THE PREHISTOPJO KACES OF ITALY.' 



By Canon Isaac; Taylor. 



Nowherf in the world is there such a mixture of races — such a collu- 

 i^ies (jenllum — as in Italy. 



At the beginning of the historic period we find Siculi and Sicani in 

 the south, Etruscans in the north, and in the center Unibrians, Latins, 

 Sabines, and Saumites, all speaking Aryan languages. At a very early 

 time the Carthaginians made good their footing in the west of Sicily, 

 and the Greeks establislied colonies in the east. Southern Italy became 

 Magna Gra'cia — so that the greater Greece lay beyond the Adriatic, 

 just as the greater Britain now lies beyond the Atlantic. The Greeks 

 pushed their trading posts as far as CuniiP in the Bay of Naples, and 

 the Phoniiciaus established theirs at Ca're, 20 miles from Eome. 



In the fourth century B. c. the Ginils poured over the Alps into the 

 plain of the Po, establishing a Gullia Cisalpijia in the north answering 

 to the Magna Gra^cia in the south. 



And then, when the Eomau legions had conquered Italy and the 

 Eastern AVorld, Rome herself was overrun by the peoples she had sub- 

 dued. Rome became an oriental city. The Orontes, as a Roman writer 

 complained, luid emptied itself into the Tiber. A flood of Syrians, Jews, 

 Greeks, Egyptians, Africans, Spaniards, Gauls, and Dacians — slaves, 

 freedmen, or adventurers — poured into the Eternal City, making it a 

 cloaca maxima — the universal sewer of the world. Then came the inroads 

 of the northern hordes — Heruls, Goths, Vandals, Huns, and Lombards 

 — who rushed in to api)ropriate the treasures which during four centu- 

 ries had been plundered from Africa and Asia. Next came the inroads 

 of Normans, Moors, Spaniards, French, and Germans, and lastly, the 

 peaceable invasion of winter residents. 



These are the races which, in historic times, have been added to the 

 prehistoric peoples of the land. 



At the beginning of the historic period we find the Etruscans estab- 

 lished north of the Tiber, the Latins and other tribes speaking Aryan 

 languages further to the south, and an earlier aboriginal population iu 

 the Apennines and Calabria. 



In books written only 30 years ago the oldest civilization of Italy 

 is attributed to a mysterious peo{)le, who are called the Pelasgi. We 



* From The Contemporary Review, Aii<rust, 1«90, vol. lviii, pp. 261-270. 



489 



