CHAP. II. 



ITALY. 85 



Italy shall be spared V Long before the power 

 of the Roman senate was extended over the 

 whole of Italy, some of the nations which in- 

 habited that peninsula had not only explored 

 mines, but had made such progress in the me- 

 chanic arts, and in works of taste and utility, 

 that they may in fact be looked upon as the 

 masters and instructors of the Romans. 



The Etrurians had certainly made some ad- 

 vances in the arts before Rome was founded. 

 Whatever may have been their origin, it seems 

 clear that they had gone before the other na- 

 tions that then inhabited Italy. The Etrurians 

 had brought painting and design, with some 

 other arts, to great perfection, earlier than the 

 time of Romulus ; and the colours and figures 

 on many of their vases are highly valued, even 

 in the present age, and have preserved their ori- 

 ginal freshness and distinctness. These arts had 

 been introduced from Greece by an accidental 

 circumstance ; for we learn that "a certain Co- 

 rinthian named Demaratus, of the family of the 

 Bacchiadse, being engaged in commerce, sailed 

 to Italy with a vessel and cargo of his own, and 

 had returned with great wealth ; but a sedition 

 having broken out at Corinth, and his family, 

 which had been of the oligarchy, being oppressed, 

 Demaratus did not deem himself in security under 



1 Pliny, book iii. cap. 6. 



