Non-Hellenic Portion of the Latin Language. 513 



throughout a great part of the Peninsula, there seems to be a 

 strong argument in favour of such a hypothesis. Considering, 

 therefore, the Umbri as confessedly the most ancient people of 

 Italy, I think we may safely ascribe to them the population of 

 the central and mountainous parts of that country, as also the 

 primitive form of its language, until the several communities of 

 the Etruscans, Sabines, and Latins successively detached them- 

 selves from the parent nation, and, from a combination of diffe- 

 rent elements, adopted also different modifications of the same 

 primeval tongue." 



The history of the Veneti, 1 " in the words of the same author, 

 contains little that is worthy of notice, if we except the remark- 

 able feature, of their being the sole people of Ttaly who not 

 only offered no resistance to the ambitious projects of Rome, but 

 even at an early period rendered that power an essential service, 

 if it be true, as Polybius reports, that the Gauls, who had ta- 

 ken Rome, were suddenly called away by an incursion of the 

 Veneti into their territory (ii. 18.)- The same author also ex- 

 pressly states, that an alliance was afterwards formed between 

 the Romans and Veneti (ii. 23,) a fact which is confirmed by 

 Strabo (v. 216). , ' 



This state of security and peace would seem to have been 

 very favourable to the prosperity of the Venetian nation. Ac- 

 cording to an old geographer, they counted within their territo- 

 ry fifty cities, and a population of a million and a half ; " when 

 the Gauls had been subjugated, the Veneti do not appear to 

 have manifested any unwillingness to constitute a part of the 

 new province, an event which we may suppose to have happened 

 not long after the second Punic War. Their territory from that 

 period was included under the general denomination of Cisal- 

 pine Gaul, and they were admitted to all the privileges which 

 that province successively obtained." 



1 Vol. i. p. 113. 



