315- TABLE OF CONTENTS. 11 CHAPTER Vin. THE DECEMVIKS AND CIVIL EQUALITY (iDl-iig B. c). PAGE I. Bill of Terentilins 319 II. The Decemvirs (451-449) 327 III. The Twelve Tables 331 CHAPTER IX. EFFORTS TO OBTAIN POLITICAL EQUALITY (449-400 B. C). I. Re-establisbiuent of the Tribunate and Consulate 341 II. New Coustitution of the Year 444 . . 344 III. Struggle for the Execution of the New Constitution 348 CHAPTER X. MILITARY HISTORY FROM 448 TO 389 B. C. I. Conquest of Anxur or Terracina (406) 353 II. Capture of Veii (395) 35G III. Capture of Rome by the Gauls (390) 362 CHAPTER XL MILITARY HISTORY FROM 389 TO 343 B.C. I. Rebuilding of the City ; the Roman Legion 369 II. Return of the Gauls into Latium ; ilaulius ; Valerius Corvus .... 373 CHAPTER XII. ACCESSION OF THE PLEBEIANS TO CURULE OFFICES. I. The Licinian Laws : Division of the Consulships ....... 380 11. The Plebeians gain Admission to all Offices 384 CHAPTER Xm. THE AGRARIAN LAW AND THE ABOLITION OP DEBT. I. Agrarian Law of LicLnius Stolo 398 II. Laws on Debt 403 III. The Aerarii ; Censorship of Appius (312) 406 12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. THIRD PERIOD. WAR OF ITALIAN INDEPENDENCE, OR CONQUEST OF ITALY (343-265 B. C). CIIAPTEll XIV. WAR WITH THE S.\MNITES AND LATIN.? (343-312 B. C). PAQB I. First Samnite War; Acquisition of Capua (313-341) 412 II. Tlie Latin War (340-338) 417 III. Second Samniu, vVai (326-312) ,425 CHAPTER XV. COALITION OF THE SAMNITES, ETRUSCANS, AND SENONES (311-280 B. c). I. Tliird Samnite War (311-303) 438 II. Second Coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls (300-290) . . 445 III. Coalition of the Etruscans, and Senones ; War against the Lucanians (283-281) . 456 CHAPTER XVI. ■WAR WITH PYRRHUS (280-272 B. c). I. Rupture with Tareutum ; First Campaign of Pyrrhus in Italy (282-278) ... 460 II Pyri-hus in Sicily ; Capture of Tareutum (272) 470 CHAPTER XVII. OBGANIZATION OF ITALY BY THE ROMANS. I. The Freedom of the City, and the Thirty-Five Tribes 476 II. Municipia, Prefectures, and Allied Towns ....... 483 III. Colonies and Mililary Roads 488 TV. Religious Supremacy ; Rome governs, and does not administer .... 497 CH.\PTER XVIII. INTERNAL STATE OF ROME DURING THE SAMNITE WAR. I. Manners 500 II. The Constitution ; Balance of Forces 502 III. Mihtary Organization 509 IV. Recapitulation 523 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 18 FOURTH PERIOD. THE PUNIC WARS (264-201 B. C). CHAPTER XIX. CAKTHAGE. PAGE I. Commercial Empire of the Punic Race 525 II. Carthaginians and Libj-Phoenicians ; Commercial Policy of Carthagb . . 533 III. Mercenaries 538 IV. The Constitution 541 CHAPTER XX. THE FIKST PUNIC WAR (264-241 B. C). I. The Treaties between Rome and Carthage (509-279) 549 II. Operations in Sicily (264) .......... 552 III. Maritime Operations ; Lauding of the Romans in Africa (260-255) . . . 560 IV. The War is carried back into Sicily (254-241) 568 CHAPTER XXI. CONQUESTS OF ROME AND CARTHAGE BETWEEN THE TWO PUNIC WARS (240-219 B. c). I. Roman Expeditions outside of Italy and into Gallia Cisalpina . . . . 581 II. Carthage ; Wars of the Mercenaries ; Conquest of Spain 603 CHAPTER XXII. rUTERKAL STATE OF ROME IN THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE TWO PUNIC WARS. I. Commencement of Roman Literature ; Popular Games and Festivals . . . 612 II. Changes in Manners, Religion, and Constitution ....... 625 CHAPTER XXIII. THE SECOND PUNIC WAR UP TO THE BATTLE OF CANNAE (218-216 B. c). I. Hannibal in Spain 648 II. Hannibal in Gaul • Crossing of the Alps 660 III. Hannibal in Cisalpine Gaul; Battle of Ticinus; Battle of Trebia (218) . . .665 IV. Thrasimcne (217) ; and Cannae (216) 669 LIST OF FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS.^ VOLUME I. Antium, View of ... . Appiaii Way, the .... Ardea, Remains found al . Aventine, the (present state) Baal-Hainmon, Temple of (ruins) Cannae, Battle-field of . Castel d' Asso, Valley of . Cenis, Mont .... Chastity, Temple of (restoration) Circello, !Monte Cloaca Maxima .... Coins, bronze, table of . Concord, Temple of (restoration) Courage " " '■ , . Ercte, Mount Fortune, Temple of (restoration) . Geese of the Capitol .... Girgenti, Temple at (remains) Human Sacrifices .... Jupiter Stator, Temple of (restoration) Liris, Fall of the . ' . Metapontum, Harbor of . . . Naples and Mount Vesuvius Nemi, Lake ..... Norba, Walls of ... . Nymphaeum of Egeria .... Ravenna, Canals and Pine Forest of . Roman Campagua .... Romulus, Wall of (remains) Rosa, Monte Spoleto, View of . . . Sybaris, Plain of . Terni, Cascade of ... ■ Terracina, Rook of Tiberina, the Insula .... Tivoli, Temple at Tomb, called that of Aruns " Etruscan ..... " of the Horatii Valley of Tombs near Norcliia (restoration) Veii, City of (restoration) " Vases found at ... . Viso, Monte 1 Fachig the pages indicated. ALPHABETICAL INDEX TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING MAPS AND PLANS. VOLUME I. PAGE PAGE Acaruauia, coin of . . . . 592 Antoninus Pius, coin of 17 Adoratiou before a tomb . 211 ti a ti t< 340 " gesture of . . . . 213 Apollo, the Pythian . 36] Adria, as libralis of . 29 " priest of . . 636 Aediles, plebeian (coin) . . 298 Apollonia, coin of . . . 591 Aeneas carrying Auchises . L'59 Appian Gate (restoration) . 494 " (coin) .... . 140 " Way 408 Aesculapius " .... (537 Aquinum, coin of . • . . 492 Aeserjiia, coin of . . 492 Arcliigallus, an . 640 Agatliocles " " .... 555 Ar//i'»./arii ..... . 630 Ager Romauus (map) . . 302 t( 633 Agrigentum, coin of . 557 Ariminum, «s of . . 373 " *'"... . 559 Arretium, earthenware of . 446 " (plan) . . . . 55 S Arvalis, Erater .... . 225 Alatri, wall of .... . 91 As in rude metal (actual size) . 24S Alba, extinct volcanoes about (map) . 39 " double, of Gamers . - 77 Alba Fucentia (plan) . 447 " lilinilis of Adria . . . . 29 Alba Longa, coin of . S9 " " " Ariminum . . 373 Alexander I., King of Epirus, coin of . 425 ■' " " Tuder . 57 Alexander II. " " " (gem) . 470 Astarte . 565 Alphabets : Atcllanc figures . . . . 621 Early Roman (Latin) . 182 4tlilcte, victorious . 624 Etruscan 63 Augur 237 of Central Italy . CI Augurinus, coin of ... . 349 of Northern Italy 113 Aulus Postumius (coin) 179 Alps and Apennines, limit of the (ina|i) 39 Auruuca, wall of . . 96 Alsium, tumuli at ... . 493 Aventinc, wall of the 323 Altar (tomb at Pompeii) . 287 " (domestic) .... . 206 Beak-head of a ship (coin) . 561 Aiicilia, or Shields of Mars (coin) 149 Bellona (priest of ) . . 419 " (gem) . . 224 Beneventum, coin of . . . . 471 Ancona, coin of 110 Black stone, the (coin) 639 Ancus Martius, traditional portrait of . 157 Boii, coin of the .... . 594 Anna Perenna (coin) 284 Bronze arms /i Antigonus Gonatas, coin of . . 472 " " and tools 69 Antistia, gens, " " . 168 " candelabra . . . . 363 20 ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS. Bronze jewels . " vases . " vessels Bnmdusiuni, coin of . Brutus (bust ill the Capitol) Brutus, L. Junius (coin) . Bulla " young man wearing the Buxentum, coin of Cabeiri .... Cadiz, coin of . Caeles Vibenna and Mastarna Caere, vase of . Cales, coin of Camarina, coin of " " " (early period) Gamers, double as o( . Camillus .... Carapagna, Roman, cattle of the " ■' flint "Weapons found Cannae, ruins of Capitoline Hill (restoration) Capua, coin of . Carthage, aqueducts of , " cisterns " " coin of " " (sold) (plan) . " ports of Carthaginian art, remains of " ex-volo . " warrior Castor, temple of Caudine Forks, valley of the Ccphaloedium, coin of Ceres .... " (found at Ostia in 1856) Chariot-races, genii of . Chastity, altar of (coin) Chickens, the Sacred Cliimaera .... Cinerary Urns Circe, Ulysses, and Elpenor Circeii, wall of Civic crown (coin) " " with laurel-leaves (coin) Claudia dragging the vessel of Cybele Cloaca Maxima .... Clusium, black vases of 70 72 71 84 493 174 277 209 209 33 51 52 531 240 165 423 461 545 77 231 40 42 683 251 103 528 529 532 532 533 533 527 534 543 539 605 178 432 569 308 281 623 397 437 66 257 93 170 325 325 639 252 85 Clusium, black vases of . . Coins, table of (bronze), see full-page illus " " (sold) " " (silver) Colony, coin of a , " (ground plan of lauds for) Comic actor .... Concord (coin) . Consul between two fasces (coin) Corcyra, coin of . Cosa " " Corsica and Sardinia (map) Cossura, coin of Crotona " " Cncumella, the . Cumae, coin of . . , " cave of the Sybil of Cybele (coin) Decius Mus (coin) Decurions, coin of the Demetrius Polioreetes (coin) Demons leading away a soul Denarius, silver " " of Antoninus Pius Diana, or the Moon (cameo) " with the hind . Dii Penates (coin) Dioscuri " Dnillius, rostral column of Elea, coin of . . . Elephant (ex-voto) Elepliants, African (gem) . (coin) . (gem) Elysian repast Entella, coin of Ercte, coin of Eryx, remains of the town of " Mount, view fi'om Escutcheons, patrician Etna, from Taormina Etruria, Southern (map) Etruscan alphabets " archer " chimacra " cups . . ■ " figure with four wings " figures " funeral urn gorgou " helmet of Lucumon 86 ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS. 21 Etruscan jewels and earrings " Mars . . . . " mirror " sideboard . " standard-bearer " tomb (the Cucumella) " vases (comic scenes from) it t( tt 4i Eugubine tables, fragment of Fabia, ffen.i, coin of Fabius Pictor (coin) . Faesulae, walls of Falerii (old gate of citadel) Easces (coin) Eaun of Praxiteles Eaustulus (colli) Eeronia "... Ficle.i " Elora " . Elute-player . Fortuna (statue in tlie Vatican) " Virilis, tctrastyle temple of Frater Arvalis .... Frentani, coin of the Fnria, ffens, tomb of the . Futile (vase of the Vestals) Gabii, treaty with (coin) . Gallic chariot " torqiii.s ..... Garlands of leaves around a temple (coin) Gaul, wounded Gaulos (coin of) Gauls .... Gela, coin of . . . Gladiator (gem) Good Success (coin) Greek tomb-reliefs Grinder, st;itue of the Group from the Villa Ludovisi Hannibal Haruspex (bas-relief) Heracleia, coin of . Hicetas, " " Hiero II. " " Honor and Virtue (coin) . Hope .... (cameo) . 73 443 93 254 440 83 378 440 597 018 619 5S 190 614 595 359 273 203 141 204 222 623 436 201 202 225 98 600 227 181 452 379 221 376 536 364 462 556 625 124 578 175 599 652 671 466 401 553 603 305 316 Horatia, r/c/is, coin of Horatins Codes (medallion) Issa, coin of Italy (coin) Janus (coin) Juno " Lucina (coin) " Moucta " " nursing Hercules " of Herculaueura " Sospita (coin) . Jupiter, head of " (intaglio) " Capitolinus, temple of (coin) " Eeretrius, ruins of temple of " of Herculaiieuin Knight holding his horse (coin) Laciman Cape, the Lares " (coin) . Larinum, coin of Laus " " . Led isternium (coin) . " seat for a Liberty (coin) . Libya, coin of Lilybaeum, coin of Lipari " " . Lucauia " '^ Lucumon's helmet . Maccus .... Malta, coin of . . Maniertines, the, coin of . Maiiiilia, yra.s " " . Marcellus (coin) Marcia, gens, coin of Mars (coin) " sacrifices to . Matri Magnae (coin) . . . Merchant vessel under sail (gem) Mercury .... " found at Palestrina Messina, coin of " Straits of (map) Metapontum, coin of " ruins of the temple of Metellus (coin) Milestone .... 22 ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO TEXT ILLUSTEATIONS. Minerva of Hcrculaiieum . . . 236 Mu/ncipium., coin of a . . . . 484 Naples, coin of 485 Navius, miracle of (coin) . . . 100 Nola, coin of .... . 485 " vase of 651 Nomeiitum, bridge of ... 2S4 Nuceria, coin of . .... 486 Nunia Pompilius, traditional ligure of . 147 Nuraghe of Sori 530 Ops (coin) 124 Order of battle (plan) . . . .517 Paestum , coin of ... . 426 Palatine, ancient substructions of . .188 Palladium, the (coin) . . . 228 Pallor " .... 156 Paludamentum ..... 673 Panormus, coin of .... 571 Pelasgio remains .... 47 Pliaros, coin of .... . 593 Pliintias " " 461 Piliiiii . . . . . . .515 Plonglniian 260 Tuscan 69 Po, present state of the coast south of (map) 30 Pomegranate (^r.r-vo/6) . . . 541 Pontine Marshes, |)resent state of (map) . 32 Po|ndonia, coin of .... 36 " " 76- Praeneste, bronze group found nt . 259 chest " " . .480 " lid of " " 615 " Plioenician cup found at . . 300 Praxiteles, the Faun of . . . 203 Priest of Apollo 636 " presenting inceuse-box . . 336 Prisoner (gem) 368 Ptolemy IV., Euergctcs (coin) . . 603 " Philadelphus " . . . 472 Punic ships, ligurps at prow of . . 538 Puteal of Libo (coin) .... 259 Pyrrhus 465 " coin of 464 Regillus, Lake, battle of (coin) . . 179 Regnlus " . . 566 llliea Sylvia " . . 141 Eliegium, coin of .... 557 Roman bracelet .... 146 " camp (plan) .... 518 " galley 562 Roman horse-soldier . 513 " soldier .... 511 " " .... . 512 Rome, followed by a magistrate . 35] " seated upon the Seven Hills (coin) 180 " and the She-wolf (coin) . 143 Romulus, traditional figure of . 143 Rostra, the (coin) . 422 Rostral colunnis 563 Rutuhans, coin of the . . 90 Sabines, rape of the (coin) . 186 Sacred tree, ..... . 216 Sacrilice, instruments of . 223 Sacrilioes, human .... . 375 Saguntum, remains of theatre of 656 Salian priest (coin) . 149 Samnite liorsenian 442 " warrior .... . 100 (1 (( 440 a u . 441 Sanuiiuni, coin of . . . 101 Santa Maria di Leuca, Cape . 23 Sardinia, coin of . . . 530 Saturn, temple of . . . ' . . 148 Salnraus 138 " (coin) .... . 138 Scipio Barbatus, tomb of . 448 Segesta, coin of . . 557 Seliuus " " . 571 " rcniaius of ... . 573 " temple of (frieze) . 568 " " " (meto]ie) . 570 4( U (< U 572 (( (( tt tc . 574 " •' " archaic metope 579 Servilius Ahala, coin of . . 348 Servius Tullius, agijcr or rampart of 161 " " " " " (section) 163 " wall of . 162 Sezze 313 " ruins of a temple near . 314 She-wolf of the Capitol 626 Shield, votive .... . 459 Shrine, entrance of a 123 Sicily, coin of .... . 552 " (map) .... 550 Sidon, coin of .... . 530 Signia, gate of . 169 Stola . 266 Suessa, coin of . 423 Sun-dial . 628 Suovetaurilia .... 233 " .... . 507 ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS. 23 Sutrium, amphitheatre of Syharis, coin of Sylvaiuis (coin) Taiiit, the goddess " " " temple of Taoriiuiia, tlieatre of . " view of Tareiitum, coin of " harbor of ([ilan) Tarpeia (coin) Tarpeian rock . Tarqiiins, tomb of the Tatius, traditional figure of Tauromeniuni, coin of . Teate " " Teatro Greco, Taormiua Temesa, coin of Terina, " " . . Terminus, the god Terror (coin) Thrasimene, Lake (map) Thunderbolt with eight forks " " twelve " Thurii, coin of the Tiber (coiu) Toga, Roman in a . 372 45 • . 262 . 539 . 512 , 586 . 587 . 485 . 462 . U5 , 335 . 179 146 . 575 98 590 . 215 • . 102 . 119 156 . 674 (coiu) . 127 *' . . 127 , 104 . . 204 , 133 bas-reliefs of Torqnix, Gallic Triijurira, llio (coin) Tuceia, the Vestal . Tuder, as of " coin of Twelve gods, altar of the it (1 4( Tusculum (restored) " (present state) Veii, city of (plan) Venus Erycina (coiu) Venusia, coin of Vesta (coin) Vestal " Vestals " Victory, statue of Volaterra, gate of Volscians, coin of the Vulcan of Elba, the . War-vessel with beak-head (gem) , " " " double beak-head (coin) Women spinning .... Youtb (coiu) 379 553 229 57 57 678 677 303 304 306 564 23 221 234 227 230 680 81 92 128 444 561 201 125 INTRODUCTION. THE PIIE-E.OMAN EPOCH. I. THE GEOGEAPHY Of ITALY. COIN OF ANTONINUS REmESENTING ITALY.l HORACE was afraid of the sea; he called it Oceanus dis- sociabilis, 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 Gulf, 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 towards Persia, 1 The letters tr. pot., an alibre\i.ation of Trihuuicla Potestas. signify the tribunician power with which the Emperors were invested ; the letters COS. III. mean that Antoninus was, or had l)een. Consul for the third time; and s.c. that it was by order of the Senate, '• Senatu.s Consulto," that the piece of money was coined. Antoninus having had his third Consulship in A. D. 140, and the fourth in 145, the medal was issued during one of the years which intervene between these dates. The Senate of the Empire only coined bronze money. The first Irih. pot. dated from the day of the prince's accession : since Trajan's time, all .ire dated from the 1st of January ; hence the number of iha'trih. pot. gives the number of the years of the reign. vol.. I. 2 18 INTEODUCTION. departed far from the coasts of the Mediterranean. Without this sea, the space it occupies would have been the continuation of the African Sahara, — an impassable desert ; l^y means of it, on the contrary, the people settled on its shores have interchanged their ideas and their vs^ealth ; and if we except those ancient societies of the distant East which always have remained apart from Eu- ropean progress, it is around this coast that the first civilized 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 Mediterranean washes and unites. Geog- raphy explains 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 modern up to a recent period ; it will account for the vigor and energy she manifested outside her limits, so long as her iuhal^itants formed a united j^eople, surrounded by divided tribes ; later, for the evils which overwhelmed licr from all points of the horizon, when her power was 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 neighbors contend. There is another important consideration. If the position occu- pied by Italy at the very centre of the ancient world favored 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 Romans, and after them, for fourteen centuries, to the stranger, chiefly due to her natural 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 semicircle of lofty mountains, above which towers majestically, with its sparkling snow, the summit sometimes called by the Lombards "La Rosa dell' Italia." The summit next in height to Mont Blanc is this Monte Rosa ; it is not six hundred feet lower than the o THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 19 giant of Europe.^ Italy, tlien, is in part peninsular, and in part continental, the two regions being distinct in origin, configviration, and history. The one, a vast plain traversed by the great river whose alluvia have formed it, has been in all ages the battle-field of European ambitions ; the other, a narrow mountain-chain, cut into deep ravines by countless torrents, and torn by volcanic shocks, has almost always had an opposite destiny. This peninsula is the true Italy, and it is one of the most divided countries in the world. In its innumerable valleys,' many of which are almost shut off from the outside world, its population grew into that love of independence which mountain races have manifested in all time ; but, with it, into that need of an isolated life which so often endangers the much-loved lil^erty : in every valley, a state ; for every village, a god. Never would Italy have emerged from obscurity had there not been developed in the midst of these tribes an energetic principle of association. By dint of skill, courage, and perseverance, the Roman Senate and its legions triumphed over physical obstacles as well as over the interests and passions which had grown up behind their shelter, and united all the Italian peoples, making of the whole peninsula one city. But, like the oak half-cleft by Milon, which springs together when the strength of the old athlete gives way, and seizes him in tui'n. Nature, for a time conquered by 'Roman energy, resumed its sway ; and when Rome fell, Italy, left to herself, returned to her endless divisions, imtil the day when the modern idea of great nationalities accomplished iov her what, twenty-three centuries earlier, had been done by the ablest statesmanship, served by the most powerful of military organizations. By her geographical position, then, Italy Avas destined to have an important share in the world's history, whether acting outside her own territory, or herself becoming the prize of heroic struggles. Nor is Rome an accident, a chance, in the peninsula's history ; Rome is the moment when the Italian peoples, for the first time united, obtained the object promised to their joint efforts, — the power which springs from union. Doubtless History has often been compelled to say with Napoleon : '• Italy is too long and too much divided." But 1 Mount Elbourz, in the Caucasus, is now known to be the highest (eighteen thousand five hundred feet). 20 INTKODUCTION.' when from the Alps to the Maltese Channel there was but one people and one interest, an incomparable prosperity became the glorious lot of this beautiful land, with its two thousand miles of sea-coast, its brave population of sailors and mountaineers, its natural harbors and fertile districts at the foot of its forest-covered hills, and its command of two seas, holding as it did the key of the passage from one to the other of the two great Mediterranean basins. Be- tween the East, now breaking up in anarchy, and the West, not yet alive to civilization, Italy, united and disciplined, naturally took the place of command. This phase of humanity required ten centuries for its birth and growth and complete development ; and the story of these ten centuries we call the History of Rome. A modern poet gives in a single line an exact description of this country, — " Cli' Apennin parte e '1 mar circonda e 1' Alpe." * That portion of the Alpine chain which separates Italy from the rest of Europe extends in an irregular curving line from Savona to Fiume, a distance of about seven hundred and fifteen miles; the breadth of this mountain mass is from eighty to ninety-five miles in the region of the St. Gothard and the Septimer (the Pennine Alps), and rather more than one hundred and sixty miles in the Tyrol ^ (the Rhaetian Alps). The perpetual snows of these high summits foi-m huge glaciers, which feed the streams of Upper Italy, and trace a glittering outline against the sky. But the watershed, lying nearer Italy than Germany, divides the mass unevenly. Like all the great European mountain-chains,^ the Alps have their more gentle slope towards the North, — whence have come all the invasions, — and their escarpment towards the South, — which has received them all.^ Upon the side of France and Germany the mountains run to ^ " AMiicli the Apennine divides, and the sea and tlie Alps surround." ^ From St. Gothard to the Straits of Messina, Italy measures 625 miles, with a mean breadth of from 88 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 ]\Iaritime, Cottian, Graian, and Pennine Alps ; but the Helvetian and Rhaetian Alps send forth to the south long spurs, forming the high valleys of the Ticino, 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. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 21 the plain by long spurs, which break the descent, while from the Piedmont side Mont Blanc appears like a wall of granite, sheer for about ten thousand 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. MOrf iM'CiU^r^. Scale of -, Thi Limit OF THE Alps i Apenmin£S.- This difference between the incline and extent of the two sides indicates one of the causes which insured the first suc- cesses of the expeditions directed against Italy. Once masters of the northern side, the invaders had only a march of a day or two 1 These Alps are covered witli beautiful forests, which Vcnioe at the time of her power turned to profit; intractable mountaineers live there, like the inhabitants of the Sette Com- muni. One of the characteristics of the Juhan Alps is the number of grottos and subter- ranean 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, atford an entry into the 8ette Communi. - The (|uestion of the boundary between the .Vlps and the Apennines has been long a subject of debate; the engineers have decided it by making a railroad above Savona over the Col d' Altase, which is not sixteen hundred feet in height, whence one descends into the famous valleys of the Bormida and the Tanaro. 22 INTRODUCTION. to bring tliem into the richest country.^ Thus Italy has never been able to escape from invasions or to keep aloof from Euro- pean 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 country."^ 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 Fium- albo, between Lucca and Modena, of Futa, between 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- Alpine Gauls, and for some months against Hannibal. The highest summits of the whole chain of the Apennines are to the east of Rome, in the country of the Marsians and the Vestini : Velino, 8,180 feet ; and Monte Corno, 9,520 feet, whence can be seen the two seas which wash Italy, and even the moun- tains of Illyria, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic. At this height a peak of the Aljos or the Pyrenees would be covered with perpetual snow ; in the climate of Rome it is not cold enough to form a glacier, and Monte Corno loses its snow at the end of July ; but it always preserves its Alpine landscape, with the bears and the chamois of great mountains. Three branches separate at the west from the central 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 nearly detached rock forming the promontory of Circe (Monte Circello), where is shown the grotto of the mighty sorceress. Tiberius, who on the question of demons believed neither in those of the past nor in those of the present, had a villa built near this dreaded spot. 1 Augustus understood it ; and in order to defend Italy, lie carried tlie Roman outposts as far as the Danube. ISIarius also had gone beyond the Alps to meet the Cimbri ; wliile Catulus, who wished only to defend the Italian side, was forced to retreat without a battle behind the Po. Thus it was not in the mountains, but behind the Adige, that General Bonaparte established his line of defence in 1796. 2 Cicero, de Prov. Consul. 14, said more simply: "Alpibus Italiam muniverat antea natura, non sine aliquo divino numine." THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 23 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 summit rises to the height of 5,283 feet. Ancient forests cover this moimtain, ever heaten by the furious winds which toss the Adriatic. Below Venosa (Venusia) the Apennines separate into two l^ranches, which surround 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 Calabrias, a succession of ''""' '^^ vexusia.i undulated table-lands, 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 Hannibal in Italy. Now fine pastures have partly taken the place of ^ On the obverse the head of Jupiter ; on the reverse, an eagle bearing a tliunderbolt ; the letters ae (aes) 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 us Uhralis, or Roman pound, weighing 12 oz. Rome never struck the quincunx; it was found only in the South of Italy. - The highest top of the Sila, the Monte Nero, is nearly six thousand feet high. 24 INTKODUCTION. these forests, whence Rome aud Syracuse obtained their timber. But the temperature there is always low for an Italian country, and notwithstanding its position in latitude 38°, snow remains during six months of the year.^ Still farther to the south, one of the summits of the Aspromonte measures 4,368 feet high. Fur- thermore, while beyond Cajjo 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 Upper, or Adriatic, Sea, are rich pasture-lands, woody hills, separated by the deep beds of torrents, a flat shore, no ports {importuosum litus),^ no islands, and a stormy sea, inclosed be- tween 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 are more remote from the sea, and great plains, watered l)y tranquil rivers, great gulfs, natural harl)ors, numerous islands, as well as a sea usually calm, promote agriculture, navigation, and commerce. Hence a population of three distinct and opjjosite kinds : mariners about the ports, husbandmen in the plains, and shepherds in the moun- tains ; or, to call them by their historical names, the Italiotes and Etruscans, Rome and the Latins, the Marsians and the Samnites.* Yet these plains of Campania, of Latium, of Etruria, and of Apulia, notwithstanding their extent, cover but a very small part of 1 Bruguiere, Orographie de rEurnpe. 2 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; beyond this the marshy but extremely fertile lands watered by the Gulf of Taranto; lastly, the numerous harbors of this coast, — reproduce some of the features of the western coast. " All the islands of the Adriatic, with the exception of the unimportant group of the Tremiti, are on the Ulyrian 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 Mount Vultur in Apulia. It is these numerous volcanoes which have driven the sea far from the foot of the Apennines, 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 niidat of ancient craters, and perhaps a part of the marshes. It is known that in 1538 the Lucrine Lake was changed into a marsh by a volcanic, erujition. The lowest part of the Pontine Marshes is on a line joining Stromboli to the ancient craters of Bolsena and Vico. - " - - -; -" i •^'""■:^^t T r«t^.dit'^.)kJ- ^iiaS t^ ■vis; G. or NAPl. -.S V^ -" >, •31 PHYSICAL ITALY. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 25 11 peninsula which may be described generally as a country bristling Avitli mountains and intersected by deep valleys. AVhy 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 independent 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 stripped and barren, the deep and wild ravines which fm-row them, all contrast with the soft outlines and the rich vegetation of the sub-Apennine mountains. Add to this, at every step, beau- tiful ruins, 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 now upon Amalfi, now upon Baiae or Paestum. Europe has no active volcanoes luit in the peninsula and islands of Italy. In ancient tmies, subterranean fires were 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 Tyrol and of the districts of Verona, Vicenza, and Padua ; near the Po the catastrophe of Velleja buried by an earthquake ; in Tuscany sul^terranean noises, continual shocks, and those sudden disturbances wliich 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 Rome, and of all its hills, the Janiculum excepted ; the streams of lava from the hills of All)a and Tusculum ; the immense crater (thirty-eight miles in circumference), the sunken edge of which shows us the charming lake of Albano and that of Nemi, which the Romans used to call 1 The Travels of Major de Valenthienne. The volcanic action used to reach still far- ther in the same direction. Many extinct volcanoes and lava are found in the regency ot Tunis towards El-Kef (Sicca Veneria). Cf. La Regence de Tunis, by M. Pelissier de Keynaud. ^ This legend is true so far as concerns the recollection of the volcanic eruptions of Latiuni, but it is false in placing them on the Aventiue, the abode of Cacus. 26 • INTRODUCTION. the Mirror of Diana ; the legend of Caeculus building at Praeneste walls of flames ; the enormous pile of lava and debris on the sides of Mount Vultur;^ the islands rising from the sea, of which Livy speaks ; the Phlegraean 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 sul^terranean fires seems to be concentrated in the middle of this line, in Vesuvius, whose eruptions are always threatening the charming towns which insist on remaining close to this formidable neighbor ; 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 Mediterranean. 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 dell' Inferno," the Garden of Hell.* Before the year 79 a. d. Vesuvius appeared to be an extinct volcano ; population and culture had reached its summit ; when, suddenly reviving, it buried Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae under an enormous mass of ashes and dust. In the year 472, according to Procopius, svich was the violence of the eruption, that the ashes were carried by the winds as far as Constantinople. In 1794 one of these streams of incandescent lava, which are some- times eight miles long, from 300 to 1,200 feet in breadth, and from twenty-four to thirty feet in depth, destroyed the beautiful town of Torre del Greco. Stones were hurled to the distance of 1,300 yards ; vegetation far away was destroyed by mephitic gases ; and within a radius of ten miles people went with torches at midday. 1 Tata {Lett, svl Monte Vollnrc), considers this extinct crater as one of the most ter- rible of pre-liistorie Italy. - The name of the town of Rhegium (now Reggio), on the Strait, signifies "rupture." 3 Lakes Avernus, Lucrine, Albano, Nemi, Gabii, Regillo, San Giuliano, Bracciano, etc. Earthquakes are still frequent in the neighborhood of Belluna and Bassano. * With regard to the "Salse" of the neighborhood of Parma, Reggio (di Emilia), Modena, and Bologna, which are also called volcanoes of mud, we must not confound them with true volcanoes, although they possess some of the features of volcanic eruptions. In the Salse, carburetted hvdrogen, the inflannnalile gas of the marslies, predominates. > Ml > u o S o -ing the war with the Veientines is jicrhaps due to an event of this kind. 2 In these same parts the cable from CagUari to Malta was twice broken iu 18.58 near Maretimo by submarine erujitions. 28 . INTRODUCTION. For Southern Italy the claager lies in subterranean fires ; for Northern and Western Italy it lies in water, either stagnant and pestilential, or overflowing and inundating the country and filling ujj the ports with sand. From Turin to Venice, in the rich plain watered by the Po, between the Apennines and the Alps, not a single hill is to be seen ; and consequently the torrents, which rush down from the belt of snowy mountains, expose it to dreadful ravages Ijy their inundations.^ These torrents have, indeed, created the Avhole 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,^ as well as 1)y the sea-fish which still haunt its lakes. Springing from Mount Viso, and rapidly swelled Ijy the waters which run down from the slopes of the Alpine Giant,^ the Po is the greatest 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 territory. But the condition of all rivers flowing into seas wliicli, like the Mediterranean, have 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 22U feet. Adria, which preceded Venice in the command of the Adi-iatic, is at the present day more than 10 miles inland ; Spina, another 1 " . . . Sic agfjerilms niptis quum spiimeus amnis, Exiit o]>])ositasiiue evioit giirgite moles, Fertiir in arva furens . . . Cum stabiilis armenta tiilit." Vergil : Aeneid. ii. 490. - Kamazzini believed also that the whole country of ISIodena covers a subterranean lake. This would explain the prodigy, which startled the whole Senate, of fish which came forth from the earth under the ploughshare of the Boian peasant. Near Narboune there had also been a subterranean lake, where they used to fish with a lance. Cf. Strabo, IV. i, 6. They are found in many places. 3 The height of Mount Viso is 1 2,-550 feet. The tributaries of the Po: on tlie right bank, the Tanaro, the Trebbia, whose banks have been the scene of great battles ; the Reno, where was the Island of the Triumvirs ; on the left bank, the Ticino, the Adda, the largest tributary of the Po, the Oglio, and the Wincio. ■• Napoleon I. thought of having a new bed dug for the Po ; for in its present state immi- nent dangers threaten the country which it traverses in the lower part of its course, where the rising of its bed has caused a rise in the level of the waters, which overflow the surface of the country. (De Prony, Recherchea sur le Si/alhne hi/flraulique de I'Indif.) During the last two centuries only, M. de Prony has calculated the jirolongation of the delta by 230 feet a year. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 20 i^reat seaport, was in tlic time of Stralio 30 stadia from tlie coast, which in former times it used to toucli ; ^ and Ravenna, the station of the imperial fleet, 18 now surrounded 1)y woods and marshes. ^^enice, also, has too long suffered the chan- nels of its lagoons to be stopped up h\ the alluvium of the Brenta. The port of Lido, from which the fleet which carried forty thousand Crusaders went forth, is now only navigable for small boats, and that of Albiola is called the " Porto secco" (dry port). The north-east ex- tremity of Italy is sur- rounded by a semicircle of mountains, which send forth to the Adri- atic several streams, whose ravine-beds afford an easy defence against any invasion from the Julian Alps. Of all these oljstacles the last and most formidable is the Adige, a broad and mighty river at its very departure from the mountains. In peninsular Italy AS l>I' ADRIA.- ' Strabo, V. i, 7. It had a treasure-house at Delphi, and is conjectured to be the present village of Spina. - We cannot say whether this medal, one of the beautiful bronzes of the French National JU INTRODUCTION. tlie Apennines are too near both seas GsrAW ^i£,i^rd g2Z3 P'"^ Rice Pine Marsheg. Sea plantations forest. Bhore. I Scale 200,000 PRESENT STATE OF COAST TO THE SOUTH OF THE 5I0UTHS OF THE TO. to send them great rivers. However, the Arno is 75 miles lona;, and the Tiber r.)() miles. Bnt this king of ancient rivers is sad to look at. Its waters, constant- ly filled with reddish mud, cannot be ixsed for drink- ing or bathing; and in or- der to supply the deficiency, numerous aqueducts brought into Rome the water of tlie neighljoring mountains. Hence one of the character- istics of Roman architecture .- triumphal arches and mili- tary roads for the legions; amphitheatres and aqueducts for the towns. Moreover all the watercourses of the Apennines have the capricious Collection, and which bears the head of a bciirded Bacchus, belongs to Adria on the borders of the Po, or to that of ricenum. The character of the three letters on this piece, hat (for Iladria), shows tliat it cannot be earlier than the third century before our era. The '■ as " denoted with the Romans the monetary unit. It ought exactly to weigh a Roman pound ; that is, exactly twelve ounces, or 288 scruples, — whence the name as lihralls. The real weight, liowever, on the average, is not more than ten ounces. The Romans have without doubt kept to this usage, be- cause ten ounces of bronze were worth in Italy a scruple of silver, or -j^^ of a silver "pound. (Mommsen's Hist, nf Roman Coinage.) 1 The Adige, 250 miles in length, the Bacchiglione 62, the Brenta 112, the Piave 129, the Tagliamento 33, the Isonzo 56. «•■•' .^^- h: O EH Is; o THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 31 character of torrents : ^ wide and rapid in spring-time, they dry np in summer, and are at all times almost useless for navigation.^ But how beautiful and picturesque is the scenery along the banks of their streams, and in the valleys where their tributaries descend ! The waterfalls of Tivoli, the most charming of sights, make a delightful contrast to the wild grandeur of the Roman carapagna ; and near Terni, at the Cascade delle Marmore, the Velino falls into the Nera from a vertical height of 540 feet, then rushes in cataracts over the huge bowlders which it has brought down from the mountain. All the lakes of Upper Italy are, like those of Switzerland, hol- low valleys (Lake Maggiore, 39 square miles ; Como, 3-3 ; Iseo, 14 ; Garda, 34), where the streams from the mountains have accumu- lated till they have foimd in the belt of rocks and land the depression whence they have made their escape and gi\-en rise to rivers. Those of the peninsula, on the contrary, tilling up ancient craters or mountam basins, have no natural outlets, and often threaten, after long rains, or the melting of the snow, to inundate the surroundmg country : such were the overflowing of Lake Albano, the signal of the downfall of Veii, and those of Lake Fuciuo, which at times rose 54 feet, and has lately been drained. There are others, as Lake Bolsena, a kind of inland sea, 25 miles round, and the famous Trasimene Lake, resulting from an earthquake.'^ The rains have filled up these natural cavities, and as the neighbormg mountams are low, they supply just sufficient water to compensate the loss produced by evaporation. There 1 Often and often in the Middle A^es Florence — wliieli, by the way, was built on a dried- up marsh — was near being carried away by the Arno; in 1656 Ravenna was flooded by the Ronco and the INIontone ; and in the last century Bologna and Ferrara have many times been on the point of coming to blows, as the Proven9als and Avignonnais did, on the subject of the Durance, to decide the spot where 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 sink much at its summer level. ^ Other watercourses of peninsular Italy : at the west, the IMagra, the boundary of Tuscany and Liguria, 36 miles in length; the Clriana, the Nera, and the Teverone (Anio), tributaries of the Tiber; the Garigliano (Liris), 70 miles; the Volturno, 83; the Sele ; the Lao: at the east, the Pisatello (Rubicon) ; theMetauro; the Esino; the Tronto, 56 miles: the Pescara (Aternus), 83 ; the Sangro, 83 ; the Biferno, 58 ; the Fortore, 81 ; and the Of auto, 114. ^ There is some doubt on tliis point for the Lake of Bolsena, which some travellers (Dennis, Eiruria, i. 514) and some learned men (Delesse, Recue de Gdol. 1877) regard as a crater. 32 INTRODUCTION. hardly issue from them even insignificant rivers. Lalie Trasimene, at its greatest depth, does not reach 30 feet, and it wiU soon have the fate of Lake Fucino. 30. u^ Gravepai Ethat;a,12.r.Du^iiaf-Ttoiun. THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE PONTINE MARSHES. Stagnant waters cover a part of the coast to the west and to the sorrth : it is the reahn of fever. The younger Plmy speaks of the nnhealthiness of the coasts of Etruria, where the Maremma, which the Etruscans had once drained, was reappearing. In Latmm tlie sea formerly reached to the foot of the mountams of Setia THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 33 and Privernum, about 9 miles in from the present coast : ^ from the time of Strabo the whole coast from Ardea to Antium was marshy and unhealthy; at Antium the Pontine Marshes commenced. Cam- pania had the marshes of JMmturnae and of Linternum. Farther south, the Greeks of Buxentum, of Elea, of Sybaris, and of Meta- pontum liad to dig thousands of canals to drain tlie soil before puttmg in the plough. Apu- lia, as far as Mount Vultur, had been a vast lagoon, as well as the country around the mouths of the Po, fully 10(1 miles south of its mod- ern mouth .^ Lombardy also was for a long time an im- mense marsh, and to the Etruscans are attril)uted the first em- bankments of the Po. The banks of the Trebia, the territories of Parma, of Modena, and of Bologna, had not been drained till the works of Aemilius 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 under the sea-breeze; all around there is calm and silence ; an atmosphere mild and warm, which seems to Ijring life, but carries death. COIN OF lU'XEXTUM. COIN OF METAPONTUM.^ " In the Maremma," says an Italian proverb, " one grows rich in a year, but dies in six months." ' .... La jMarcmiua, Dilettevole molto e puco sana.' How many peoples, once fiourisliing and powerful, are sleeping ' De Prony, Dcscr. Hijilrnij. ct Hint, ilc.i Marais Puntins, pp. 73 aiicl 1 76. 2 Pliny, Hitl. A'at. iii. 20; Cuvier, Disc, sur tes Recolutions du Globe, p. "216. ' In 187 B.C. the Consnl Aemilius Lepidus continued the Flaminian Road from Rimini to Bologna and to Plaeentia, and from thence to Aquileia, (yKVK\nvji.evoi tu eXrj (Strabo, V. i. 11). In the year 160 B.C. the Consul Ccthegus received as his )irovince the duty of draining the Pontine Marshes (Livy, Epiloiiii;, 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. VOL. I. 3 34 INTEODUCTION. here tlieir last sleep! Cities also can die, — Oj^jnda fOSse mori, said the poet Rutilius, when contemplating, fifteen centuries ago, the crumbling ruins of a great 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 mountains, these rivei's overflowing their banks every spring, or changing their Ijeds, these marshes, which under an Italian sun so quickly breed the plague, compelled them to con- stant efforts. Whenever they stopped, all that they had conquered with so much trouljle reverted to its pristine state.^ To-day Baiae, the delightful retreat of the Roman nobles; Paestum, with its fields of roses so nuich beloved by Ovid, — tcpidi rosarla Paesti ; rich Capua, Cumae, which was once the most important city of Italy, Sybaris, which was the most voluptuous, are in the midst of stagnant and fetid waters, in a fever-breeding plain, " Avhere the decaymg 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 towns ; leprosy and elephantiasis in Apulia and Calabria exhilnt the hideous dis- eases of the intertropical 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 wrath of man has aided that of Nature. Rome had ruined Etruria and exterminated the Volscians. But water invaded the depopu- lated country ; the malaria, extending gradually from Pisa to Ter- racina, reached Rome herself ; and the Eternal City expiates now, in the midst of her wastes and her unhealthy climate, the merciless war waged by her legions.^ At the point where but lately 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 2,000 vases and 1 Muratori {Rcr. Hal. Script, ii. 691, and Ant. Ilul diax. '_'!) has sliown how quickly the drained lands become marshy again, as soon as cultivation is suspended. '■^ Cicero, de Rep. ii. 6, said of Rome : " Locum .... in regione pcstilenti salubrem ; " and Livy, v. 54, " saluberrimos colles." THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 35 other objects of art were discovered,' and Etru.scan civilization was reclaimed from oblivion. The name of the rich city which had l^nried so many marvels in its tombs is not mentioned by any of the Roman historians, and must have remained unknown l)ut for an inscription which mentioned its defeat and the trimuph 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 flourishing cities they have destroyed ! But again, how many wonders does the Italian soil reserve for the future, when the malaria is expelled, and the towns 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.* 1 M. Noel des Vergers has naiTated with eli>i|uence the eraiition he felt when, in an exca\ation that he made in the same necropolis of Vulci : " At tin' last blow of the ])ick, the stone which formed the entrance to the cryjit gave way, and the light of the torclies illu- mined vaults where nothing had for more than twenty centuries disturbed darkness and silence. Everything was still in the same state as on the day when the entrance had been walled up, and ancient Etruria arose to our view in the days of her splendor. On their funeral couches warriors, covered with their armor, seemed to be resting after the battles they had fought with the Romans or with om- ancestors, the Gauls ; forms, dresses, stuffs, and colors were visible for a few minutes; then all vanished as the outer air penetrated into the crypt, where our flickering torches threatened at first to be extinguished. It was a calhng up of the past which lasted not even the brief moment of a dream, and passed away, as it were, to punish us for our rash curiosity. [" Like that loug-ljuried l)ody of the king Fonnil lying with liis urns and ornaments, Which, at a touch of liglit, au air of heaven, Slipped iuto ashes, and was found no more." Tennyson : Aylmer's Field.] While these frail remains crumbled into dust in contact with the air, the atmosphere became clearer. AVe then saw ourselves surrounded hy another population due to the artists of Etruria. Mural paintings adorned the crypt all round, and seemed to come to life with the flash of our torches." 2 Fast. Capit., ad ann. 473. Triumph of T. Coruucanius in 280 for his victories over the Vulcientes and Volsinienses. * Those unhealthy countries, where a thick vegetation covers the ruins, protect so well against curiosity even the monuments which are there, that a century ago the temples of Paestum were not kuo%vn, and also a few years ago, the curious necropolis of Castel d' Asso, of Norchia, and of Soana. * In antiquity Italy abounded more in woods and marshes, and the winter was colder. [Tliis is proved, for historical times, not only by aUusions like Horace's " Vides ut alta stet nivc candidum Soracte," etc., but by the researches of Hehn in his well-known work on the spread of domestic animals and plants in antiquity. — Ed-I 3G INTBODUCTIOJSr. Calabria, Apulia, and part of the coast of the Abruzzi have almost the sky and the productions of Africa : a climate clear and dry, but scorching ; the palm-tree, which at Reggio sometimes ripens its fruit, the aloes, the medlar, the orange, and the lemon ; on tlie coast the olives, whicli are the source, as formerly, of the wealth of the country; farther up, for two thousand 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 labor of man to produce its old return. Already in Tuscany tenant-farming is driving back the Maremma, and the land is peopled again wherever it is drained. Above these plains, on the first slopes of the Apennines, from Provence to Calaljria, there extends the district of the olive, the mulberry-tree, the arbutus, the myrtle, the laurel, and the vine. This latter grows 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-trunk. Farther up, on the COIN OF POPULONIA.^ _ ^ 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 tlie glaciers, which the setting sun colors with brilliant tints of rose and purple, and makes them glitter like a magnificent con- flagration spreading along the sides and on the summits of the mountains. In spite of the vicinity of the perpetual 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, arrested and reflected by the wall of the Alps, raise the tem- 1 On the obverse, the bead of Minei-va with behiiet; on the reverse, a crescent and a star with the word pvplv written from right to left in Etruscan characters. Puplu was the commencement of the name Poinilonia. o o I w THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 87 perature, and scorching heat succeeds suddenly the cold air of the lofty summits. But the number of the streams, the rapidity of their courses, the direction of the valley, which opens on the Adri- atic and receives all its breezes, cool the atmosphere, and give Lombardy a most delightful 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 con- trasts : plains and mountains, snow and scorching heat, dry and raging torrents. Limpid lakes formed in ancient craters, and pesti- lential 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 summits the vegetation of the North. Here, under the clearest sky, the malaria, bringing death in one night to the sleeping traveller ; there, lands of inexhaustible fer- tility,^ and above, the volcano with its threatening lava. Else- where, in the space of a few leagues, sixty-nine craters and three 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 picture of the ancient world,^ yet with its natural peculiarities strongly marked. 1 '• Et qu.antum longis carpent armenta diebus Exigua tantum gelidus ros nocte reponet." Veegil : Oeorgics, ji. 201. Varro (tie Be i-ust. i. 7) said more prosaically, " In the jJaiii of Rosea let fall a stake, to-morrow it is hidden in the grass." 2 In Etruria and in some other jiarts of Italy the land produced 15-foId, and else- where 10-fold (Varro, de Re rust. i. 44). The fertiUty of the ground of Sybaris, like that of Cam]iania, was jiroverbial : it used to be said that it returned 100-fold. [And even now the traveller is delighted with the sudden dis])lay of rich pasture in the Valley of the Crati, and with the splendid herds of cattle roaming through its meadows and forests. Nowhere in Southern Italy is there such verdure. — JSrf.] * This can be maintained without any systematic survey. Has not Italy the sun of Africa; the valleys and mountains of Greece and Spain; the thick forests, the plains, the marshes of Gaul ; indented coasts and harbors like Asia IMinor ; and even the valley of the Nile in that of the Po? Both are the jiroduct of these rivers, with their delta, their lagoons, and their great maritime cities, Adria or Venice, Alexandria or Damietta, accord- ing to the age. "The Veneti," says Strabo (V. i. 5), "had constructed in their lagoons, canals and dikes like those of Lower Egypt." In another passage Ravenna recalls to him Alexandria. See in the fourth chapter of the sixth book the different causes he assigns for 38 , INTRODUCTIOK In the midst of this nature, capricious and fickle, Ijut every- where energetic for good as for evil, there appear peoples whose diversity of origin will be stated in the following pages ; but we know already, by the study of the Italian soil, that the popu- lation, placed in conditions of territory and climate varying with each canton, will not be moulded by any one of those physical influences whose action, always the same, produced civilizations uniform and impervious to external influences. In this general description of Italy we have only glanced in passing at the hills of Rome, which, notwithstanding their modest size, surpass in renown the proudest suinmits of the world. They deserve careful study. The earth is a great book, wherein science studies revolutions beside which those of man are but child's-play. When the geologist examines the soil of Rome and its environs, he finds it formed, like the rest of the peninsula, from the two- fold action of volcanoes and water. Remains have there been found of the elephant, the mastodon, the rhinoceros, and the hip- popotamus, — proving that at a certain period of geological time Latium formed a part of a vast continent with an African tem- perature, and one in which great rivers ran through vast plains. At another epoch, when the glaciers descended so far into the Valley of the Po that their moraines were not far from the Adri- atic, the Tuscan Sea covered the Roman plain. It formed in it a semitircular gulf, of which Soracte and the Promontory of Circei were the headlands.^ At the laottom of this primordial sea volcanoes burst forth, and their liquid lava was deposited by the water in horizontal beds, which, at the present day, from Rome as far as Radicofani, 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-grained tvfo of which Rome, both under the Kings and the Republic, was built. When the lava remains in a the superiority of Italy. It has even been estabhshed that all the geological formations are represented in Italy ; and although mining operations are not well prosecuted, they give rise to an annual exportation of (iOO,000 tons of the value of 100 millions (of francs). ' It is considered that the Campagna di Roma from Civita Vecchia to Terracina is 91 miles in length, and that from the Mediterranean to the mountains its breadth is more than 27 miles. As far inland as Rome, the mountains are in some parts distant only from three to five miles. The Anio falls into the Tiber at less than three miles' distance from Rome. THE GEOGRAPHY OF ITALY. 39 granulous state it produces the pozzolana, from which was made the tenacious cement of the Roman walls. Of this pozzolana the Seven Hills, on the left bank, are formed. The Capitol alone is •IjprcslACarU de l^Uit -Major An&idiicn. Grove {>Ar£rlurd. Scale agtooo EXTINCT VOLCANOES ABOUT ALBA. alnii)st entirely composed of a porous tufo; a more solid substance seemed needed for the hill which was destined to be the throne of the world.^ When the formidable volcanoes of the Alban Hills had lifted * Ampere, L'Histoire Romalne a Rome, i. 8. 40 INTKODUCTION. Latium above the sea, the lava which came from their craters spread over the sides of the mountain, and one of the hot streams descended across the new plain as far as Capo di Bove.' From this la^-a, Avhen consolidated, Rome procured the flagstones with which she paved the Appian Road, and which remain to this day. The Roman campagna, formed in the midst of waters, whose gentle vmdulations or level surface it reproduces in turn, changed afterward by the volcanoes of the Alban Hills, is furrowed by little hills and low ground, — "a humpy soil," said Montaigne, whose CATTLE OF THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA. cavities are filled Avith fresh water now they are unhealthy pools ; ^ attributes to the influence of the Once they were limpid lakes : and a, learned man, Brocclii, arki catttra the gloomy, violent, 1 Brocchi, Dclln stalo /sico del sunio di Roma. Capo di Bove is tlie part of the Appian Road where is the tomb of C'aecilia Metella, the frieze of which bears heads of oxen, in remembrance of the sacrifices made before the tomb. - The season of [malaria] fever [typhoid, now so common, is apparently a new scourge to the city, arising from modern causes — £. 4, and the Alln.^, viii. 38. M. Capellini believes he has found quite recently (1870) in Tuscany traces of Pliocene man. 2 Alias de I'Inst. arche'ol., viii. 36. 8 For the Latins the Fever was the God Februus, to whom was consecrated the month of February, durinfj which purificatory sacrifices were offered ; hence the verb fehruare, to purify. [Yet surely it seems strange that so healthy a month should be chosen for this purpose. It may be connected with ceremonies at the end of the old year, when the 1st of March was New Year's Day. — Ed."] THE GEOGKArilY OF ITALY. 43 asked from the gods they were ready to demand from their toil ; and this struggle against Nature prepared the way for the struggle against men. In this work of improving the Roman soil they ARTICLES IX TERRA-COTT.\ FOUND IN THE ENVIRONS OF ROME.^ were helped by the Etruscans, who knew how to drain marshy plains and to build imperishable monuments for the leading away of subterranean waters. The entrance of Etruscan art into Rome was a geographical necessity, as also was the laborious and rough life of the first Romans. With art many also of the civil and religious institutions of Etruria migrated to Rome. * Alias de I'ltist. arche'ol., viii. 37. 44 INTEODUCTION. n. THE ANCIENT POPULATION OP ITALY - PELASGIANS AND UMBEIANS. HTTALY has not, like France, England, Germany, and Scandinavia, -*- preserved numerous traces of a race anterior to tlie epoch in which man had learned to furrow the earth with implements of metal ; at least, as far as our researches have reached, it seems to have possessed only in cei'tain spots what has been called the age of stone.' Separated from the rest of the world l)y the Alps and the sea, it was peopled later than the vast countries of easy access which lie on the east, north, and west of its mountains. But when these regions were once inhabited Italy became the country of Europe where the greatest number of foreign races have met together. All the surrounding nations contributed their share in forming the population ; and each revolution which dis- turbed them produced a new people. The Sicanians were formerly derived from Spain ; now they are identified with the Pelasgic Siculi.^ But from Gaul came the Ligurians, the Senonian, the Boian, the Insubrian, and the Cenomanian Celts ; from the great Alps, the Etruscans ; from the Julian Alps, the Veneti ; from the eastern coast of the Adriatic Seas and from the Peloponnesus many Illyrian and Pelasgic tribes ; from Greece, those Hellenic tribes which came in so great numbers into Southern Italy as to give to that part the name of Great Greece ; from Asia Minor, the Lydian Pelasgians ; lastly, from the coasts of Syria and Africa, the more certain colonies which Tjre and Carthage established in the two great Italian islands.^ And if we were to trust to the patriotic pride of one of her historians,'* Etriiria would owe to ' However, pi-ehistoric discoveries occur daily in tlie Campagna di Roma, in Tuscany, and from the Valteline, as far as Leuca, at tlie extremity of Italy, where M. Botti Ulderico has discovered "rottoes which have served as shelters for primitive man. ' Cf. Benloew, Etudes Alhanoisi:.''. " [We may add at least Agylla (Caere), in Etruria, whose name, as Mommsen has shown, declares its origin. — Ed-I * Micali, Storia ijegli anticU popoH Ilaliani, i. 142 ; cf. Freret, " Recherches sur 1 'origine et I'histoire des differents peuples d'ltaUe," Hist, de I' Acad, dcs inscr., xvii. 72-114. PELASGIANS AND UIVIBRIANS. 45 Egypt and the distant East lier religious creeds, her arts, and her sacerdotal government. Italy was, therefore, a ccjnimon asylum for all the wanderers of the ancient world. All brought in with them their language and their customs ; many preserved their native character and their independence, until from the midst of them there should arise a city which formed at tlieir cost her population, her laws, and her religion, — Rome herself, the asylum of all races and of all Italian civilizations ! ^ All the Italian races belonged to the great Indo-European family, which came from the high regions of Central Asia and gradually peopled a part of Western Asia and the whole of Europe. When they penetrated into the peninsula, they had already arrived at that degree of civilization which stood midway between the pastoral, or nomad, and the agricultural, or settled, state. The most ancient geographical names are a proof of this : Oenotria was the country of the vme ; Italy (vitulus), that of oxen ; the Opici meant " laborers of the fields ; " and the first means of excliange were cattle, ^jccm*-, — whence pecunia. Sybaris, like Buxentum, seems to have wished to preserve this remembrance. One of her coins bears on both sides the imas;e of an ox.^ The most ancient of these nations seem to have belonaed to COIN OK STBARIS. ' We must say that these questions of origin and relationsliip are among the historical controversies which are still being argued every day. The evidence for and against is so mixed, that both sides can accumulate contrary (juotations and interpretations, so that this mass of doubtful proofs rather fatigues than enlightens the mind. Niebuhr says, as regards one of these peoples : " ^Vhat abuses of imagination were not indulged in with regard to the mysteries and wisdom of the Pelasgiansl Their very name is an abomination to the truthful an "Pelasgi primi Italiam teuuisse perhibcntur " (Serv. in Aen. viii. GOO). PELASGIC REMAINS. 1. Boviaiium. 2. Volaterrae. S. Lista. 4. Olivano. 5. Veii. 6. Siguia. 7, Arpimiii PELASGIANS AND UMBEIANS. 49 the western coast fi'om the Arno, there were Siculi, tlie founders of Tibur, a district of which was called the Sicelion ; ^ at the south- west, the Chonians, Morgetes, and, above all, Oenotriaus, 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, Liburnians, of that Ilhrian race which wc must perhaps identify with the Pelasgic.^ The Tyrrhenians were probaljly one of these Pelasgic nations. According to a Greek tradition Avhich agrees with Egyptian records, they came 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 hos- pitable land. Having coasted for a long time, they reached the shore of Umbria, 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 tlie north of the mouth of the Tiber, and consequently very close to Rome. They were Alsium, Agylla or Caere,'* Pyrgi, 1 There is still near Tivoli a valle di SicUianu. 2 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 Illyria, while the western shore was occupied by Pelasgians; and IMicali (ii. 35G) identifies these two peoples. This is also the opinion of Dalmatian critics, who ha\e 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 Oenotrians, the Siculians, etc., with the Epirotes. "All," he says, " have the same language, the same customs, the same origin, and can be comjirised under the name of Pelasgians." lie adds, •' They were not very widely separated from the ruder branches of the Hellenic race " {Hiatory of Greece, iii. 4G8). The Pelasgic influence can be recognized 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 rehgion, had her relationshiji with Rome acknowledged by the Senate. Cf. Plut., Marcellus, 30. ' Herodotus, i. 94; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiq. Rom., i. 27-30. * Dionysius of Halicarnassus (ll/iil. i. 20) makes Pisa a Pelasgian city. VOL. I. 4 50 INTEODUCTIOK which was their port, Tarquinii, which played so great a part in Roman history, and perhaps, at the mouth of the Arno, the city of Pisa, the population of which spoke Greek. The story of Herodotus is falaulous, but it may allude to a real emigration. In the time of the Emperors this tradition was national both at Sardis and iii 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 Rasena, the Greeks never recognized any people between the Tiber and the Arno but " the glorious Tyrrhenians," ^ and the Athenians have consecrated, in the beautiful frieze of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates,^ the memory of the exploits of one of their gods against the pirates who came forth from the harbors of Tyrrhenia. But while admitting the existence of these Tyrrhenians, 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 neighbors, Tusci or Etrusci,* and the Eugubine tables, an Umbrian monument, also call them Turscum, — a plam proof that the name of the Tyrrhenians was national also in Etruria. What can this native use of two names mean, if not the co-existence of two nations ? After the conquest the Tyrrhenians 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 stratum 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 Etruria and of Latium, enormous blocks of stone, set without cement, which have withstood the ravages of time as well ' Tac. Ann., iv. 55, and Strabo, V. i. 2. 2 Hesiod, Theog., 1015 and 1016. 5 [Pictured in Stuart and Revett's Antiquities of Athens, and since iu all the histories of Greek art ; it dates from 335 B. c. — Erf.] * The Greeks said Tvpprjvoi and Tvpirrfvol : whence from the Etruscan form, Turscum, we easily arrive at Tusci, Etrusci, and Etruria. PELASGIAl«rS AND UMBKIANS. 51 as of man.^ Some Pelasgians, however, escaped ; and yielding to the impulse for invasion which was at work from north to south, 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, Tirc CABEIKI. to that habit of labor which was one of the characteristics of their race. In Oenotria the low or servile occupations, that is to say, all arts and manufactures,^ fell to their lot, as in Attica, where the buildmg of the citadel of Athens was intrusted to them ; so that the much-vaunted Etruscan arts, the figures in bronze* or 1 " 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 liigh, 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 : L' Hisloire Romaiiif a Rome, i. 135. For the description of these monuments see Abeken, Mittel Italien vor den Zeiten Romischer Herrschaft. - Thucydides (vi. 2) shows the Siculi fleeing into .Sicily before the 0]iici. ' It is to Temesa (Tempsa, in Bruttitun) that the Taphians came to exchange brass for glittering iron {Ofhjs., I. 184). In the time of Thucydides, the Siculi still inhabited this town. Stephanus Byz. (sub voce xioi) says that the Italian Greeks [Italiotes] treated the Pelasgians as the Spartans did the Helots. * According to tradition it was the Pelasgic Tekhines • — half men, half sjirites — who 52 INTEODUCTION. 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-Helios, Axiokersa with Venus, and Casmilos, " the ordainer," with Eros. Axieros, the su- preme 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 {naturantis), of nature naturahzed {naturatae)." The expression is barbarous, but it is just. Of these 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 gen- eration played an important part in their figurative worshij) and THE CABEIRI. had discovered tlie art of working metals, and wlio had made the first images of the gods. Niebuhr has remarked the singular coineidencc which exists in Latin and in Greek between the words for a house, a field, a plough, husbandry, wine, oil, milk, oxen, pigs, sheep, apples (he could have added metallum, argentum, ars, and agere, with their derivatives, ahacus, etc.), and generally all the words concerning agriculture and a peaceful life ; while all the objects which belong to war or hunting, ilueUum, ensis, sagitta, liasta, 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 Latiuni, where the Sieulians remained mingled with the Casci. [Niebuhr's acute remark anticipated what Pictet and others have shown to result from the common Aryan, not Pelasgian, ancestry of Greeks and Romans before they settled in either country. The common roots indicate what culture each race brought with it into its adopted home. — Ed.'] 1 [We must not forget the direct importation of these things from Attica. ^ Ed.'} PELASGIANS AND UMBRIANS. 53 history. On a Tusco-Tyrrhenian mirror of the fourtli 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 with the Romans as with the Greeks. Rome was, by the legend, even put in direct relation with the Pelasgic island.^ The Palladium and the Penates, carried away by Aeneas 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 Rome. 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 ; bvit 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 Rome in the Second Punic War, by preventing Hannibal from occupying a single one of those impregnable fortresses which defended the approaches to the "Ager Romanus." During sixteen years the great Carthaginian held little beyond the enclosure of his camp.^ 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 1 See the Revue arcMol. for December, 1877. * See plate of the walls of Norba. Twenty centuries ago this town, taken and burned down by Sylla, ceased to exist; but its waUs 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. * For a long time the Ligurians were believed to be Iberians. " Their language is Indo- European," says M. d'Arbois de Jubaiuville {Les Premiers Habitants de I' Europe) \ "it is 54 INTRODUCTION. the shores of the Mediterranean from the P_yTenees to the Arno. 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 farthest south, forced the Siculians to leave the banks of the Arno. It was the beginning of the disasters of that nation, which pretended to be indigenous, m order to prove its right to the possession of Italy. When, four centuries later, the Etruscans descended from their mountains, they drove the Ligurians from the rich valley of the Arno, and confined them within the banks of the Macra. How- ever, bloody fights still took place for a long time between the two nations, and notwithstanding their advanced post of Luna, the Etruscans were unaljle to maintain themselves in peaceable possession of the fertile lands watered by the Serchio (Ausar).^ Not far, on the San Pellegrino, 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 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 labored, like the men, at the hardest work, and hired themselves out for the harvest in the neighboring countries, while their husbands trav- ersed the sea in their frail ships as far as Sardinia and Africa, to the detriment of the rich merchants of Marseilles, of Etruria, Celtic," adds M. Maury (Compies Rendus de I' Acad, de.i Inscript., 1870). M. Ern. Desjardins discusses tliis question in the second volume of his Geogruphie ancienne de la (Jaulc, and arrives at the same conclusions. 1 Thucvdides (vi. 2) admits the Sicanians as an Iberian tribe, a>s Si fj dXfjdfia eiplcKfTai. 2 The country of Lucca watered by the Serchio is called the garden of Tuscany, which is itself one of the most fertile countries of Italy. ^ "Assuetum malo Ligurem." — Vergil, Georgics, ii. 168. « O O 1-1 ►J PELASGIANS AND UMBRIANS. 55 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 anytliing worth taking. A few prisoners, and long rows of chariots loaded with rude arms, were ever the only ornaments of tlieir triumphs over the Ligurians.^ Few people had so high a reputation for liard work, for sobriety, and valor. During forty years their isolated tribes held in check the Roman power in tlieir mountains, which suc- ceeded in overpowering them only by forcing them away from that ungrateful soil,^ where they saw famine ever threatening them, but where they possessed tliat which they esteemed their chief good, their liberty. At the other extremity of Cis-Alpine Gaul dwelt the Veneti. The two nations are contrasted, like their countries. In the midst of those beautiful plains, fertilized by the mud of so many rivers, under the mildest climate of Italy, the Veneti, or the " victorious," * as they were called, exchanged their poverty and valor for effemi- nate and timid manners. They had, it is said, fifty towns, and Padua, their capital, manufactured fine woollen stuffs and cloths, which, by means of the Brenta and tlie port of Malamocco, they exported to distant countries ; their horses were in great demand for the Olj'mpic 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 accepted disgracefully, without battle, without a struggle, the Roman domination : a luxurious life had early sapped their courage. Having entered Italy with the Liburnians of Illyria, or having come, perhaps, from the borders of the Danube,^ the Veneti had been driven into the mountains of Verona, of Trent, and Brescia, ' Poseidonius (ap. Strab. III. iv. 17, and Diod. v. 39). The descendants still go to the coasts of Sardinia and Algeria to get fish and coral, which the Ligurian Sea does not a£Eord them, because of the de])th of its water near the coast. 2 Livy, xl. 34. ' Forty thousand Apuans, the bravest of the Ligurians, were transported into the country of the Hirpini ; and thirty times, if there is no mistake in the text of PUny (iii. G), the Ingaunians were compelled to change their abode. " Ingaunis Liguribus agro tricies dato." [This is the Asiatic system of fifroUicns, wliich we know from early Greek and from Hebrew history. — Ed.^ * This is the sense given by Ilesychius to the word Heneti, sub voce 'Ei'eTiSay ttoKovs. * Mannert declares them to be of Slave oritfin. 56 INTKODUCTION. by the Euganei, who had possessed the country l)efore them, and who had given their name to a chain of volcanic hills between Este and Padua. To the north of the Veneti, the Carni, probably of Celtic origin, covered the foot of the mountains which have taken their name, and some wild lUyrians had taken possession of Istria. At a })eriod prol)ably contemporaneous with the invasion of the Ligurians, the Umbrians ^ {Amra — the noljle, the brave) arrived, who, after bloody battles, took possession of all the countries possessed by the Siculi in the plains of the Po. Pursuing their conquests along the Adriatic, they drove towards the south the Liburnians, who left only a few of their number (Praetutians and Pelignians)^ on the banks of the Prexara, and penetrated as far as Monte Gargano, wliere tlieir name is still preserved.^ At the west of the Apennines_^ they subdued a part of the country between the Tiber and the Arno.* 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 Oenotrians, who, in their turn, forced them to go with the Morgetes, aiid find a last asylum in the island which they called by their name. The Sicanians shared a second time their fate, and passed after them into Sicily.^ Heirs 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 Umbria, in the partly inun- 1 The Gallic origin uf the Umbrians iiccrediteJ by antiijuity, has been revived by modern writers. But the inscriptions found in Umbria, on the frontier, it is true, of the iSabine country, tell of a Latin tongue ; we must then connect the Umbrians with the Sabellian Osci. Pliny (iii. 14) says of them, " gens antiquissima Italiae." The recent works of M. Breal have proved that Umbrian was an Italian dialect, — which, after aU, does not solve the ethnological question. M. Ern. Desjardins makes them a Ligurian jieople ; M. d'Arbois de Jubainville makes them akin to the Latins. '^ Ovid, who was himself Pehgnian, gives to these people a Sabine origin (Fafl., iii. 95). * Scylax {Periplas, p. G). See the map of the kingdom of NajJes by Rizzi Zannoni. At the centre of the group of mountains are found, besides the " Valle degli Umbri," other localities named Catino d' Umbra, Umbriechio, Cognetto d' Umbri (Mieali, i. 71). * The Umbro takes its name from them. * Dionys. (i. 73) and Thucydides (\i. 2) fi.v this migration as having taken place two hundred years after the Trojan war, — of course without certainty. PELASGIANS AND UMBRIAJ^^S. 57 dated plains of the Lower Po ; Ollumbria, or Upper Umbria, between the Adriatic and the Apennines; VUumbria, or Maritime Umbria, between the Apennines and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Like the Celts and the Germans, they dwelt in open villas;es in the middle of the plains, disdaining to screen their courage behind high walls ; but therefore exposed after a defeat to irretriev- able disasters. It is said that when the Etruscans came down into Loml«irdy, the Umbrians, being con- quered, lost at one blow three hundred villages. However, in the mountainous cantons of Ullumbria, after the exam- ple of the Tyrrhenian cities which were in the neighbor- hood, their towns were built on the summits, and sur- rounded with rainparts ; ^ thus Tuder, close to the Tiber; Nuceria, at the foot of the Apennines ; Narnia, on a rock which commands the Nar ; Mevania, Literam- na, Sarsina, Sentinum, etc., which by their construction are proof of a more timid, but also more advanced, civilization. ^ These fortifications arc perhaps the work of the Etruscans, for Umbria remained subject to them for a long time. "Umbria vero pars Tusciae" (Serv. in Acn. xii. 753). Livj' (v. 33) says, witlioiit any restriction, that the Tuscan empire embraced the whole width of Italy, from sea to" sea. '^ Tuder (Todi), or, as it is called on the money, tvtere, was early an important city. What is left of the walls resembles, in its greater regularity and absence of rudeness, those of Volaterrae and Pcrusia. It will bo observed that its money, which dates perhaps from the fourth century B. c, is of remarkable elegance. LIIiRAL AS OF TUDER." 58 INTEODUCTIOK For three centuries the empire of the Umbrians gained for that people a reputation of great jDOwer ; but it was broken by tlie Etruscan invasion, which deprived them of the plains of the Po and of Maritime Umbria, where the attacks of the Tyrrhenians, CLAV£RNiVR-D;^ 5AS-H£R.TI-mATRv5-ATi£R5ie.-POSTl-ArMV ' HOMOfJVSDVf^ PsymAMlSCvRsm- ori-A-vh CLAWRNf WRSAMS- HeRTfFRATifR-AT.lfRSfvJ^-SfHMfN/EX-Df CO/iliER s Pfi.AAN?R-S08S£R-POST/-ACNv- V£,-X- CA6R;^/£ft-V£f- V- PRITA ToCOfOSTRAFAHE' EfSBSNAOTlA-yh CASiiOS-DiRSAHERTifRATRVS AT^£RS{ftr'OST^ACNV-fAR6R-OPf^£R• ?-y\-ACKBCA$iaMl(X^i£:ii^ MATilR- f ir-SfSNAHOMONVSDVlR PVRi-fAR.-E/SCVR£NFOT£A-V/ ■ CASttAn Om SANWf RJr-ffoSsTf ER-A?=}g? Si VR'fStftVtENIf R-OfcCC^t£R' , ra.MNfR-SoRS£gPOSTfACNV-Vf f-X V- CAgRiNfR- v£f- VSS- £T SES^A- OT£;A-VI . .^'^y, — -^^^r^^^.x-^^----'-" -^^-rf^^.'^. FRAGMENT OF EUGUBINE TABLES (FROM IGUVIUM).^ who remained masters of a part of the country, had shaken their power. Shut in from that time between the A^sennines and the Adriatic, they were there subject to the influence and even to the rule of their neighlwrs. Etruscan chai'acters are seen on their coins ; they are found, too, on the tables of Iguimim, together ^ M. Bre'al, tlie learnerl author of the work entitled Les Tables Euguhines, has been kind enough to give me this passage from Table V. in both Etruscan and Latin characters. It contains two decrees given by the brotlierhood of priests who caused the Eugubine tables to be engraved. The first decree, of wliich only the end is hero reproduced, is in Etruscan letters ; the second is in Latin letters ; but the language of the two documents is the same, it is Umbrian. We only give a transcription of the commencement : — " Ehvelklu feia fratreks ute kvestur panta muta adferture si. Rogatinnem faciat fratricus nut quaestor quanta miilta adfertori sit. Panta niuta fratru Atiiediu mestru karu pure ulu bciuirent. Quaiitam vutltam fratrum Attfdiorum major pars qui illur venerhit adferture cru pepurkurent herifi, Etautu mutu adferture si. adfertori esse jusserint \iiuantani\ tibet, tanta viulia adfertori sit." The date of these two pass.ages may be pl.iced between the first and second centuries before the Christian era, but the language of them is much older. PELASGIANS AND UMBRIANS. 59 with some words wliicli appear to ])elong to the language of the Rasena; and finally, the soothsayers of Umbria had no less rep- utation than the Tuscan augurs.^ Oftentimes they banded together against the same adversaries. Thus the Umbriaus followed the Etruscans to the conquest of Campania, \vhere the towns of Nuceiia and Acerrae recall by their names two Umbrian cities; and they took part in the great expedition against the Greeks of Cumae.^ When Etruria understood that the cause of the Samnites was that of all Italy, Umbria did not abandon her at that last hour; sixty thousand Umbrians and Etruscans stretched on the battle-field of Sutrimn bore witness to the ancient alliance, and perhaps blending, of the two peoples. Finally, when the loss of liberty left them no other joy than pleasure-seeking and effeminacy, they w^ere devoted to these, and remained united still in the same reputation for intemperance.^ Both, too, had had the same enemies to resist, Rome and the Gauls ; with this difference, — due to the position and direction of the Apen- nines, which protected Etruria against the Gauls, and Umbria against Rome, — that the latter had first come to be more dreaded by the Etruscans, as no barrier separated them, and the former Ijy the Umbrians, whose country opened into the Valley of the Po. The Senones invaded a considerable portion of it, and always struck across Umbria in their raids towards the centre and south of the peninsula. The Umbrians were divided into numerous independent tribes, of which some dwelt in towns, others in the country. Thus while the mass of the nation made common cause with the Etrus- cans, the Camertes treated with Rome on a footing of perfect equality ; Ocriculum also obtained the Roman alHance, but the Sarsinates dared to attack the legions alone, and furnished the consuls with two triumphs. Pliny still counted in his time in Umbria forty-seven distinct tribes ; * and this separation of the urban and rustic populations, this passion for local independence, this rivalry between towns, was always the normal state of the * Cic, de Dicin., i. 41. ^ Strabo, V. iv. 3; Pliny, I^at. Hist., iii. 5; Dionysius, Ant. Rom., vii. 3. ' " Aut pastus Umber aut obesus Etruscus." — C.\tullus : xxxix. 11. On the dissolute- ness of Etruscan manners, see Theopompus, in Athenaeus, xii. 14. * Pliny, Xal. Hist., iii. 14. 60 . INTRODUCTION. Romagna, of the mardaes of Ancona, and of almost the whole of Italy. In the fifteenth century, just as in ancient times, there were in the Romagna 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 Romans, and with whom might settled right,^ — these -men, that Napoleon declared to be tlie best soldiers in Italy, have, thanks to their divisions, submitted quietly to the ascendency of Rome, and came ultimately to obey the weakest of governments. III. THE ETEUSOANS. OUR Western civilization lias its mysteries, like the old East ; Etruria is to us what Egypt was before Cliampollion. We know very well that it was inhabited l^y an industrious people, skilled in commerce, art, and war, rivalling the Greeks at the same time that they were under their influence, and for a long time powerful and formidable in the Mediterranean ; but this people has disappeared, leaving us for its riddle an unknown language for a proof of what it once was, innumerable monuments, vases, statues, bas-reliefs, ornaments, objects precious both for workman- ship and for materials, — a people rich enough to bury with its chiefs the means wherewith to pay an army or build a town ; industrious enough to flood Italy with its products ; and civilized enoiigh to cover its monuments and tombs with inscriptions.^ But 1 See L. Ranke, Ilistnnj nfllie Popes, ii. 198. ^ *O/i/3/jtK0t oTav TTfios dWrjXovs (^(UifTiv u^(liL(T(3r]Tr](riVy KaOoTikurSivm a)? eV iroKi^w ^cij^ovraL Koi SoKovtrt Si(«ioVepa Xf'yeiK oi Tovs fvavriuvs (iTroo-f^d^arrej (Nie. Damasc, ap. Stob. Flor., 10, 70). Here we have the judicial duel of the Middle Ages. They said, too : 'AvayKoiov rj vimv rj aT:o6vT]iTKfLV. (^Ibid.y 7, 31).) * M. de Longporier says of one monument, which was found at Cervetri (Caere) : " It is directly connected with the Corinthian art of the seventh century, so tliat this tomb may give us an exact idea of what that of Demaratus, the father of Tarquin the Elder, must have been." {Muse'e Napoleon 111., explanation of pi. Lxxx.) Let us note that the Etruscans interred their dead, and did not burn them ; the contrary was the case in the later times of the Repub- lic and under the Empire [or rather, both customs prevailed. — Eil.^. * c k * <" ^ > .- ^N^ > H 1. > i ii v~ 5. x ■» c * * r s ^ /Vs \ t - u s - * "^ * * u cr CO .- T3 -' y- > ^ " C" cO ' * r" « « r j CO ■^ r r ff > > > e >- 00 L_ ^ o ,- ^ - •■ C V ^ > > .- e .- O P4 G? M CG cc H O o o 3 H IZ ou /\ m n H m * — -i. /^ > 5 ^ 4 < < nn »• D^ Ul LJ ^ — V. > ^ ^ # ^ LU * * m r~\ ■H- - 7v > r 5 # < * r^ * rrt ++ m — » ^ r ^ ^ «' cc rv^ r\ <rontine hiscriptinii. Ktruscan Minor. lns(_rijiti > c ) > ^ ^ 7 ^ 3 3 3 £ 31 3 > *■ r 7 ^. A ^ 3 1 C 1 ] f -r 8 ^= f z ^ B -S' a d BBH^ ^ae e ® o O0OQ O0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 J si V vj ^J \| vV\ /^ \A^ m vv\ w nui ^ '^HI'^M v\ /v^ ^ H v\ H M t^ n iih ^ p 9 •1 1 7 1 717 M A^ M M n M M d H. -r +tTir Tfiy V V V V w VYY V Y Q) 0® 9 >J. Y -i. 4^ Y si/ vL ^ nI^ 2 ? , s 8 888 8 8 SOME ETRUSCAN ALPHABETS. 64 INTEODUCTIOK south tlie peninsula of the Balkans occupied by the Pelasgian races, and had ascended the Valley of the Danube as far as the Tyrolese Alps. Priestly rule, division into strictly separated classes, and the predominance of fatalism, are characteristics more and more marked in proportion as we trace back the course of centuries and approach more nearly to Asia. Etruscan civilization has also in common v^^ith Semitic literatures the omission of the short vowels. ETRUSCAN FIGURES. (ATLAS OF MICALI, PL. Xiv).l the reduplication of the consonants, and the writing from right to left. The dwarf Tages reminds us of the clever dwarfs and magi- cians of Scandinavia ; whilst the obese figures found at Cervetri ; the gorgons, of which there are so many representations ; the gods with four wings, two spread and two drooped towards the earth ; the sphinxes, the monsters which guard the approaches to the 1 We rc'liR'tantly reproduce these figures, to which we find non« analogous in Grecian art. But the Etruscans, so clever in the manufacture of bronzes, jewels, and vases, preserve the taste of barbarous nations for monsters to serve as bugbears. ^Vhen they thought to make them terrible they made them hideous. We must show this side of their plastic art. [Similarly, in old Irish illuminations and carvings, the animals introduced are simply gro- tesque, and the human figures as bad as ]iossible, while both the feeling and execution of the geometrical ornament is the most beautiful which can possibly be found. — Ed-J THE ETRUSCANS. G5 mansions of the dead ; the animals imknown to Italy, lions and panthers, devouring one another; the Egyptian scaral^aei, the good and evil genii, like the devs of Persia, which conduct souls to the lower w^orld; finally, a (piantity of details of ornamentation, — show either borrowing from the East, or memories of their early lioinc. We have above compared the two industrious and universally persecuted races of the Finns and Pelasgians ; we might also com- pare the two peoples who have taken their place, — the enigmatical language of the Rasena with the Scandinavian Runes ; Odin, the Ases, and royal families of the Goths, with the Tuscan Luciunons, who were at the same time nobles and priests. Like the Germans, the Etruscans united what the East separates, — religion and arms, the caste of priests and that of warriors. If the Goths believed m the death of the gods, and dared to strive against them, the Etruscans predicted the renewal of the world, and imagined that they could by their magic formulae con- strain the divine will. The grave, melancholy, and religious char- acter of this people, their respect for women, their kindness towards slaves,^ the length and al)undance of their repasts, would also sug- gest Germanic manners, if it were not probable that these resemblances are purely ac- cidental. The saying of one of the ancients has, in fact, remained the opinion of modern science : " By their 1 1 „ „ xl ETRUSCAN GOKOOX (CAMPAXA MUSEUM). language and manners the '^ ^ Etruscans are separated from all other nations." We will suppose, w^ithout firm conviction, that the Etruscans came down from the Alps into the Valley of the Po, bearing with them from Asia.r which they had perhaps quitted for but a few centuries, their liaK-sacerdotal government, and from the moun- tains, where they had recently sojourned, that division into in- dependent cantons which has existed in all time among the people * Dionys. Ant. Rom., i.\. 5. The Veieatines earoUed tliem in tlnnr troops. VOL. I. 5 GG INTllUDUCTION. of the Alps. They first stopped in Cisalpine Gaul, where they possessed as many as twelve large towns ; then they crossed the Apennines, and established themselves between the Tiber and the Arno. Tliere they found some Tyrrhe- nian Pelasgians in possession of Hellenic beliefs, traditions, and arts, and in commercial rela- tions with the Greeks of Southern Italy and Ionia. These Pelasgians, protected by cities stronger than the open villages of the Um- brians, could not be expelled or exterminated, and formed a consideral)le iiortion of the new nation.^ Is it ":oing: too far to attribute the woi'ks of drainage,^ the Cyclopean construc- FIGUIIE WITH FOITU WINGS. CHIMAERA IJJ THE GALLERY OF FLORENCE (mICALI, ATLAS, PL. XLII.). tions, the pretended knowledge of omens, and the industrious activity of the Etruscans, to the influence, counsels, and example of these ' Esiiec-i.ally in the towns of Southern Etriiri.a, which always ilisplay chai-acteristios dif- fering from Ihosu of the northern cities, and through which the Greek i-eUgion obtained an entry into Kome. At Caere there have been found inscriptions thought to be PeLasgian. Moreover Caere and Tarquinii Iind each its treasure-house at Delphi, like Sparta and Athens, and the painted vases of Taripiinii are e.xactly similar to those of Corinth. We might call to mind, too, the religious character of the peo]jle of Caere and the reputation they had of having always ab.stained from jnracy. '^ See Noel des Vergers, Etrnria and the El7-uf!can/<, i. 9G. The railway through the Maremma has led to the discovery of a quantity of subterranean conduits for draining the soil. THE ETEUSCANS. 67 Pelasgians/ who are said to have excavated the tunnels from Lake Copais through a mountain, to have built the fortifications, still remaining, of Argos, Mj'ceuae, and Tirjns, 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 Umbrian, Oscan, Ligurian, and Sabel- lian names in the Etruscan inscriptions, and finally the introduc- tion 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 blood ; ^ and gave to their neighbors of the Seven Hills those gladiatorial games which the towns of half the Roman world imitated." The ruin of the Umbrians was accomplished, said the Etruscan annals,* 434 years before the foundatiun of Rome. The Rasena succeeded to their power, and increased it by four centuries of conquests. From Tuscany, the principal seat of then- twelve tribes, they suladued Uml)ria itself, with a part of Picenum, where traces of their occupation are to be found.^ Beyond the Tiber, Fidenae, ' [To account for the Etruscans by referring them to the Pelasgi, and that, too, by- attributing to the latter all sorts of works without any conclusive evidence, is indeed to e.xplain obscuru?n per obscurius, and gives new point to Niebidir's remark already quoted by the author. — Ed.'] ^ This design (see p. 68), taken from i>l. xxi. of the .illas of Xoel des Vergers, repre- sents Achilles immulatiiig captives to the manes of Patrochis. This is the i-eading of the names written over the head of each figure, and M. Brcal's rendering of them, going from left to right, — Achmenrun (Agamemnon) ; Hinthial Patrucles (Ghost of Patroclus) ; V\'p (?) ; AcHLE (Achilles); Truials (Trojanus) ; Chakn (Charon); Aivas Tljiunus (Aja.x Telamoniusj ; Truials (Trojans); Aivas Vilatas (Ajax Oileusi. This scene of murder corresponded so well with the manners of the Etruscans, that when they wished to rep- resent an episode of the Iliad, they chose the only narrative of this nature which is found in Homer. Many testimonies of ancient authors, and those which the Etruscans themselves have left on their monuments, bear witness to this odious feature of Etruscan society. Macrobius (Saturn, i. 7) says that Tarquin caused children to be immolated to the goddess jNIania, the mother of the Lares. As for the winged figure who is standing behind Achilles, I should be inclined to take it for the genius of the hero. For the Etruscan doctrine of genii see below. ^ [If more conjectures are encouraged, we shall soon have the Mexican Aztecs, so Uke the Etruscans in these and other points, declared to be theu- descendants. — Ed.'] ^ Varr., ap. Censor., 1 7 ; Dionysius said five hundred years. It is useless to add that these chronological data are valueless. ^ Phny, A'at. Ilisl., iii. 5. 68 INTEODUCTION. Crnstumeria, and Tusciilum, colonized by them, open the road to- wards the cpuntry of the Volscians and RutuUans,^ who were brought into sul^jection ; and towards Campania, a new (Etruria was founded eight hundred j^ears before our era, of which the principal cities were Volturnum, afterward called Capua, Nola, Acerrae, Herculaneum, and Pompeii.^ From the cliffs of Sorrento, which were crowned 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 Sardmia, where they had settlements. " Then almost the whole peninsula, from the Alps to the Straits of Messina, was under their sway," ^ and the two seas which wash the shores of Italy took and still keep, the one the name of this people, Tuscum Mare, the sea of Tuscany, the other of its colony of Adria, the Adriatic. Unhappily, there was no imion in this vast dominion. The Etruscans were everjnvhere, — 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 Aeolians and lonians in Asia, the Achaeans in Greece, the Salentines and Lucanians in Italy, the Etruscans were divided, in each country occupied by tl;Lem, into twelve in- dependent tribes, which were united by a federal bond, without any general league for the whole nation. For instance, when any grave circumstances occurred in Etruria proper, the chiefs of each city assembled at the temple of Voltumna, in the territory of Volsinii, to treat there concerning 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 l)y the twelve lictors furnished by the twelve cities, with their fasces surmounted by 1 Some tombs have been discovered at Ardea, the capital of the Rutiili, which appear to belong to the Etruscans, and the citadel of that town, more imposing than those of Etruria. is built, like them, of enormous stones. - Livy, iv. 37; Cato, ap. Veil. Patero., i. 7; Polybius, ii. 17. Lanzi adds to these five towns, Nocera, Calatia, Teanum, Cales, Suessa, Aesernia, and Atella. ^ Cato, ap. Serv. in Aen., xi. 567. Livy repeats it in almost the same terms in different places (i. 2 ; v. 33). * Livy, V. i. ; and elsewhere, ;))'//(attle, 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 Cumae." ^ 1 [This helmet was found in 1817 iu the bed of the Alpheus, and is now in the British Museum.] 2 Pindar, P;/tJi. i. 13C, sc/. ; cf. Jilate alrave. THE ETRUSCANS. 79 From all quarters enemies then rose up against the Etruscans. Threatened on the north by the Gauls, in the centre by Rome, 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 Volturnum, slaying all the inhabitants in one night. At the end of the fifth century B. c. tliey retained only Tuscany. Moreover, divisions prevailed amongst them ; in the midst of the public misfortune the league had been dissolved. Veii, attacked by the Romans, was left to herself, just as Clusium was abandoned when threatened by the Gauls. Such selfishness brought its own punishment. Veii succumbed, Caere became a Roman municipality, and Sutrium and Nepeta were occupied by Latin colonies. These disastei's taught them no lesson, and Etruria viewed with indifference the earlier efforts uf 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 Vadimo ; a second defeat completed the work. This was the last blood shed for the cause of independence. For some time longer the Etruscans, mider the name of Italian allies, miglit think themselves free ; Init little l)_y little the hand of Rome pressed 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 bury 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 towns gave to Scipio after sixteen years of the severest warfare. ' lu the miilst of the ei\il wars of Marius and Sylla, the Tuscan soothsa}'ers declared that the great day of Etruria was drawinj; 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 (Varr. ap. Censor, 1 7). Cicero, in the Dream of Scipio, also believes in the periodic renewal of the world : " Eluviones exustionesque terrarum quas accidere tempore certo necesse est " (rfe Rep. vi. 21), Virgil has clothed this grand idea with his magnificent poetry : " Aspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum," etc. (Eel. iv. 50). 80 INTRODUCTION. But the economical revohition which followed the great wars of Rome reacted on the provinces. As in Latium and Campania, the shive took by slow degrees the place of the free man, the shepherd that of the husl^andman, and small properties were lost in great domains. When Tiberius Gracchus traversed Etruria, on his return from Numantia, he was alarmed at its depopulation. Sylla completed its ruin by abandoning it to his soldiers as the price of the civil war ; the Triumvirs gave it another visitation. Thence- forward EtiTiria never recovered. Her social organization had perished ; her language, too, was gone. From so nmch glory, art, and learning, one thing only survived ; up to the last days of the ancient world the Tuscan augur retained his fame with the country people. None could better read signs in the entrails of victims, in the lightning flashes, or in ordinary 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 civilization of Italy, — not Ijy their ideas, for they added nothing to human thought ; nor by art, since as regards ideal work, theirs has little originality ; liut by their utilitarian conception of life, by their industry, and by the influence which they exercised upon Rome. 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 Etruria as the mother of superstitions. We shall see that she deserved this report. Their augurs' doctrine was famous among the ancients. They believed that the great events of the world were announced by signs ; and they were right in believmg it, if only, instead of observmg tlie phenomena of physical nature, they had studied those of the moral order, — since the best policy is that which discovers the signs of the times. But the augur's art was only a collection of puerile rules, which held the mind in bondage, and made first them, and then the Romans, the greatest formalists in the world. If we except the Greeks settled on the shores of the gulfs of Naples and Tarentum, they were the most civilized of the Italian ^ Cicero, de Divin. ii. 12, 18. Exla, fulgura, ct ostenta were tlie three parts of the science of divination. THE ETRUSCANS. 81 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 horse-races and athletic combats. They gave them, too, their massive architecture, which was a clumsy imitation of the Doric order. The temple of Jupiter GATE OF VOLATEHKA. on the Capitol derived from them that flattened look which suited so well the dull Roman imagination, but so ill tlie God of the lofty heavens.^ The gate of Volaterra and the Cloaca Maxima prove that they knew how to construct arches and vaults, wliich 1 [This was mainly the result of the wide separation of the i)illars, ■wM<'h give the Etrus- can style a feeble and sjirawling look, as compared with the Greek. The effect of widening these inter-columuar spaces is very marked. — Ed.'] VOL. I. 6 82 INTRODUCTION. the Greeks of the grand epoch had forgotten [or neglected]. The rude ogive of some Cyclopean gate had doubtless inspired them with the idea, and architecture was endowed by them with a new and precious future. They do not appear to have turned 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 carry off the water and render the country healthy. The senators of Rome, who lodged their gods in the Etruscan manner, lodged themselves like the Lucumons of Veil or Tarquinii : the atrium, which was the characteristic feature of patrician villas, is borrowed from the Etruscans ; and from the Roman atrlmn came the 2^'^^'t^o of the Spaniards or Moors, and the Catholic cloister.^ But whilst the Romans placed their tombs on the surface of the soil, as we do, the Etruscans dug funereal chambers underground, or in the rocky sides of their hills. Some of these, as, for instance, in the valley of Castel 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 would he the most comj^lete repre- sentation, if the description which the ancients have left us could be reduced to the conditions of probability. Varro, if Pliny has copied him accurately,, had made himself the echo of vague memories which tradition had preserved and embellished in its own fashion. " Porsenna," says he, " was buried beneath the town of Clusium, in the place where he had caused a square monument of liewn stone to be built. Each face is 300 feet long and 50 feet high. The base, which is square, enclosed an inextricable labyrinth. If any one entered it without a ball of thread, he could not regain the outlet. Alrove this square are five pyramids, four at the angles and one in the middle, each 75 feet broad at the base, and 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 1 [More probably this method of house-building was common to all the Aryans of South- ern Europe, certainly to the Homeric Greeks, as well as the Itahans. It is the form now adopted all through the INIediterranean countries. — Ed.'] THE ETEUSCA^TS. 83 liigli. 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 ni)on one another, but upon retreating surfaces.^ This legend was, however, only half fabidous. Even at Chiusi, there have been discovered sepulchral chambers, forming a sort of labyrinth, through the narrow passages of which it is difficult to THE CUCUMELLA. make one's way, and the CucumeUa of Vulci leads to the suppo- sition that the gloriovis king of Clusium had a sumptuous tomb. The CucumeUa, 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 wdth, it is true, in the excavations ; but only the obscure dead had their last abode there, and, like faithful servants, guarded the approaches to the place 1 Pliny, Nat. Hist, xxxvi. 19. 2 Quatremere de Quincy, Re.cueil de Dissert, arch., 183G. 84 INTEODUCTION. where their master reposed. The Lncumo and his kin were further in, in a central crypt, the access to which had ))een shut by a wall of such thickness that the workmen could not break through it. All efforts made to discover the entrance to this singular monument were useless : the pyramids of Egypt have not defended their sepulchral chambers so well. In the cuttings made round the outer wall were found animals in basalt, winged sphinxes, 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 crumbled I'.ItOA'ZE VESSELS.! towers. With the help of these remains it was possible to restore this mysterious tomb with some appearance of probability .'■^ The edifice is utterly devoid of grace. But purely Etruscan art had not that gift which 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.^ ! For the description of those objects, see Annales du Bull. arch, for 1874, vol. xlvi. p. 249 seq., and in the Alias, vol. x. jil. 10-12. - This restoration was made under the directions of the Prince of Canino, whose domain comprised the site of Vulci. ^ Herodotus, i. 93; Stuart, Mon. of Lydia, p. 4; Texier^ Description de I'Asie min. iii. 20. •J u> H in < O bi O !- •J THE ETEUSCAIS^S. 85 To bury their cliiefs under great (atntdl was the custom of the Scythians, Germans, Celts, and Lydians, and consequently of the Pelasgians : it is tlierefore quite natural to liud it again in Etruria, especially in the region where the Tyrrhenians had settled. The type of the Egyptian tombs shows itself, on the contrary, in the valley of Castel d' Asso, five miles from Viterbo.^ The town has been destroyed, but its necropolis exists, excavated in the rock like the tombs of Medinet Abu. The fagade is of the Doric order, — a general feature of Etruscan architecture, — and the gates, narrow- ing at the top. the deco- rations in relief, and the mouldings, recall the monuments on the banks of the Nile. Soana and Norchia, too, have their valley of tombs ; those of Castel d' Asso were still unknown in 1808. In former days an im- mense nation moved in those solitudes, wherein the traveller dare no longer venture, as soon as he feels the close and deadly effluvia of the spring time in the Maremma. The Etruscan exca- BLACK VASES OF CLnSIUM (■CHIUSl).^ vations have yielded us an innumerable quantity of bronzes, terra- cottas, jewelry, and domestic utensils, all of excellent workman- ship. Their toreutic was renowned even in Athens ; the chasings, candelabras, mirrors of engraved bronze, gold cups and jewels from the land of the Tyrrhenians were sought for everywhere ; and * Castel d' Asso corresponds to the village of Axia, Castellum Axiae, which was situated "in agro Tarquiuiensi " (Cic. ;)ro Caec, 20). See the description which Dennis gives of it, Etruria, i. 229-242; also the Bull. arch, for 18C3, pp. l.S-HO. The cut is taken from the Alia.-! of tlie BuUelin, vol. i. pi. (lO. - Taken from Noel des Vergers' Alla.f, pis. .wii., xviii., and xix ; see the exjilanatiou of these cuts on pp, 12-14 of the same work. 86' INTEODUCTION. when, solne years ago, the Campana 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 : the style had not reached even that of Aegina. Yet they furnished Italy with many bronze and terra-cotta statues of large dimensions. The Romans, who were niggardly even with their 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 with statues of bronze, when they carried off two thousand at the sack of Volsinii. The ancients, who only learned very late to make wooden casks, were the best potters in the world : our museums contain more than fifteen thousand antique ^^^^.'^--T'^^M vases. The i-cd pottery of Arezzo and ;? ' <^^^B^^^K" the black pottery of Chiusi are purely •' '~^^ "" Etruscan. The form is sometimes odd, BLACK VASE OF CLUSIUM.- , , p, i , ml but often very elegant. ihe ornaments in relief which decorate them, the fantastic animals 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 caiiojjes, those urns of which the cover is formed by a man's head. Among the specimens which we 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 Ijlack vases as very ancient, and Juvenal asserted that good King Numa had no others — " . . . quis Simpuvium ridere Numae, nigrumque catinum . . . Ausus erat ? " ' As for the painted vases, they are copied from Greek vases, or 1 [But it is not unlikely that the same fashion existed in Greece before they had learned to carve in deep relief or set up marble figures in the pediment itself. — Ed.'] ^ Taken from Noel des Vergers' Atlas, pis. xvii., xviii., and xi.x; see the explanation of these cuts on pp. 12-14 of the same work. 8 Sat, vi. 343. THE ETKUSCANS. 87 else they were imported in the active commerce which Italy carried on with all the countries bordermg on the eastern part of the Mediterranean — Egypt, Phoenicia, Cyprus, Rhodes, 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 Volsinii have figures which remind us of the most beautiful 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 world, and for having preserved to us some of their masterpieces. The most admirable of the antique vases come from the excavations at Chiusi ; ^ and smce an inhabitant of Vulci esteemed a Panathenaic vase precious enough to be buried with him, let us put in evidence what Etruria loved as well as what she manufactured. 1 The Fran9ols Vase at Florence, of which a representation will be found in the Alias of the Institut archiokuj., vol. iv. pi. liv., Iv., Ivii. 88 INTEODUCTIOK IV. OSCAKS AND SABELLIANS. TN their central parts, eastward of Rome and Latium, the -^ Apennmes have their highest pealis, their wildest valleys. There the Gran Sasso d' Italia, the Velino, the Majella, the Sibilla, and the Great Terminillo raise their snow-capped heads alcove all the Apennine chain, and from their summits afford a view of l^oth the seas which wash the shores of Italy .^ But their sides are not gently sloped; it seems as if they laclved space to extend them- selves. Their lines meet and break each other ; the valleys deepen into dark chasms, where the sun never reaches ; the passes are narrow gorges ; the watercourses torrents. Everywhere there is the image of chaos. " It is hell ! " say the peasants.^ In all ages this place has been the refuge of brave and intractable populations, and the most ancient traditions place there the aljode 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 somljre forests of the Apennines, these people at last claimed their share of the Italian sun. Whence did they originally come ? It is not l<:nown ; but historic proba- bilities, strengthened by the affinity of language and religion,^ point to a common origin. The ditt'erence of the countries wherein they definitely settled down — the Sabellians in the mountains ; the Oscans m 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, under the identical names of Oscans, Opici, Ausoni, and Aurunci, into the plains of 1 [This wild Alpine country repeats itself twice again as you go southward ; once along the bounilaries of Apulia, where the Abruzzi, from Potenza down to the ]\Ionte PoUino, form a splendid chain, and again in Calabria, where the Sila Mountains embrace a large district of inaccessible Alpine country. — £vXa> Tera- yfxeva. * " Omnes Latini ab Alba oriundi." — Li\a' : i. 52. 90 INTEODUCTIOlSr. years later, claimed to have inherited. A religious l^ond, in the lack of any other, united these nations, and common sacrifices gathered them on the Allian Mount, at Lavinium, the sanctuary of the mysterious Penates and the native gods.^ Thus the nation from which Rome sprang was itself only a mixture of diiferent tribes and races. Elsewhere successive races, instead of blending, drive out or overlay each other, — one ruling, the other enslaved. "With the Oscans and Sabellians there is, on the contrary, a fusion of victors and vanquished. Greek tradi- tions, which were always so intelligent, have faithfully echoed this origin of the Latin people ; and it was by intermarriages and peaceful unions that Evander, Aeneas, Tibur, and the companions of Ulysses established themselves, just as at a later period inter- marriages unite Rome and the Sabines. By its local traditions, as well as by its own origin, Rome was prepared for that spirit of facile association which gives her a distinctive character among ancient polities, and which was the cause of her greatness. In the eighth century the prosperity of the Latins was declining. The Etruscans had traversed their country, the Sabines had crossed the Anio, the Aequians and Volscians had invaded the plain and seized several Latin towns.^ Alba herself, in tradition, seems fee- ble enough for a handful of men to have caused a revolution there. This weakness was of ad- vantage to the growth of the Eternal City. Ties of relationship and aUiance united the Rutuli with the Prisci Latini. The Rutulian capital, Ardea,* was already enriched COIN ATTRIBUTED TO THE KUTULIANS.^ ' Janus, Saturn, Picus, Faunus, and Latinus were among these indigenous gods. Sacrifices were also offered in memory of Evander and of his mother, the proplictess Camienta. One of the gates of Rome was called the Carmental. 2 In the first centuries of Rome, Latin towns are assigned in turn to the Aequians, Sabines, Latins, and Volscians. ' On the obverse, a tortoise with two o's, the mark of the sextans ; on the reverse, a wheel, — rota, the root of the word Rutuli. * " Ardeam Rutuli habebant, gens ut in ea regione atque in ea aetate divitiis praepollens." — LivY ; i. 57. OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. 91 by commerce and surrounded by liigh walls. Sagrmtum, in Spain, was said to be its colony. Around this primitive Latium, wliicli did not extend beyond the Numicius, and which nourished a stout population of husband- men/ were settled the Aequians, Hernicans, Volscians, and Aurun- 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* Aequians, a little nation of shepherds and hunters, in- satiable plunderers,^ had, instead of towns, only fortified villages, situated in inaccessible places. Quartered in the difficult region " Et nunc magnum manet Ardea nomen ; Sed fortuna fuit." — -Vergil: Aeneid, vii. 412. Dionys. (^Aiit. Rom., iv. 64) is still more expressive. ^ "Fortissimi viri et milites strenuissimi exagricolis gignuntur." — Flint: Xat. Hist. xviii. 5. * "Convectare juvat praedas et vivere rapto." — Vergil: Aeneid, vii. 74!'. 92 INTRODUCTION. traversed by the upper Anio, they reached, by way of the moun- tains, as far as Algidus, a volcanic promontory, from which the Roman territory might be seen, and whose forests covered their march. Thence they suddenly poured into the plain, carrying off crops and herds ; and before the people could take arms, they had disappeared. Faithful, however, to their plighted word, they had established tlie fetial right which the Romans had borrowed from them,^ but which they seem no longer to have recognized at the time when, by their rapid incursions, they every year turned the 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 were the last of the Italians to lay down arms. Less given to war and plunder, because their country was VOLSCIAN COIN. richer, notwithstanding the rocks which covered it,^ the Hernicans 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 wherein Anagnia recorded her history, her reputation for wealth, the temples that Marcus Aurelius found there at every step, and the circus where the deputies of the whole league assembled, l^ear witness to their culture, their religious spirit, and their ancient might.* Placed between two nations of warlike tem- per, the Hernicans displayed a pacific spirit, and early associated 1 Livy, i. 3-.'. ^ " Saxosis in montibus " (Serv. in Aen. vii. 684) ; he takes them for Sabines. 3 "Dives Anagnia" (Verg., Aen. vii. 684). Strabo (V. iii. 10) calls it illustrious (ttoXk d^ioXo;^n?). ■» Ferentinum, on the Via Latina, between Anagnia and Frusino; Alatrium, a town of the same nation, is seven miles from the former. OSCANS AND SABELLIANS. 93 themselves with the fortune of the Latins and Romans against the Aequians and Volscians. The Volscians, who were more numerous, inhabited the country between the land of the Rutulians and the mountains which separate the upper valleys of the Liris and Sagrus. The Etrus- cans, who were for some time masters of a part of their country, had there executed great works for carry- ing ofE the water, as they had done in the valleys of the Arno, Chiana, and Po, and had brought mider cultivation lands which yielded thirty and forty fold. These swamps, famous un- der the name of the Pontine Marshes, had been at first only a vast lagoon, separated from the sea, like that of Venice, by the long islands which "^''^^ cltsses, elpenor.' afterward formed the coast from Astura to Circeii. They were Ijounded toward the south by the Island of Aea, which in later times was united to the continent under the name of the Promontory of Circeii.^ The superstitioi;s 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 the stormy seas of Armorica. This legend, which appears to be indigenous around the mountain, may be the remains ' This Etruscan mirror, taken from the ElntskiscJie Spiegel of Gerhard (^ol. iv. pi. cdiii.), was found at Tarquiuii in 1S63, and represents Ulysses, aided by Elpenor, forcing the enchantress to restore the human form to his companions, whom she had changed into swine. One of them still has a man's leg. The three names in Etruscan characters are : Cerca for Circe, Uthste for Ulysses, Felparun for Elpenor. ^ Front., Epist. iv. 4. 94 INTRODUCTION. of an ancient belief. Is not Circe, wliom tlie Greeks con- nected with the ill-omened family of the King of Colchis, but who was said to be the daughter of the Siui, doubtless because in the morning, when the 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 Aesculapius, who was also an offspring of the Sun, and who, fallen with the defeat of her nation, was degraded to a dread sorceress by the new comers ? The Volscians 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 that of Terracina, which 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 Sea, as far as the lighthouse of Messina, was infested by their cruisers ; and the injuries they inflicted on the Tarentine commerce nearly re- sulted in a war between the Romans and Alexander, the Molossian king of Epirus. Yet Rome had already conquered Antium and destroyed its fleet. The Volscians of the interior were no less dreaded in the plains of Latium and Campania; and after two hundred years of war,* Rome only got rid of them by exterminating them. In the time of Pliny ^ thirty-three villages had already disappeared in the 1 The Crepis lacera abounds there (Mic., i. 273); Strabo (V. iii. G) was also aware that poisonous herbs grew there in g^eat numbers; cf. Verg. 4en. vii. W, seq. The memory of the dread enchantress still lives there ; and not long ago no peasant could have been found who would dare for any money to penetrate into the grotto said to be Circe's. (Do Bon- stetten, Voijar/e sur le theatre den six derniers livres de I'Eneide, p. 73.) 2 Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 85 (87); iii. 11 (9) thought, as indeed the appearance of the region proves, that the promontory of Circeii had been once an island, which some were inclined to recognize as the problematic Island of Aea of Homer (Odyss. x. 135). ' De Prony, " Mem. sur les marais Pontins." " Anxur . . . oppidum vetere fortuna opulentum." — LiVY, iv. 59. Cf. Pliny, ibid. iii. 9. * Livy, vi. 21. " Volscos velut sorte qiiadam prope in aeternum exereendo Romano militi datos." ' Pliny, Nat. Hi,< Strabo, V. iii. 6. * Pliny, Hist. Nat. iii. 26. 2 Procopius, iv. 22. ' Jos., Ant. Jud. xx. 2. ' Justin, XX. 2. GREEKS AND GAULS. 109 l)i-onz(>.' They built Cumao on a promontory which commands the sea and the neighboring plains, opposite the Isle of Ischia. Its prosperity was so rapid, owing to a position in the middle of the Tyrrhenian coast, facing the Ijest ports and in the most fertile comitry of Italy, that the colon}' was alile to become in its turn a metropolis,^ to assist Rome and the Latins, in the time of Porsenna, to shake off tlie yoke of tlie Etruscans of the north, and to eon> tend on its own account with tliose of Campania. The battle (^f the year 47-4 b. c. resounded as far as Greece, where Pindar cele- brated it. But in 420 b. c. the Samnites entered Cumae. Yet, not- withstanding the estrangement, and in sjiite of the barbarians. Cumae remained for a long time Greek in language, manners, and memories ; and every time a danger menaced Greece, she thouglit in her grief that she saw her gods weeping.^ These tears repaid the songs of Pindar.* In this volcanic land, near the Phlegraeau Fields and the dark Avernus, the Greeks believed themselves to be at the gates of Hades. Cumae, where, according to some tradition, Ulj'sses had evoked the shades, became the al^ode of one of the Sibyls and of the cleverest necromancers of Italv ; each year many awestruck pilgrims visited the holy place, to the great profit of the inhabi- tants.^ It was there, too, in this outpost of Greek civilization, in tlie midst of these lonians full of the Homeric spirit, that the legends were elaborated which brous;ht so man}^ heroes from Greece into Italy. ^ COIN OF CUMAE.^ ' Strabo, V. iv. 4 : ■aaatav eWt irpfo'^vTaTr) tS>v t€ SixeXiKui' Kai tS>v 'iraKtaiTlSav. With the Clialciilians were mingled colonists from Cyme, on the coasts of Asia Alinor, where Homer sang. Tlie father of Hesiod was born at Cj-me, and Ilcsiod mentions Latinus as the son of Ulysses and Circe. Euseliius in his Chronicle places this event in 1050. It is a very remote date. - Cumae founded Dicaearchia or Pulcoli, which served as its port, Parthenope, and Xcapulis, which eclipsed it. Naples reckoned also amongst its founders Athenians and Eretrians. I'hese were first settled in the Island of Ischia, whence they had been driven by a volcaxuc eruption (Strab., V. iv. 9). Avernus and the Lucrine Lake abounded in fish: "vcctigalia magna praebebant" (Serv. in Georg. ii. 10). ^ The miracle of the tears of AjioUo of Cumae was renewed at the time of the war of -Vristonicus and Antiochus. ^ [No one would have been less content with such remuneration than Pindar. — Ed.'\ 5 Cic, r«-sr. i. 5. ^ A woman's head, and on the reverse the monster Scylla, which defended the entrance of the Strait of Messina. The 'S.KvWaiov was the rock which bounds Rriiltium on the West. 110 INTRODUCTION. After Cumae and its direct colonies, the most famous of which is the New City, Naples, the other Chalcidian cities were Zancle, afterward called Messina, and Rhegium, both of which guarded the entrance to the Straits of Sicily, but whose military position was too important not to draw upon them numerous calamities. The Mamertines, who took Messina by surprise and massacred all its male population, only did what, some years later, a Roman legion repeated at Rhegium. The Dorians, who ruled in Sicily, were less numerous in Italy ; but they had Tarentum, wliicli rivalled in power and wealth Sybaris and Croton, and which preserved its independence longer than these two towns.^ Rich offerings, deposited at the temple of Delphi, still bore witness, in the time of Pausanias, to its victories over the lapygians, 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 Rome, and the conqueror who razed its walls left com OF ANcoNA.^ j;^ dcrisiou the images of its warlike divinities. Ancona, founded about 380 B. c, in Picenum, by Syracusans who fled from the tyranny of Di'onysius the Elder, was also Dorian. The most flourishing of the Achaean colonies was at first Sybaris, which had subdued the indigenous population of the coTmtries of wine and oxen {Oenotria and Italy). At the end of a century, about 620 B. c, it possessed a territory covered by twenty- five towns, and could arm three hundred thousand fighting men. But a century later, in 510, it was taken and destroyed by the Crotoniates. All Ionia, which traded with it, lamented its down- fall, and the Milesians went into mourning. Its land used to yield a hundredfold : ^ it is now only a deserted and marshy shore. ' Livv, xxvii. 16. Strabo says (VI. iii. 4) : "(TX^'<^av Ss noTf o'l Tapavrivoi Ka6' vTrep/SoXijv. The wealth of Tarentum arose from its fisheries, from its manufacture [and dyeing] of the fine wool of the country, and from its harbor, which was the best on the south coast. ^ Ancona in Greek signifies elhoic, hence the half-ljent 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 united ftt the top. The modern Sicilians have kept this emblem, the friquelra. 2 Varro, de Re rust. i. 44. [The site of the town is not yet accurately known, but GKEEKS AXD GAULS. Ill COIN OF LAUS. On the western coast of LTicania, Laus, whicli the Lncanians destroyed after a great victory over the confederate Greeks, and Posidonia, whose imposing ruins ' have rendered famous tlie now deserted town of Paestum, Avere colonies of Sybaris. Other Achaeans, invited 1)y them, had settled at Metapontum, which owed great wealth to its agriculture and to its liarbor, now converted into a lagoon.^ Crotona had as rapid a prosperity as Sybaris, its rival, Init one which lasted longer. Its walls, double as great in extent (100 stadia) indicate a more numerous popidation, 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-known name. The tyrants of Syracuse took it three times, and it had lost all importance when the Romans attacked it. Locri, of Aeolian origin, never attained to so much power. Its downfall, begun Ijy Dionysius the Younger, was completed by Pyrrhus and Hannibal. The loniaus had only two towns in ]\Iagna Graecia : Elea, famous for its school of philosophy, and Thurii, the principal founders of whicli were the Atheni- ans. Hostile to the Lucanians and to Tarentum, Thurii, like its metrop- olis, entered early into the alliance of Rome. It is remarkable that all these towns had a rapid growth, and that a few years sufficed for them to become states, reckoning the number of their fightmg men by is somewhere under the C'rathis, which was turned over it. The plain is really rich in grass and in cattle, but much visited by malaria. Excavations, accompanied by a change in the river's course, would proljablv bring to light the most interesting remains yet found in Italy. — Ed.'] ^ The two temples and stoa of Paestum. ^ Now Lago di Santa Pelagina. When the water is low, remains of ancient construo- 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. COIN OF CROTOXA.' COIN OF ELEA.* 112 INTEODUCTION. the liimdred thousand. It was not only the favorable climate of Magna Graecia, the fertility of the soil, which, in the valleys and plains of the two Calabrias, excelled that of Sicily,-' nor even the wisdom of their legislators, Charondas, Zalencus, Parmenides, and Pythagoras, that effected this marvel, but the clear-sighted policy Avhich admitted all strangers into the city,^ and for some centu- ries converted the Pelasgian populations of the south of Italy into a great Greek nation. Doubtless distinctions were established ; and there were proljaljly in the capitals plebeians and nobles, in the country serfs of the soil, and in the conquered towns sulajects ; but these differences prevented neither union nor strength. It was by this means, too, by this assimilation of conquered and conquerors, that Rome increased. But Rome preserved its disci- pline for a long time, whereas the towns of Magna Graecia, under- mined within by intestine divisions and menaced without by Carthage and Syracuse, by the tyrants of Sicily and the King of Epirus, incessantly harassed l:)y the Italian Gauls and the Samnites, especially Ijy the Lucanians, were, moreover, enfeebled by rivalries which jjrepared for the Romans an easy conquest. If Umbria owes its name to a Gallic trilje, our fathers must have crossed the Aljjs the first time in a large body at a very early epoch.^ The invasion of the sixth century is more certain. ^ Dolomicu, Dissciiation sur le tremhlcment dc terre tie 1783. [In natural beauty Calabria far surjiassc's the greater part of Sicily. — Ed."] 2 Polvbius, ii. 39 ; Dioil., xii. 9. Sybaris ruled four nations and twenty-five towns (Strab., VI. i. 13). There is doubtless a great exaggeration in the figure of 300,000 fighting men; but the number of inhabitants must have been much larger than that of the towns of Greece proper. At certain of its feasts, Sybaris assembled as many as 5,000 cavalry, four times more than Athens ever had (Athen., xii. 17 and 18; Diod., fragm. of bk. viii.; Scymn., 340). It was the same at Crotona. The Pelasgians of Lucania and Bruttium sliowed the same readiness as those of Greece in allowing themselves to be aVtsorbed by the Hellenes and in adopting their language and manners, and for tlie same reasons, — identity of origin, or at least near relationship. This influence of the Hellenes was so strong, that notwithstanding the later Roman colonies, Calabria, like Sicily, remained for a long time a Greek country. It was only at the commencement of the fourteenth century that the Greek language [rc-introduced in the eleventh] began to be lost there. As to the prosperity of these towns, it is connected, more than has been shown, with that of the Greek colonies in general. Masters of all the shores of the great basin of the JMediterranean, the Greeks had in their hands the commerce of the three worlds. Continued intercourse united their towns, and every point of this immense circle profited from the advantages of all the others. The prosperity of Tarentum, Sybaris, Crotona, and Syracuse, corresponded with that of Phocaea, Smyrna, Miletus, and Cyrene. ^ Geographical names, dolmens, etc., reveal the presence, in the Valley of the Danube, from the Black Sea to the Schwarzwald, of numerous Gallic populations which may have come thence directly into Italy. In that case the Gauls of the banks of the Loire would only me^Tf^ o |4 o o GEEEKS AND GAULS. 113 .Sala Kliuotiaii. Euijaiit'au. Etnisiau. It is said that the Gallic tribes of the northwest, driven back on the Cevennes and the Alps by invaders from beyond the Rhine, ac- cumulated there, and, like waves long pent up, overflowed to the number of three hun- dred thousand across the Alps into the Val- ley of the Po. On the banks of the Ticino, the Biturigan Bellove- sus overwhelmed an Etruscan army and established his people, the Insubrians, be- tween this river, the Po. and the Adda.^ Bellovesus had shown the way ; others followed it. In the space of sixty-six years, the Cenomani, under a chief sur- uamed the whirlwind {EUtovius), Ligurians, Boians, Lingones, An- amans and Senones,^ drove the Etruscans from the banks of the Po and the have been the western group of this great nation. Cf. Re- vue archeolofj. for January, 1881, p. 50. ' Livy, V. 34, 35. ^ With the Senones, Strabo unites (V. i. G) the Gesates, " Tlie two nations," says he, "who took Rome." A ^^^ ^ A /^ F^ D * * « a 5 3 3 ^ 1 : 3 1 3 3 ♦ t % * * » B ^ B ^ » ® o oot ^ * 1 1 1 1 m >1 >l K s/ >J vl si 1/ w\Va nA^ a/\ v^/| A^ AVv ^ M rv * » * « « OOO o o ^ A 1 h N\ MKIM M M M a * 1 ALPHABETS OF NORTHERN IT.\LY. 114 INTEODUCTION. Umbrians from the shores of the Adriatic as far as the River Esino (Aesis). Some remains of the Etrascan and Umbrian powers existed, however, in the midst of the Gallic populations, and formed small states which were free, but triljutary and always exposed, from the fickleness of these barbarians, to sudden attacks. Thus Melpum was surprised by treacliery, and destroyed on the same day, it is said, as the Romans entered Veii.' As conquerors, the Gauls did not go beyond the linrits where the invasions of the Senones had stopped. But this vigorous race, these men eager for tunuilt, plunder, and battle, long troubled the peninsula as they did all the ancient world, until the legions were able to reach them in the middle of their forests and to fix them to the soil. They inhabited unwalled villages, says Polybius, slept on grass or straw, and had no knowledge except of lighting and a little husbandry. Living chiefly on meat, they only valued flocks and gold, — ready wealth whiih does not impede the warrior, and whicli he carries everywhere along with him. Under their ride Cisalpine Gaul returned to the barl^arism from which the Etruscans had saved it ; the forests and marshes spread ; the passes of the Alps especially remained open, and new bands continually descended from them, which claimed their share of the country of the tvine. Their high statui-e, their savage shouts, their pas- sionate and menacing gestures, and that parade of courage Avhich, on days of battle, made them strip off all their clothing in order to fight naked, frightened the Italians so much that at their approach the whole population took up arms. When the young and fortunate Alexander threatened them, the Gauls of the Danube replied that they feared nothing but that the sky should fall ; and the first Roman army that saw those of Italy fled terrified. Yet Rome was compelled to meet them everywhere, at Ca,rthage, in Asia, with Hannibal, at her gates even, and up to the foot of the Capitol ! Italy in this early age has only a twilight of history, the uncertain rays of which with difficulty pierce the darkness in which the commencement of the nations is concealed. However, by this still doubtful light we can recognize some facts impor- tant to general history, and particularly to that of Rome. I riiny, jV((/. ///.-/. iii. 17 (21). GREEKS AND GAULS. 115 Tlius all, or nearly all, the Italiotes bclon