the nations of Latium and of Opika. It is proved by passages from Cato, which Servius and Macrobius have preserved, that the Volsci and Rutuli were subject to the Etrurians.* On the right bank of the Tiber the population was of the genuine Tuscan race, and the territory of the Veientes reached near to Rome. It is more difficult to ascertain the northern limit of Lower Etruria. It seems to have varied with the encroachments of the Ligurians, which began about the period of the Gallic invasion of Italy. For some centuries before Augustus it appears that Pisa had been the limit between that barbarous people and the Tuscans,† but it has been proved from Polybius and Livy, that a considerable part of the territory occupied by the Ligurians in Italy to the northward of Pisa, had previously formed a part of Etruria. Scylax alone seems to have made the Etruscans reach northward even on the western coast of Italy as far as the foot of the Alps ; but the territory between the Macra and the Arnus belonged to them, according to many testimonies, as well as an extensive tract of the Apennine which formed the communication between Lower and the Circumpadane Etruria, and which was afterwards occupied by the Ligurians.§ II.-Circumpadane Etruria. The rich plains on both sides the river Po were occupied, when the now lost race of Rasena was at the zenith of its power, by twelve flourishing cities. Among the twelve cities of Upper Etruria none of those towns can be comprised which were situated on the Lower Sea, between the Macra and the Arnus, since it was asserted by Cæcina that all the Etruscan states of this confederation were beyond the Apennines. Many of these cities seem to have been utterly destroyed at the irruption * Servius ad Æneid. xi. 567. Macrob. iii. 5. Müller's Etrusker, Einl. 5. + Polybius says: "The Ligurians live on the Apennines, and those mountains towards Marseilles which join with the Alps, possessing likewise the other two sides which front the great plains and the Tuscan Sea : but towards the west they spread themselves as far as Pisa, which is the first town in Tuscany, and on the inland side as far as Arezzo." (Lib. ii.) Muller's Etrusker, Einl. s. 108. This seems to have been made out, by a comparison of various passages in Polybius, Strabo, and other writers, by Müller. See page 106, Einl. Livy coincides with this statement. Lib. v. 5. of the Gauls. By them Felsima, afterwards Bononia, was conquered. That city is termed by Pliny "Princeps Etruriæ." Melpum, an opulent city in the Milanese, was destroyed by the Senones, Boii, and Insubres. Adria, which gave name to the Adriatic, is supposed to have been one of the twelve cities. A few of these towns of Northern Etruria withstood the Gauls, and maintained themselves until Italy yielded to the Romans. Among these were Verona and Mantua; Ravenna, which afterwards fell into the possession of the Umbrians, is supposed to have been at one period an Etruscan city. Northern Etruria, according to Plutarch,* was very fertile, and contained eighteen cities. Lanzi observes that none of the ancient writers has left us any very definite idea of its limits, though Livy, Strabo, Diodorus, Polybius, and Dionysius have described it.+ Niebuhr has expressed an opinion that Northern Etruria reached not further westward than the Ticinus. Perhaps it is impossible to ascertain the earliest limits between the Tuscans and Ligurians. We ought perhaps to reckon as a part of Northern Etruria the country of the Rhæti and other Alpine nations said to have been of the race of the Rasena. According to Strabo the Lepontii and Camuni were of the same lineage as the Rhæti. Mount Brenner was their boundary towards the north, and consequently the northern limit of the Tuscan race. If we believe Livy, the Rhætian Alps were the refuge of Etrurian fugitives who escaped from the destructive invasion of the Cisalpine Gauls. Modern writers, Frèret, Gibbon, Heyne, Niebuhr, and Otfried Müller, suppose this Alpine region to have been the cradle of the Tuscan race, whence they issued, as so many other barbarian hordes have done through the same passage, to conquer for themselves a dwelling-place in the happiest countries of Italy. The Cisal * Plut. in Vita Camilli. + Polyb ii. cap. 17. See Lanzi, Saggio, tom. iii. p. 583. Livii lib. v. c. 35. Pliny has the same story: 66 Rhætos, Thuscorum prolem, arbitrantur a Gallis pulsos, duce Rhæto." (Hist. Nat. lib. iii. cap. 20.) And Justin repeats it: “Tusci duce Rhæto, avitis sedibus amissis, Alpes occupavêre, et ex ducis nomine gentem Rhætorum condiderunt." (Lib. xx. c. 5.) We have seen, however, that the Rhæti are proved, by the names of places throughout the country occupied by them when conquered by the Romans, to have been Celts. Probably the mountainous country occupied by the Tuscans was only a border of Rhætia. M. Zeuss conjectures that it was the tract of the Euganian hills. pine was, according to this theory, the first of these settlements, and the twelve cities of Tuscany were of later date. This, as we shall find, is contrary to the statements of all the ancients, who uniformly supposed the primitive land of the Etruscans to have been on the Lower Sea. III.-Campanian Etruria. Polybius declares that the Tuscans had formerly possessed the so-termed Phlegræan plains bordering on Capua and Nola. Velleius Paterculus informs us that according to some accounts Capua was built by the Tyrrheni forty-seven years before the foundation of Rome. Pomponius Mela likewise says that it was founded by the Tuscans. In this country, the most part of which had previously belonged to tribes of the Opic nation, and which was afterwards conquered by the Samnites, a people speaking the same Opic or Oscan language and sprung from another branch of the Opic race, the Tuscans during the intermediate ages possessed many towns, and ruled over a great and opulent population. According to Strabo they had in Campania twelve principal cities.* Otfried Müller has collected the names of several towns which must probably have belonged to the number. In the first place were Capua and Nola, then Nuceria on the Sarnus, probably also Herculaneum and Pompeii, places which, according to Strabo, belonged at first to the Oscans, then to the Tyrrheni and Pelasgians, and afterwards to the Samnites. Further inland Sorrentum is said to have been a Tuscan city, as well as Marcina. Salernum is conjectured by Müller to have been the metropolis in this Southern Etruria. Suessa in the northern part of Campania, and the Circaan Aea, are mentioned as places built by the Tyrrheni; but it would appear that in this instance the term must mean Pelasgic, and not properly Etruscan; and this is one example among many of that ambiguity in the meaning of these names which puzzles those who attempt researches into the early ethnography of Italy. The great population, wealth, and luxury for which Capua and Campania in general were famed, must be considered as of Tuscan growth, for the old Oscans were a rude people, and * Strabo, lib. v. p. 247. VOL. III. R had no great cities. According to Cato, Capua was built by the Tuscans 283 A.U.C., a statement which is rejected by Müller, who remarks that it could not have grown so rapidly into fame and opulence. In 331, scarcely fifty years afterwards, the Tuscan power was entirely destroyed in Campania. Müller has indeed shown that Capua has been mentioned as already existing in the history of an earlier period. Under the Tuscans it was termed Vulturnum, from the river Vulturnus. The Samnite conquerors of the country termed it Capua, or as the name is found on coins Kapfa: they called themselves Campanians, Kappano, or Kampano. Müller conjectures with probability that the old Oscan language was preserved in the country during the Tuscan domination, since it was afterwards the general idiom of the Samnite Campanians, and from the fact that no genuine Tuscan inscriptions have been discovered in Campania. After these general remarks on the Etruscans, and on the extension of their race and lineage in Italy, I shall now proceed to their origin and early history. - SECTION IX. Of the Accounts left by the Ancients respecting the Origin of the Etruscans. Of the Opinions of Modern Writers. Reflections. I have observed that the traditions collected by ancient writers relative to the population of Etruria and the origin of the Etruscans, represent them as foreigners who came to Italy at a particular period, and not as indigenous inhabitants. I shall advert to these accounts under two heads: first, traditions derived from the Greeks; secondly, native traditions, or stories handed down among the native Italians. Paragraph 1.-Greek traditions respecting the colonisation of Etruria. These traditions having a Grecian origin, may again be divided into two very distinct sets, namely, those which relate to the proper Etruscans, and secondly, various accounts referring to Pelasgian colonies in the northern parts of Italy. Greek traditions relating to the proper Etruscans. The prevalent account among the Greeks, adopted from them by Roman poets, and afterwards believed even in the country whence the Etruscans are by it derived, is the story first given by Herodotus, which makes them a colony from Lydia. Herodotus connects the migration of the Etruscans from Lydia with circumstances so extremely absurd as to lessen the credibility of the whole account. It is evident that he obtained his statement from the people of Lydia. They claimed, as he says, the invention of coinage, and of certain games which were discovered on the following occasion. All Lydia was long afflicted with famine; to alleviate this calamity the people betook themselves, not to agriculture or other resources for increasing subsistence, but to games, with which they so occupied themselves as to forget the want of food during alternate days, and thus to consume a smaller quantity. After eighteen years thus passed, they sought a more effectual remedy by sending half the population away. The emigrants, under Tyrrhenus, a son of king Atys, built for themselves ships at Smyrna, and arrived in Umbria, where they erected cities, and from the name of their leader, Tyrrhenus, the son of Atys, were named Tyrrheni.* This story has been repeated by a great number of Greek and Latin writers, but generally in such terms as to leave no room for doubt that it was taken by each of them from the father of history.+ Thus Silius Italicus, in his fifth book: દ "Lydius huic genitor, Tmoli decus, æquore longè Tyrrhenus pubem." The only writer of antiquity who disbelieved this account was Dionysius of Halicarnassus. He rejected it entirely on the following considerations: first, "Xanthus the Lydian, who was as well acquainted with ancient history as any man, and whose testimony may be relied upon with regard to that of his own country," made no mention of any colony sent to Italy. He says that Lydus and Torrhebus were the sons of Atys, and that *Herod. lib. xciv. See Strabo, lib. v. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. iii. c. 1. Solinus, cap. viii. Tacitus, Ann. lib. iv. Vell. Paterc. lib. i. Valerius Max. lib. ii. c. 4. Plutarch. in Romulo. Cicero, Fragm. de Consulatu. Virgil. Æn. ii. 8, 10. Horat. Sat. lib. i. Statius, Silv. iv. Lycophron, v. 1352. Marcian, Heracl. apud Hudson. |