THE HUMAN SPECIES. 895 



Roman population is not more authentic than that of Ante- 

 nor on the coast of the Adriatic, though popular legends are 

 seldom without some basis of truth ; and that Asia Minor con- 

 tributed several tribes of migrators to different parts of Italy, 

 can scarcely be disputed. 



Of all the Roman nobility, the Julian family alone was con- 

 sidered to be of indigenous origin ; the rest were Pelasgi, 

 Etruscans, Sabines, Siculi, and others from the hills, whose 

 parentage is unknown. Although they were mixed with fair- 

 haired tribes, the aspect, profile, and structure of the Roman, 

 has greater resemblance to the Persic aquiline-featured race 

 than to a Celto Scythic type, notwithstanding that the Arabian 

 name for the people, probably derived from the appearance of 

 the majority of the foreign garrisons in the eastern empire, in 

 general composed of northern levies, was Be?ii Asfar, that is, 

 fair-haired, " as of Esau." If any relics of the Roman physi- 

 ognomy be now traceable within the boundaries of the once 

 mighty state, they must be sought among the mob population 

 of the city beyond the Tiber, known as the Transteverini ; fo 

 they still bear the animal square-built form, observable in the 

 statues of ancient Romans, with the aquiline features and deep- 

 set eyes, bespeaking power and daring. Elsewhere they have 

 vanished, and they never can have been numerically prominent 

 where there was more of a class population than a real nation- 

 ality ; Rome, during the degradation of the empire, becoming 

 a city of foreigners, and the older civic inhabitants scattered 

 over every part of the empire, in search of lucrative office, or 

 possessing all excepting the military, which was exclusively in 

 the hands of strangers. The true Romans had therefore disap- 

 peared before the state itself was extinguished, and, even in 

 Constantinople, scarcely a family of Roman descent appears 

 prominent during the eastern empire. 



