500 Rev. Mr Wiu1ams on one Source of the 
gurians,’ a nation confessedly Celtic, seem to have shared the 
country with them. In historical times these are described as 
possessing the upper vale of the Po, the Maritime Alps, and the 
Northern Apennines, while the Umbri were confined to the cen- 
tral group, the most important natural fortresses of Italy. The 
whole of the original population of eastern Italy, with the excep- 
tion of those who took refuge in the central Apennines, was re- 
duced under the power and influence of the Hellenic colonists, 
who encircled the southern Peninsula with a line of Grecian cities 
of surpassing wealth and magnificence. But time has grudged to 
us the knowledge of the history of Sybaris, Crotona, Elea, and 
Pestum. We read that Sybaris was once the chief of five and 
twenty cities, and of four nations, and that it could bring three 
hundred thousand warriors into the field. Crotona was not infe- 
rior in arms, arts, or philosophy—but internal dissensions, the 
destruction of the enlightened classes by a riotous democracy, and 
the fatal aid of their half conquered subjects, the native tribes, hur- 
ried them to a premature decay.  Sybaris fell a. c. 508, barely 
within the verge of accredited history, and Crotona soon follow- 
ed : destined, however, to a more lingering death by the hands of 
the barbarian Bruttii. The Lucanians, a mountain tribe, which 
had taken the lead in the attacks upon the Grecian States, had 
undoubtedly imbibed some portion of Grecian civilisation. In 
Nresunr’s” words, “ hereditary enemies as they were, they never- 
theless acquired the language to such a degree, that their ambas- 
sador filled the popular Assembly at Syracuse with surprise and 
enthusiasm by his pure Doric. Nor would the authors of Pytha- 
' The Ligurians were themselves Ambrones, or Ombro-nes, as is evident from the 
story told by Piurarcn in the life of Marius :—** The Ambrones came on erying 
out Ambrones, Ambrones ; this they did either to encourage each other, or to ter- 
rify the enemy with their name. The Ligurians were the first of the Italians that 
moved against them, and when they heard the enemy cry Ambrones, they echoed 
back the word, which was their own ancient name.” The English reader may not 
know that the Cumrian name for England is to this day Loiger or Liguria. 
2 Vol. i. p. 84. 
