THE ORIGIN OF THE SLAVS. 403 



which ought to abandoned. They also carried brachycephaly into 

 the northwest and the north as far as the Baltic littoral, and that 

 character is the principal constituent element of the present Slavic 

 tj^pe. In Italy itself six cities are given by the ancients as Venetish, 

 including Padua, Vicenza, Belluno, and tAvo obscure cities in the 

 Province of Treviso. In these Provinces inscriptions have been 

 found which are attributed to the Veneti." Similar inscriptions were 

 noticed on rocks near A^^urmlach in the eastern part of ancient 

 Noricum. (D'Arbois, II, 79.) In Carinthia, near Dellach, bronze 

 objects and pottery fragments were found, marked, it seems, with 

 characters of these inscriptions. (Pauli, III, p. 62, 70.) 



The language of these inscriptions would be settled if the earliest 

 topographical names of the Veneti and the tomb inscriptions of 

 their ancient and powerful city, Aquila, were accepted as Slavic. 

 But even aside from this we find that in the whole Danubian region, 

 occupied down to our era by Veneti intermixed with Gauls, there 

 are none but Slavic tongues. These languages include elements intro- 

 duced into them by the conquering Gauls of the fourth century 

 B. C, when they fused with the Illyrians. They must, then, have 

 existed at least since the fourth century B. C., and it is very probable 

 that it is to one of these languages that Polybius refers as being 

 neither Gallic nor Latin, but peculiar to the Veneti. The name 

 Veneti in historic time, at least in the sixth century A. D., was the 

 generic term for the Slavs north of the Carpathians. Not only did 

 they use a Slavic language, but they played the chief role among the 

 Slavs, and a knowledge of them is therefore of material assistance in 

 tracing the advance of the Slavs. 



THE VENKTI AND THEIR NAME NORTH OF THE DANUBE AND ON THE BALTIC THEIR 



PANNONIAN ORIGIN IDENTITY WITH THE SLAVS. 



Wherever the Veneti spread, there Slavs have lived or still dwell. 

 The name Veneti, analogous to that of the Franks in France, and of 

 the Variags in Russia, appears in the Pannonian city of Vindebona, 

 Vienna, in that of the Vindelician part of Bavaria, between Switzer- 

 land and the Danube, and in that of the Wends, who still hold their 

 own in Lusatia, notwithstanding invasions and a very active Ger- 

 manization. It was transplanted without the least alteration to the 

 Baltic littoral, where positive traces of the Veneti are preserved in the 

 name Vindava, borne alike by a river and a city. 



From the preceding facts it is clear that jDeople of Venetish origin 

 have dwelt since a prehistoric period north of the Carpathians, and 

 that their name, preserved through the ages, was applied to no others 



o Compare Carl Pauli, Altitalische Forschungen, III ; D'Arbois de Jubainville, 

 IT. 57. 



