bellian leaven in Rome. The federal government and feudal aristocracy of the Etrurians, were ill adapted for conquest; but the secret of their early impotence in war may, perhaps, be found in the single epithet, "obesus Etruscus.” *

But, before we enter upon the consideration of the Pelasgian and Etruscan races, we must spare a little space for some passing remarks upon the Umbri and Siceli, the Latins, the Ligurians, Liburnians and Venetians. With the popuhation of Magna Græcia we have no concern at present; for whatever be its antiquity, it did not come in contact with Rome until a late period, and any notice of it belongs pecubiarly to Greek history.

The origin of the Umbrians is hidden in impenetrable obscurity,we can trace no descent for them from any of the other races of Italy. They are represented as the earliest race of Italy, but their primary seat, Reate, is stated to have been previously occupied by the Aborigines. By some authors, ancient and modern, they are supposed to have been Gauls other modern writers contend that they were Celts. "It is certain, however, that the Umbrians were a great nation, before the time of the Etruscans, in the age of the Sicelians, and that they have a right to the name of a most ancient and genuine people of Italy. Their city, Ameria, was built, according to Cato, 964 years before the war with Perseus; or 381 before Rome." But, "for us, the Umbrians are only the name of a great forgotten people." Their language was different from the Etruscan, though the two nations became intimately connected, though not so closely as Mrs. Gray supposes; for their indissoluble alliance with the Tuscans, during the whole of their historical existence," of which she speaks, is singularly at variance with their neutrality while Etruria was engaged in her dying struggle with Rome In their earlier age, before subjected into a servile

Catull, Carm. 39, v. 11-pinguis Tyrrhenus,” i. e., Etruscus, Virgil's Georg. ii., 193.

Mrs. Gray accuses Niebuhr of saying that the Umbrians are the oldest people in Italy," Hist. Etruria, c. 4, p. 75. We have not seen the passage. She charges him with inconsistency, because they drove out the Siceli,-but he says that this took place when they "spread as conquerors." Hist. Rome, vol. 1, pp. 88, 102.

Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. 1, p. 88. Note 430, is a direct contradiction of Mrs, Gray's accusation, refuted in the preceding note, for in it he says that the Umbri were called antiquissima gens Italia, merely in contrast with other races, as being of unmixed blood themselves,

Anthon's Class, Dict. Tit. "Umbria." See Mrs, Gray, Hist. Etruria, vol. 1, pp. 79, 76.

alliance with the Etruscans, they were a numerous and conquering people.* Before this event, they are said to have possessed three hundred towns,† of which Silius Italicus enumerates Silium, Were, Arna, Mævania, Hispallum, Narnia, Iguvium, Fulginia, Ameria, Camers, Sassina and Tuder. But Silius is an unsafe antiquarian,-the same reliance cannot be placed upon him in this respect as upon Virgil, though he is one of Mrs. Hamilton Gray's principal authorities, her chief one, indeed, after modern authors. "The Umbrian nation consisted," says Niebuhr, "of several races, some of which dwelt in towns, others in rural cantons." We may mention, that Mrs. Hamilton Gray "believes the Umbri to have been of the same origin as the Sikeli," but on what she founds her belief, is not made apparent,-there is neither authority cited nor reason alleged, it is purely a wild conjecture.

The Sicelians, or Siculians, may be found in almost every region and corner of Italy,--the other nations of Italy called all their enemies by this name; and, perhaps, this may account for its universal prevalence, and no doubt frequently for its unjust application. Thus, many races, not of Sicelian blood, may have been spoken of under this name. Niebuhr thinks them to have been Pelasgians. We will not express either assent or dissent, for we have not room to set forth our reasons, and the race is too unimportant in itself to justify such an occupation of our pages at present. They were rude and wholly uncultivated, living apparently a wild and savage life, and they have left behind them only uncertain traditions, numerous though they be. We are disposed to agree for once with Mrs. Gray, and call the Sicelians Oscans, or Aborigines, though this does not alter our position with respect to Niebuhr, for he considers the Pelasgians to have been Aborigines too. It is, perhaps, hopeless to wind our way through the confusion of these tribes. In our despair, we must content ourselves with the conviction, that "no man can mount up to the fountain head of those

* Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. 1, p. 88. Mrs. Hamilton Gray, Hist. Etruria, vol. 1, c. 4, p. 76.

+ Mrs. Hamilton Gray, Hist. Etruria, vol. 1, c. 4, p. 76.

Punic, lib. viii., 448-60.

Hist. Etruria, vol. 1, c. 4, p. 78. They were totally distinct in character and in customs, though there is some analogy between several Umbrian and Latin words.

streams, by which the tribes of the present race have been borne down." *

We proceed to the Latins. The legends enumerate three kings of the Aborigines, between the time of Saturn and the Trojan settlements in Latium. They were in lineal descent, and bore the names of Picus, Faunus and Latinus. The last either gave his own appellation to the people over whom he ruled, or received it from them. At an early period, either the whole of the Latin nation, or a portion of it, was known as the Prisci-Latini, or the united tribes of the Prisci (Priores or Primi Osci?) and the Latini. Niebuhr thinks that the Latin name should properly be appropriated to the Siculians of Latium, which would be, in his opinion, to render them Pelasgians. The Prisci, who are also termed Sacrani in the legends, may have been Sabellians from Monte Velino and the Lago di Celano, or Sabines, as Mrs. Hamilton Gray calls them after Sir William Gell. The Latins must then be considered to have been a branch of the widely extended aboriginal population, formed by the union of two principal tribes, the Sabellians and the Siculians,-whether the latter were Pelasgians, or totally distinct from them as Opicans. There is every evidence of the admixture of both Pelasgian and Etruscan elements in the Latin people, and perhaps the historical introduction of the latter might be traced with some accuracy, but we would be chary of hazarding the opinions indulged by Mrs. Gray, who discovers only Etruscan institutions throughout Latium, and imagines an Etruscan origin for all its principal towns.

The Latins were undoubtedly a great and powerful people, they appear such even in historic times,-baving been a strong federated republic as late as the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, and probably later. Their first metropolis was Lavinium, which is the same as Latinium, and was the common capital of the Latin tribes, in the same way that the Panionium was of the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor. Here the delegates of the thirty towns of Latium were wont to assemble, for the business of the common weal, in the Tem

* Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. 1, p. 100.

+ Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. 1, p 59. Mrs. Hamilton Gray, Hist. Etruria, vol. 1, c. 16, p. 372.

+ Mrs. Hamilton Gray, Hist. Etruria, vol. 1, c. 16, pp. 372–82. Lavinium was Etruscan, because it contained paintings "similar in style to those of Cære."

ple of Jupiter Latiatis. The seat of power was afterwards transferred to Alba, with the names of ten of whose suffragan cities we are acquainted,-Mugilla, Politorium, Præneste, Tibur, Gabri, Nomentum, Bovilla, Crustumerium, Fidenæ, and Rome, the youngest and greatest of them all.* But the history of Latium is so fully absorbed into the early history of Rome, that it is sufficient for our purpose to have indicated their origin.

The Ligurians, Liburnians, and Venetians, were, in all probability, cognate tribes. The Ligurians were brave and poor, the Venetians effeminate and rich, and they transmitted to their descendants, the modern Venetians, that commercial spirit and enterprize for which they were themselves distinguished. "The Ligurians," says Niebuhr, "are one of those nations that the short span of our history embraces only in their decline." They were at one time widely extended, for "it seems extremely probable, that this people were dwelling of yore from the Pyrenees to the Tiber, with the Cevennes and the Helvetian Alps for its northern boundary. Of their place in the family of nations we are ignorant. We only know that they were neither Iberians nor Celts." The majority of ancient writers "speak highly of the industry, the indefatigable patience, and the contentedness of the Ligurians, no less than of their boldness and dexterity."+

There are only two more races remaining of sufficient note to attract our particular attention,-the Pelasgians and the Etruscans, but they are the most important of all. The earliest traditions of Asia Minor, of Greece, and of Italy, and the earliest monuments, preserved or spoken of, attest the existence, at a very remote period, of a widely diffused race, whose power had passed away long before men in those regions began to take note of passing events for the information of posterity. "It is not as a mere hypothesis," says Niebuhr, "but with a full historical conviction, that I assert, there was a time, when the Pelasgians, then perhaps more widely spread than any other people in Europe, extended from the Po and the Arno almost to the Bosphorus." the Isles of the Egean and Sicilian Seas, in Crete and in Cyprus, they may likewise be traced, but when we attempt to inquire, who they were, whence they came, what were

* Mrs. Hamilton Gray, Hist. Etruria, vol. 1, c. 16, p. 377. + Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. 1, pp. 96, 97.

Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. 1, p. 48.

In

their institutions, and what progress they had made in the arts of civilization, history is silent, tradition is confused, and their mighty edifices of stone are dumb. A deep mystery shrouds their fate, and with a melancholy feeling we contemplate their fortunes. There are a few other instances on record of nations having vanished from the earth,—the Celts, the Mexicans of the earlier dynasty, and the Peruvians. All conjecture is feeble and unsatisfactory, which attempts to account for or exhibit their history and origin, but they are not so intimately connected with the brighter portions of the human career, as to render the obscurity in which they are involved a subject of the deepest and most painful regret. But such is the feeling with which we always regard the scanty and vague traditions relative to the Pelasgians. We have at least some authentic accounts, and a portion of the history of those Indians of our own time and our own continent, who are now withering away before our eyes like a shrivelled leaf, which, as it loses its sap and its substance, is dissolved into the bosom of the all-receiving earth. But the legends of the Pelasgians are obscure, uncertain and contradictory they baffle and mislead the curiosity which they excite. The very name arrests us in the first steps of inquiry. Was it a national name? or a generic one? or merely a loose attribute derived from some habit or peculiarity? Niebuhr thinks it was the first ;* Thirlwall denies it, and affirms the last, but conceives it to have been a general appellation bestowed upon many kindred races, who had their peculiar and appropriate names besides. Mrs. Gray; thinks that it agrees in significance and application with the Egyptian Hyksos, and that it is itself of Syro-Egyptian derivation; and a hundred other fanciful hypotheses have been started.

Their origin is uncertain as their name. Michelet, Muller and others conceive them to have been Phoenicians or Philistines, who wandered over Asia Minor and the shores of the Mediterranean, and finally descended upon the rich valleys of Greece, and the pleasant regions of Italy. Niebuhr wisely refrains from speculation, on a point where no successful conclusions can be anticipated. Mrs. Gray boldly assumes them to have been Phoenicians and Egyptians in

Niebuhr, Hist. Rome, vol. 1, p. 37.

+ Thirlwall's Hist. Greece, c. iii.

Mrs. Hamilton Gray, Hist. Etruria, vol. 1, c. 5, p. 98.