be given to the study of points, that admit of clear and satisfactory illustration.

7. Such a one may be found in the history of the Etruscans. The works of Claudius,* of Dionysius, of Aristotle, and, in short, of all the writers by whom the events of Etruscan history, and the peculiarities of their manners and customs, had been minutely described, are lost; but the numerous monuments which are brought to light from day to day, and those fragments of the ancients which have survived the general wreck of their works, afford an accurate, if not always a complete, guide to the critical historian.

The express testimony of Dionysius should satisfy us, that the Etruscans were of the primitive Italian stock. The incongruous systems, by which a Lydian and a Pelasgic origin have in turns been attributed to them, should alone be sufficient to convince us of the futility of these disputes, even were there any thing in the language, the manners, or the usages of the Etruscans to give color to such a theory. They were originally called Raseni by the natives; Tyrrheni, or Tyrseni, by the Greeks; Tusci, or Etrusci, by the Romans. During the first centuries of Rome, and after the subjection of the Umbri, the state of central Etruria was bounded by the following natural lines.

(1.) The summit of the winding chain of the Apennines, from the sources of the Serchio to those of the Tiber.

(2.) The Tiber, from its rise to the sea.

(3.) The coast, from the mouth of the Tiber to that of the Arno.

The early attention which this people paid to agriculture and to commerce, together with their courage and their skill in the use of arms, put their power upon a strong and durable foundation. In their wars with the Umbri, which are placed about five hundred years before the building of Rome, they were probably assisted by the Pelasgi. Previous to this epoch also, they had extended their possessions beyond the Apennines, into what is now called the Bolognese and Ferra

rese.

They spread thence over the adjacent plains between the Apennines and the Alps. The state of the soil, still

* The Emperor Claudius, we are sorry to say, was as good a scholar as he was foolish and impotent for an emperor. Besides various other works, he wrote a history of the Etruscans, in Greek.

covered with water, either stagnant or flowing with too rapid and uncertain a current to admit of its being rendered subservient to the ordinary purposes of commercial communication, opposed an insuperable barrier to their progress on the side of the Veneti; and they seem not to have passed the Trebbia in the opposite direction. But all the remaining tracts betwixt the Po and the Alps were occupied by strong and active colonies, which copied closely the laws and the institutions of the mother country. Of the twelve great cities which stood at the head of this new alliance, we know the names of but four; Adria, which lent its name to the Adriatic sea, and which, although originally built on a gulf, near the lower branch of the Adige, is now somewhat more than fifteen miles from the coast; Mantua; Felsina, now called Bologna; and Melpo.

Like the citizens of the parent state, they early directed their attention to agriculture and those arts which are most conducive to civilization. The country, constantly exposed to inundations and cut up by marshes and lagoons, could only be won to use by the slow process of draining; nor could this have been accomplished without a considerable progress in hydraulics and in the sciences on which it depends. They cultivated also those arts for which central Etruria was so renowned; and inscriptions, bronzes, and painted vases have been found, in great abundance, in almost every part of their territories. But in the second century of Rome, the great Gallic invasion, which so long separated these regions from the rest of Italy, overthrew this flourishing colony, and put an effectual stop to the progress of civilization in the north of the peninsula. Those of the inhabitants, who escaped from the sword of the barbarians, were driven for shelter to the mountains and the strong fastnesses of Rezia. Proofs of their residence there have been discovered in monuments brought to light in our own times.

By a series of wars and of conquests, which it would be not only useless but impossible to describe in detail, the confederation of central Etruria extended its power likewise in the south of Italy. The war with the Latins terminated in a firm friendship, and in the adoption by the latter of many Etruscan rites and ceremonies. The Volsci were subdued, and the conquerors gradually advanced as far as the Garigliano. The inviting aspect of the fertile tract, which lies be

yond this river, allured them into Campania; and here also they formed a settlement by means of twelve colonies, and according to the prevailing custom of their country. The Silaro was its southern boundary; Vulturnum, subsequently called Capua, Nola, Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Marcina, were among its principal cities. The original Oscan inhabitants became mingled with their conquerors, and continued to form a large proportion of the population. The Umbri were allies or auxiliaries of the Etruscans in this conquest; nor is it impossible that some Pelasgi may have accompanied them. But the theories which represent the Tyrrhenic confederation of Campania as a settlement of the Pelasgi, and that of northern Italy as founded by a people from still further north, are contradicted by the concurrent testimony of all antiquity, as well as by the constant analogy of monuments and of usages.

The most important possessions of the Etruscans were those which lay along the shore of the upper and of the lower seas, or, in other words, of the Adriatic and of the Tyrrhene. The tracts which bordered on the former, were within the territories which they had wrested from the Umbri. The latter were won by conquest from the Liguri Appuani, and included the districts of the Magra and of the Gulf of Spezia. The city of Luni is supposed to have been built in order to secure the navigation of this noble gulf. It is to the advantages of such a situation, and to the commercial activity which was its necessary result, that we must in a great measure attribute the advancement, which they made in nearly every branch of civilization.

The twelve cities which stood at the head of the confederation of central Etruria were probably Chiusi, Cortona, Arezzo, Perugia, Volterra, Vetulonia, Roselle, Tarquinia, Cere, Volsinio, and Vejo. Besides these, Fiesole, Saturnia, Populonia, and various other places, which derived more or less importance from their position or from the industry of their inhabitants, added strength to the league, and served as channels through which wealth flowed into the capitals.

During the first centuries of Rome, the power of the Etruscans seems to have been already on the decline. The union of the league, never so perfect as its situation required, had been so far weakened, that it was hardly possible to conduct any enterprise with concert and perseverance. Wealth

had been followed by its inseparable attendants, luxury and corruption. The warlike spirit, though not wholly lost, was unequal to any great effort. The cities of the league wasted their strength separately, and without regard to their common interest as members of one body. But even in this state they opposed an obstinate resistance to the successive attacks of the Gauls, of the Samnites, and of the Romans, and it was not until after their strength had been consumed by five centuries of uninterrupted warfare, that they were fully and irrevocably reduced under the Roman yoke. Even then some appearance of liberty was preserved in their municipal institutions; and wealth and activity enough remained to enable them to make still further progress in those arts to which we are so much indebted for what little we know of their character and of their customs.

8. Aurunci, Opici, and Osci are the names borne by the primitive inhabitants of Italy. The Greeks called them also Ausonii. We shall employ the word Osci in speaking of the first inhabitants of the southern portions of the peninsula, without regard to the other appellations, which undoubtedly refer to one and the same people.

The rough fastnesses of the Apennines, together with the fertile valleys that lie between, were the original abode of the Osci. The wants of pastoral life are few, and have ever been abundantly supplied by the meadows and vales of these mountains; nor could there have been any inducement for the inhabitants to exchange dwellings so peculiarly adapted to their mode of life, for the noxious air of the lowlands, except when an increase of population compelled them to remove their seats, and a certain progress in the arts had qualified them to contend with the difficulties of such an undertaking. Thus, in spite of the bold and independent character of the mountaineers, the coast was open to whoever was willing to submit to the toil of draining its marshes, and confining to a fixed channel the course of its numerous and impetuous streams.

The Illyrians, a hardy race of pirates, were the first to avail themselves of this opportunity. Their excursions along the coast, and their encounters with the inhabitants, were among the chief causes of the revolutions to which we have already had occasion to allude in speaking of the Umbri and of the Siculi. Traces of the establishments of the

Liburni and of other Illyrians upon the eastern coast of the upper sea, were preserved long after the total destruction of their race and name. Nearly about the same time began the incursions of the Greeks, which finally terminated in the settlement, by that nation, of Magna Grecia. These repeated invasions of a warlike and barbarous people concurred with other causes, which arose more directly from their own manner of living, in confining the Osci, for the most part, to their original seats in the interior and among the mountains. Here they lived independent and free from all subjection; although in the onset they had suffered more or less from the encroaching ambition of their neighbours.

Thus, after the Trojan war, and during the first two centuries of Rome, the population of southern Italy was divided. into two distinct classes; the Greek colonies, settled on the coast, and the Osci, who occupied the upper Apennine and its numerous branches. From these last sprang the various tribes whose names figure with more or less distinction in the wars of Rome.

9. The history of the Sabines, one of the principal branches of the great Oscan trunk, carries us back to that remote period, in which the invasion of foreigners from over sea drove back the Aboriginal tribes one upon another, and gave rise to those domestic revolutions of which we have already spoken at large. Their first habitations were among the lofty mountains of upper Abruzzo, near the sources of the Velino, Tronto, and Pescara. A part of them, forcibly driven from these seats, shut themselves up in the fastnesses of the highlands between Aquila and Lionessa. The rest of the tribe, following the valley of Turano, descended to the banks of the Arno and of the Tiber. It would be vain to think of marking with certainty the extent and boundaries of their territory. But it appears, from the best accounts, to have comprised the space of about a hundred miles in the very heart of the Apennines; bounded on the northwest by Umbria, from which it was separated by the course of the Nera; on the northeast, by the chain of mountains which skirts the confines of Picinum; on the east, by the Vestini; on the south by Latium, and the banks of the Anio, up to its junction with the Tiber; and on the west, following the course of the latter, by the country of the Vegentani and Falisci. During the infancy of Rome, their dominion ex