THE ORIGIN OF THE SLAVS. -401 



whom the Gauls mixed four hundred years before the present era, 

 were likeAvise Slavs. But when and how did the Slavs become the 

 indigenes of the Danube basin, which as early as the eighteenth cen- 

 tury B. C. was proto- Aryan territory? 



It is known positively that the Thracians of the eastern zone of the 

 basin spread toward the west and the Adriatic Sea, and this at about 

 the time when the Umbro-Latins and the Greeks were still associated 

 north of the Adriatic or were just separated. The Illyrians detached 

 themselves from these Thracians and subsequently even drove them 

 out from present Servia. At the same time the Dacians and Getes 

 settled in distinct groups on Thracian territory, and it is known that 

 (ill a late period their language did not materially differ from that 

 of the Thracians. From their first movements the Thracians Avere 

 doubtless mixed with some elements from j^arts of Asia Avhere they 

 themselves had lived. 



The remains of Glasinac show that in 1100 B. C. the Illyrians 

 largely preserved the characteristics of the proto-Aryans. But we 

 also find there a new peojile that burned their dead and that mixed 

 Avith and modified the character of the natiA^es. The progress of this 

 ncAA* constituent is marked by the groAAth of the custom of incineration 

 of the dead and the expansion of a civilization uoaa^ called Hall- 

 stadtian. 



The transformation thus effected in the indigenous Illyrians and 

 others is the point of departure for the formation of the Danubiau 

 Slavic type, distinguishing it from the proto-Aryan. Its expansion 

 became, as it were, symbolical for that of the Slavs, although it was 

 itself by its origin neither Aryan nor SlaA^ These people, Avhose 

 bracliAxephaly extended to the neighboring countries, Avere the Veneti. 



ORIGIN OF THE VENETI. 



Herodotus mentions the Veneti in two passages. In the first 

 (I, 190) he tells us that the Babylonian custom in cA^ery village of 

 auctioneering handsome maidens, and Avith the money thus obtained 

 from rich Avooers endowing the less fair maidens and marrying them 

 to poor men, also existed among the Veneti of Illyria. In the second 

 passage (V, 9) he tells us that they lire on the confines of the Adriatic 

 Sea and, toAvard the north, adjacent to the SigAama? that inhabit the 

 entire territory beyond the Danube. Both references hint at the 

 Asiatic origin of the Veneti. Strabo is cA^en more explicit concern- 

 ing this origin. 



Polybius (210-125 B. C.) relates (Book II, Chap. IV) that when 



the Gauls captured Rome (300 B. C.) the Veneti invaded their 



country — that is. the plains of the Po. He says of the Veneti (Chap. 



Ill) " they are an ancient people celebrated by the tragic poets for 



SM 1906 26 



