THE RACE PROBLEM OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 379 

from these two peoples came the main streams which changed the 
stock of the population. 
The crucial problem is another and is one that is contained 
within the Empire itself to a far greater extent than may have appeared 
up to this point. The Roman Empire was a motley of different 
peoples, races, and languages. This fact has been somewhat obscured 
because in the West the old languages were ousted by the Latin 
and died without leaving traces (except the Basque). But this is a 
superficial matter. The races themselves persisted and took part in 
the mixing of the peoples, although they changed their languages. It 
is of the first importance to form a concrete idea of how manifold 
and deep and great the differences were *”. 
At the commencement of the Empire the population of Italy 
seemed to be rather homogeneously Roman. It had been Romanised 
during the last centuries of the Republic, but the old races had not 
died out, they added their contribution to the population. The Oscan- 
Umbrian tribes were very closely akin to the Romans and they spoke 
dialects of the same language, but there were once many other peoples 
in Italy of different races, in the north Celts, in the north-east and 
south-east Illyrian tribes, in the south Greeks, besides many native 
tribes, Oenotrians, Sicanians, Siculians, etc., about whose race we 
know nothing. The Etruscans played an important part but they 
are yet an unsolved riddle. The art shows that they had a very 
marked and peculiar physical type. We can read their language 
but cannot understand it, all attempts to connect it with any other 
language having failed; the language died out at the commencement 
of the Empire. In N. W. Italy and S. E. Gaul we find the great 
people of the Ligurians, which up to the imperial age preserved in 
some parts its liberty and its very primitive mode of living. The 
Ligurian language is lost, the connexions of this people with other 
races, if it had any, are unknown *'. The most probable view is that 
the Ligurians were the original inhabitants of these districts, and were 
supplanted by the Celts who invaded the Po valley about 400 B. C. 
Certain students have tried to show that the type of the people and: 
the language of the once Ligurian districts preserve some peculiarities 
which are supposed to be the last traces of this extinguished race. 
Gaul, i. e. France and the Po valley, was so called after the 
ruling race, the Gauls, who are also called Celts. During ancient times 
Celtic was the common language of the inhabitants and was spoken 
even by the noble families. IrenaEus had to preach in Celtic in 
Heredilas II. 25 
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