8 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1776. 



one of the most distinguished personages among them, retired with the best 

 part of their effects and attendants among the steepest mountains of the Alps, 

 near the sources of the Rhine, into the district now called the Grey League. 

 The motive of their flight, their civil deportment, and perhaps more so the 

 wealth they brought with them, procured them a favourable reception from the 

 original inhabitants of that inhospitable region, who are mentioned by authors 

 as being a Celtic nation, fabulously conjectured from their name (AaTrc/vTioi, 

 relicti) to have been left there by Hercules in his expedition into Spain. 



The new adventurers had no sooner climbed over the highest precipices, but 

 thinking themselves secure from the pursuits of their rapacious enemies, they 

 fixed in a valley which, from its great fertility in comparison of the country they 

 had just passed, they called Domestica. They intermixed willi the old inhabit- 

 ants, and built some towns and many castles, whose present names manifestly 

 bespeak their origin. They soon after spread all over the country, which took 

 the name of Rhtetia fi-om that of their leader ; and introduced a form of go- 

 vernment similar to their own, of which there are evident traces at this day, 

 especially in the administration of justice ; in which a Laertes, or President, now 

 called Landamman, or Mitiistral, together with twelve Lucumones, or jurors, 

 determine all causes, both civil and criminal : and Livy, though he erroneously 

 pretends that they retained none of their ancient customs, yet allows that they 

 continued the use of their language, though somewhat adulterated by a mbcture 

 with that of the Aborigines. .,1 .^ .^^, ^^.,-, , i;,, 



Several Roman families, dreading the fury of the Cartliaginians under Han- 

 nibal ; and perhaps since, during the rage of the civil wars, and the subsequent 

 oppressive reigns, interior commotions and foreign invasions, forsook tl">e 

 Latium and Campania, and resorted for a peaceful enjoyment of their liberty, 

 some into the islands where Venice now stands ; and many into the mountains 

 of the Grisons, where they chiefly fixed their residence in the Engadine, as ap- 

 pears not only from the testimonies of authors, but also from the names of 

 several places and families which are evidently of Roman derivation. The in- 

 habitants these emigrants found in that place of refuge, could not but be a mix- 

 ture of the Tuscans and original Lepontii : and the 2 languages which met on 

 this occasion, must at the very first have had some affinity ; as the Tuscan, 

 which derived immediately from the Greek, is known to have had a great share 

 in the formation of the Roman. But as it is generally observed, that the more 

 polished people introduce their native tongue wherever they go to reside in any 

 considerable numbers, the arrival of these successive colonies must gradually 

 have produced a considerable change in the language of the country in which 

 they settled ; and this change gave rise to the dialect since called Ladin, probably 

 from the name of the mother country of its principal authors.* 



