810 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



acquainted with their legends and assumed descent. Industri- 

 ous, like modern Armenians, they had successively demanded 

 the protection of the strongest power near them. At one time 

 the Ligurians, and subsequently the Romans, took upon them- 

 selves to defend their interests from Gallic aggression. Their 

 capital, Padavium, now Padua, probably was one of those neu- 

 tral marts necessary to barbarous nations ; it was older than 

 Rome, and, in the time of Tiberius, the second city of Italy for 

 extent and riches. 



They were, Herodotus asserts, Illyrians; and Servius names 

 CEnetus, or Wenetus as one of their kings, assigning them to 

 the same stock as the Liburnians ; also the Tauricians, who, 

 like the Ligurian Taurini, had no doubt a Taurine, or Tor god; 

 the Vindelicians, still more allied to the tribes of the Baltic, 

 with the Brennians and Genaunians ; all at one time derived 

 from the northern shores of the Euxine. Beyond the Liburni 

 and Veneti, the Sigynnse were the only people known to Hero- 

 dotus, as far as the Ister (Danube) ; but as this name in the 

 Ligurian tongue merely denotes traders (Zigeuner,^ pedlers, 

 tinkers), we may helieve that it was a denomination of the 

 Venetic merchants, who went overland to that river, and thence 

 traversed Germany to the Baltic, where they had tribes of 

 kindred origin. Therefore the whole may be claimed as of 

 Finnic source, collectively originators of the numerous markets 

 (nationally Ventae) existing before the extension of the Roman 

 sway to beyond the Rhine and Danube, like a commercial 

 net- work over the west of Europe. In Italy the word Forum 

 was substituted for vent or guent by the Latin nations, while 

 they left Venta to be used beyond the Alps. These were what 

 are now known by the name of Scalae among the more modern 



* It may be remarked, that both the present Armenians and the gypsies 

 Zincali (Zigeuner of the Germans) have a cranial structure very much 

 resembling the high northern tribes of Finnic Hyperboreans, and are simi- 

 larly nomads and soothsayers, sharp in dealing, and ever, like the others, 

 averse to war. 



