THE PEOPLES OF THE BALKAN PENLNSULA. 631 



nians as there are Magyars in the Hungarian kingdom, according to- 

 the census of 1890. Politically it thus happens that these people are 

 pretty well split up in their allegiance. Nor can this condition be 

 other than permanent. For the Carpathian Mountains, in their great 

 circle about the Hungarian basin, cut directly through the middle of 

 the nation as measured by language. This curious circumstance can 

 be accounted for only on the supposition that the disorder in the 

 direction of the Balkan Peninsula, incident upon the Turkish inva- 

 sion, forced the growing nation to expand toward the northwest, even 

 over the natural barrier interposed between Roumania proper and 

 Hungary. Geographical law, more powerful than human will, or- 

 dains that this latter natural area of characterization — the great plain 

 basin of Hungary — should be the seat of a single political unit. 

 There is no resource but that the Roumanians should in Hungary ac- 

 cept the division from their fellows over the mountains as final for all 

 political purposes.* 



The native name of these people is Vlach, Wallach, or Wal- 

 lachian. Various origins for the name have been assigned. Le- 

 jean asserts that it designates a nomad shepherd, in distinction 

 from a tiller of the soil or a dweller in towns. Picot voices the 

 native view as to ethnic origins by deriving the word "Wallach from 

 the same root as Wales, "Walloon, etc., applied by the Slavs and Ger- 

 mans to the Celtic peoples as " foreigners." This theory is now gen- 

 erally discountenanced. Obedenare's attempt to prove such a Cel- 

 tic relationship has met with little favor, f The western name Rou- 

 manian springs from a similarly exploded hypothesis concerning the 

 Latin origin of these people. To be sure, Roumanian is distinctly 

 allied to the other Romance languages in structure. It is an anomaly 

 in the eastern Slavic half of Europe. The most plausible explanation 

 for this phenomenon, and one long accepted, was that the modern 

 Roumanians were descendants of the two hundred and forty thou- 

 sand colonists whom the Emperor Trajan is said to have sent into the 

 conquered province of Dacia. The earlier inhabitants of the terri- 

 tory were believed to have been the original Thracians. Since no two 

 were agreed as to what the Thracians were like, this did not amount 

 to much. Modern common sense has finally prevailed over attempts 

 to display philological erudition in such matters. Freeman expresses 

 this clearly. Roumania, as he says, lay directly in the pathway of 

 all invasions from the East ; the hold of the Romans upon Dacia was 

 never firm; the province was the first to break away from the empire; 

 and finally proof of a Latinization only at the late date of the thir- 



* Auerbach, 1898, p. 286, gives a full summary of the rival controversy between Rou- 

 manians and Hungarians as to priority of title in Transylvania. 



•f Cf. Picot, 1883, in his review of Tocilescu; and Rosny, 1885, p. 83. 



