CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



the Apennines as far as the mouth of the Tiber. 

 3. Italians : At what period the earliest immigra- 

 tions into Italy of the so-called ' Italian' races 

 the Latins and Umbro-Sabellians, took place, it is 

 wholly impossible to tell ; but it was undoubtedly 

 long before the Etruscans had settled in Etruri.i. 

 They were by far the most important of the various 

 races that inhabited the peninsula ; in fact, the 

 entire historical significance of Italy depends upon 

 them ; and therefore it is fortunate that their 

 ethnological origin and affinities arc capable of 

 the most certain demonstration. An investigation 

 of their language, subdivided, indeed, into numer- 

 ous dialects, often widely differing, but fundamen- 

 t.illy the monad in the discovery, that 



they belong to the great Aryan or Indo-Germanic 

 family, and arc in particular closely allied to the 

 Hellenes. There is ground for believing that the 

 us were the first members of the Italian family 

 to enter Italy, ami that, having crossed the Apen- 

 nines, they spread themselves to the south along the 

 western coast, driving the lapygians before them, 

 and finally cooping them up in the Calabrian pen- 

 insulathe heel of the boot. But this conquest 

 belongs to prehistoric ages, and the original Latins 

 of Campania, Lucania, Bruttium, perhaps even 

 Sicily (i.e. the races spoken of in classic legend, 

 as the Itali, from whom the peninsula received its 

 name, the Margetcs, Ausones, Siculi, &c.), were 

 themselves in the course of time so thoroughly 

 Hellenised by the influence of the rich and power- 

 ful Greek colonies planted on their coasts, or so 

 overwhelmed by the successive invasions of Sam- 

 nite hordes, that nearly every trace of a primitive 

 Latin nationality has disappeared. It was only in 

 Latium Proper, where no Greek colonies were 

 founded, and where the fortune of war was in its 

 favour, that the Latin branch of the Italian race 

 firmly rooted itself. The other branch of the 

 ' Italian ' stock the Umbro-Sabellian must have 

 entered Italy at a later period than the Latin. Its 

 advance along the central mountain-ridge the 

 Apennines from north to south can still be 

 traced ; and its last phases /. e. the conquest of 

 Campania and the other southern districts of the 

 peninsula by the Samnite highlanders belong to 

 purely historical times. The oldest members of 

 this branch are probably the Sabines, who seem 

 to have fixed themselves in the mountainous 

 region to the north-east of Rome, and are regarded 

 as the progenitors of that multitude of tribes which 

 we find occupying the central portion of Italy 

 the Picentes, Peligni, Marsi, ^Equi, Vestini, Mar- 

 rucini, Frentani, Samnites perhaps also the 

 Volsci and Hernici. 4. Gauls : To a period 

 considerably later and comparatively historical, 

 belong the settlement of the Gauls in the north, 

 and of the Greeks in the south of Italy. The 

 former, a branch of the Celtic race, itself now 

 ascertained to be also a member of the great 

 Aryan family, and therefore allied, however dis- 

 tantly, to the other Italian races, had for ages 

 before history begins fixed themselves in the region 

 now known as France. The first Gallic tribe 

 that made its appearance on the soil of the penin- 

 sula is said to have been the Insubres, whose 

 capital was Mediolanum (Milan) ; then followed 

 the Cenomani, whose headquarters were Brixia 

 (Brescia) and Verona, and aftenvards numerous 

 kindred hordes, among the latest and most power- 

 ful of whom were the Boii and Senones, who forced 



98 



their way across the Po, and effected a lodgment 

 in the modern Romagna, occupying (besides an 

 inland district) the coast of the Adriatic as far 

 south as Ancona. Hence, in ancient times, the 

 whole of Northern Italy was for a long period 

 known as Gallia Cisalpina (Gaul on this, i.e. the 

 Italian side of the Alps), to distinguish it from 

 ( l.uil Proper, which was called Gallia Transalpina. 

 Gallia Cisalpina was again subdivided into two 

 parts by the river Padus (Po) ; the northern being 

 named Gallia Transpadana, and the southern (the 

 country of the Boii and the Senones), Gallia 

 Cispadana. 5. Greeks: The other people which 

 we have distinguished as 'foreign' was the Greek. 

 There is, however, this dictinction to be ob- 

 served, that the Greeks were not (like the Gauls) 

 barbarians ; they did not swoop down upon the 

 southern shores of Italy (like the Norse pirates on 

 the coasts of England and France) to plunder and 

 devastate ; nor did they force their way into the 

 interior and dispossess the native inhabitants ; 

 they merely colonised the coasts, built cities, and 

 carried on commerce. Through them it is prob- 

 able the Romans acquired their earliest notions of 

 the Greek literature, philosophy, and cultus. 



Primitive Social Condition of the Latins. 

 With this brief introductory sketch of the various 

 races that inhabited Italy in historical or pre- 

 historical times, we may now revert to the Latins, 

 with whom we have at present more particularly 

 to do. What was the extent of their civilisation, 

 or how far their social organisation had proceeded 

 when they finally settled in the 'broad plain' 

 (Latium, connected probably with latus, broad ; 

 Idtus, a side; Gr. plains; Eng. flat} that stretches 

 westward from the Alban Hills to the sea, may 

 be conjectured, but cannot be positively ascer- 

 tained. We know, indeed, that long before they 

 had set foot in Italy, before even they had 

 branched off from their Hellenic brethren, they 

 had ceased to be mere nomads, or wandering 

 shepherds. The evidence of this fact lies in their 

 language. Not only do the names of the oldest 

 Latin nations, as the siculi ('the sickle-bearers' 

 or ' reapers '), and the osci, or opsci (' field- 

 labourers '), clearly prove the antiquity of Italian 

 husbandry ; but the oldest agricultural terms are 

 actually common to both Latins and Greeks. 

 Moreover, the form of the plough was the same 

 among both peoples, as also their mode of cutting 

 and preparing the grain ; many of the usages of 

 social life ; the oldest methods of measuring the 

 land ; and the style of their national dress the 

 Latin tunica corresponding exactly with the Greek 

 chiton, while the Latin toga is only a fuller hima- 

 tion. Their method of building was also the 

 same. In fact, the evidence of language shews 

 that, before the Latino- Italians entered Italy, 

 they had been accustomed to till the ground, to 

 make wine, to keep gardens, to build houses, and 

 to decently clothe themselves. As to their social 

 organisation, less can be said. It appears, how- 

 ever judging from the general bearing of the 

 most ancient traditions, as also from the features 

 j exhibited in historical times that at a very early 

 period, and from causes of which we are now 

 absolutely ignorant, they had begun to develop 

 the germs of what may be called ' state-life.' As 

 among their Hellenic brethren, the original foun- 

 dation of their social constitution was 'house- 

 holds ' (Gr. oikiai, Lat. vici or pagi, from pangere, 



