212 Essay Introductory to the Archaeology of the West of England. 



It has also, by the same high authority, been shewn, that there is reason 

 for concluding not only the Umbri, but the Opici or Ausones, the earliest in- 

 habitants of southern Italy, to have been Celtic tribes. Their language, 

 the ancient Oscan, contributed, with the Q^notrian and later dialects of 

 Greece, to form the Latin idiom, in which its traces may still be detected. 



The Siceli, the supposed primal population of Sicily, are considered to 

 have been of Opic, and therefore of Celtic, lineage. It should however be 

 stated, that there are some grounds for supposing the Siceli to have been 

 superimposed upon a still more ancieut Iberian colony. 



We have, therefore, traces of a primal Celtic population throughout 

 Italy, and possibly Sicily, succeeded by, and more or less mixed with, at 

 an early period, Grecian or Pelasgic colonists. Gaul, however, appears to 

 have been, from a very remote period, the fruitful centre of the Celtic po- 

 pulation of Europe. On the north, her tribes peopled by successive waves 

 of emigration the yet uninhabited islands of Britain : on the west, they 

 crossed the Pyrhenean chain to form the Celt-Iberian nation : on the 

 north-east, the Germans of the lower Rhine, a people at least as warlike 

 as themselves, seem to have limited them to that natural boundary. But 

 their chief excursions were in a different direction. 



It appears from Livy, that Sigovesus and Bellovesus, Gaulic chiefs, led 

 forth numerous bands from the thickly peopled regions of Gaul, to take 

 possession of other lands. 



Bellovesus crossed the Alps b.c. 590, and driving forth the Etruscan 

 inhabitants, became possessed of the circumpadane territory, excepting 

 Mantua. His colony and their descendants, under the names of Ceno- 

 niani and Salivii, remained on the north, as Boii, Senones, and Lingones, 

 on the south, of the Po ; and as the Laii, Lebecii, and Insubres, and pro- 

 bably the Venetii, are enumerated by Polybius as existing in Italy. 



The Senones occupied Rome u. c. 364, and were destroyed by the 

 Romans, according to Polybius, u. c. 463. The Boii are said by Strabo to 

 have been ejected from Italy, and to have migrated along the course of the 

 Danube, until exterminated by the Daci. Mediolanum, Comura, Brixia, 

 Verona, Vicentia, Vergamum, and Tridentum, are all cities whose founda- 

 tion has been attributed to the descendants of this Bellovesian colony. 



Sigovesus, at the head of the other colonists, marched into the Hercy- 

 nian forest, and founded tribes who extended themselves along the Danube, 

 and who, passing through Pannonia, Greece, Macedon, Thrace, and Asia 

 Minor, finally extended themselves into Asia Proper, and, having obtained 

 permission from Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, founded the flourishing 

 kingdom of Gal-atia. 



Besides these two principal colonies, should be mentioned also the Are- 

 coraici and Tecto-sages, Volscian tribes, who occupied the Deltas of the 

 Rhone and Narbonese Gaul ; the Helvetii, whose name (literally Up-hill- 

 nien) is a sufficient evidence of their Celtic origin ; and the Boii, akiu 



