of the Oscan nation. The agreement between the Greek and Latin languages in words that relate to agriculture and the arts of social life, while they differ wholly in the names of objects belonging to war or the chase, is a strong proof that the agricultural laborers or serfs were of Pelasgian origin, and the warriors a superior caste of Oscan descent. Little is known of the religion of the ancient Latins, or the deities they worshipped. Jánus, or Diánus, was the god of the sun, Saturn the vivifying power of nature, and his wife Ops the productive energy of the earth; but the distinctive character of these deities was lost when, in a late age, the native legends of Látium were blended and confounded with the mythology of Greece.

The Sabines and their cognate tribes are included under the common name of Sabellians; they were the most widely extended and the greatest people in Italy when the Romans advanced beyond the frontiers of Látium. Their original home was in the neighborhood of Amiter'nium, among the highest of the Apennines that are now included in Abruzzo Ultra. From these they descended at a very remote age, driving the Cascans before them in one direction, and the Umbrians in another. Their colonies were sent out according to a singular religious institution called the "Ver Sácrum," or sacred spring. Every twenty years the children and cattle born within the twelvemonth were consecrated and set apart for founding a colony; and, as soon as they reached mature age, were sent forth for the purpose. One of these occupied Picénum, then inhabited by the Pelasgians; another passed into the land of the Opicans, or Oscans, and became the founders of the great Samnite race. To the Sabellan race belonged also the Frentanians on the coast of the Adriatic, the tribes that conquered Campánia, the powerful nation of the Lucanians, and the four confederate tribes of Marsians, Manucinians, Pelignians, and Vestinians. The Hernicans were a sub-colony of the Marsians.

The Lucanians, pushing their conquests into Enotria, were soon involved in war with the Greek colonies, most of which they subdued. They were joined by the Samnites from Campánia (B. c. 437), who gained possession of Vultur'num. They soon advanced to the Laus (B. c. 423), and confirmed their power by the total defeat of the Thurians (B. c. 387). At length they were brought into hostile contact with the Romans, and soon stripped of all their power.

The Sabellian tribes, more especially those in the north, were distinguished for their love of divination, the rigid severity of their morals, and their cheerful contentedness. In other respects their characters differed. The Sabines and most of the northern tribes lived in open villages; the Samnites fortified the hills on which they dwelt; and the Lucanians became attached to residence in cities. The want of union between the Sabellian tribes prevented that race from becoming predominant in Italy. The Samnites owed their downfall to the want of a central metropolis, and the unity it confers. It was only in time of war that they elected a commander-in-chief, called emberator ; a term which the Latins borrowed, and changed into imperator, using it instead of their old words dictator and prætor.

The Etrurians or Etruscans, who conquered the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, were called in their own tongue "Raséna:" they established a kind of

feudal supremacy over the subjugated nation, and deprived the Tyrrhenians of all political privileges. All public affairs were decided in the general council of the Lucumones, a sacerdotal caste whose privileges descended by inheritance. From the want of a free and respectable commonwealth, the Etruscans, though possessed of great wealth and power, having been at one time masters of the commerce and navigation of the western Mediterranean, proved unequal to cope with the Romans, whose infantry was composed of free citizens. The regal office was not hereditary, but elective, and the power of the kings was very limited. Before the conquest the Tyrrhenians were remarkable for their piracies, and the Etruscans followed the same course. Their corsairs were the terror of the western Mediterranean, until their navy was almost annihilated, in a sea-fight off Cúmæ, by Híero, king of Syracuse. About two centuries afterward, they partially recovered their power, and extended their piracies even into the Ægean sea; but they were finally subdued by the Rhodians.

The Etruscans had made great advances in the arts and sciences. The ruins of their public works rival those of ancient Egypt in magnitude, and surpass them in utility, especially the dikes for fencing the delta of the Po, and the tunnels for draining the lakes that formed in the craters of extinct volcanoes. Their pottery and metal works, if not of Greek origin, were certainly improved by Grecian artisans, and may therefore be attributed to the Pelasgic Tyrrhenians. No Italian nation was so religious, or rather superstitious, as the Etrurians: from them the Romans borrowed most of their ritual and ceremonies, the rules of augury and divination, and the solemnities in the declaration of peace or war. At a very early age Greek literature supplanted the native literature of Etruria, and the ancient lore of the Tuscans fell into what seems to have been unmerited oblivion.

The Umbrians were a nation consisting of several distinct races, the most remarkable being the Camer'tes and the Sarsinátes. Their language appears to have been a mixture of Etrurian and Oscan. It is the misfortune of the Umbrians that their greatness had disappeared before the age of certain history; their glory seems to have passed away when the rich countries bordering on the seacoast were occupied by the Gauls.

The southeast of Italy, or Japy'gia, was occupied by the Messapians, the Peucetians, and the Daunians. The Messapians are said to have been an old Pelasgian colony from Crete; they were a very powerful people until the city of Tarentum had acquired sufficient strength to contend for the supremacy of southern Italy, when, after a tedious struggle, they were compelled to enter into an alliance of inferiority with the Tarentines.

The Peucetians appear to have been a Liburnian colony from Illyria; the Daunians, a Pelasgic colony from Ætólia. The latter were subdued by the Apulians, an Oscan horde, and their name was lost in that of their conquerors. The language of the inhabitants of that part of Italy called Japy'gia was Greek.

The Ligurians and Venetians appear to have been branches of the great Liburnian nation, which at one time possessed both sides of the northern Adriatic. The former were a brave, warlike people; for more

than forty years they resisted the Roman arms, and it is perhaps on this account that they are stigmatized as liars and deceivers by classical writers. On the other hand, the Venetians submitted without a struggle; but it is probable that the evils they had suffered from the invasion made them anxious to obtain the protection of some powerful state.

SECTION III.-The Greek Colonies in Italy.

FROM B. C. 1030 TO B. c. 277.

THE earliest Greek settlement in Italy, of which we have any certain historical information, came from Chálcis in the island of Eubœa, and settled at Cúmæ (B. c. 1030). This city soon attained a high degree of prosperity, established a powerful navy, and founded flourishing colonies, of which Neap'olis and Zan'cle (afterward called Messana) were the chief. Its form of government was aristocratic; but this constitution was subverted (B. c. 544) by the tyrant Aristodémus. Freedom was restored after his assassination; but the Cumans, weakened by internal dissensions, suffered severely in a war with the Eretrians and Daunians (B. c. 500), and were finally subdued by the Campanians. Cúmæ was annexed to the Roman dominions (B. c. 345); but in consequence of its harbor at Puteoli, it retained a considerable share of its importance even after the loss of its independence.

Tarentum was founded by the Parthenii from Spar'ta, under Phalan'tus (B. c. 707), as has been already mentioned. The colonists had to maintain long wars against the Italian tribes in their neighborhood, especially the Messapians and Lucanians; but they prevailed over these uncivilized barbarians, and made their city one of the most flourishing maritime states in western Europe. Luxury, however, finally brought effeminacy and weakness. To escape from the grasping ambition of the Romans, the Tarentines invited Pyr'rhus, king of Epírus, into Italy; but after the departure of that monarch, the city became dependant on Rome (B. c. 277).

Cróton was founded by the Achæans (B. c. 710). Even in the first century of its existence the city attained such power as to be able to raise an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men. The constitution was in a great degree democratic, and continued so until the philosopher Pythagoras came to reside in Cróton (B. c. 540). He established a secret association among his disciples, the chief object of which was to secure a monopoly of political power to the members of the Pythagorean society. In a few years three hundred men, all Pythagoreans, held the sovereignty of Cróton; and the influence of the new sect was established not only in the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily, but over a great part of ancient Greece and the islands of the Egean. The Crotonians soon after engaged in war with the Sybarites, and destroyed their city. Success proved ruinous; the inferior ranks of men in Crótona, intoxicated with prosperity, and instigated by the artful and ambitious Cy'lon, whose turbulent manners had excluded him from the order of Pythag'oras, into which he had repeatedly attempted to enter, became clamorous for an equal partition of the conquered territory of Sybaris, which being denied, as inconsistent with the nature of the oligarchy established by the Pythagoreans, they secretly con

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spired against their magistrates, attacked them by surprise in the senatehouse, put many to death, and drove the rest from their country. Pythag'oras himself died soon afterward at Metapon'tum, in Lucania, having lived just long enough to witness the ruin of the structure he had labored so anxiously to raise. Cróton never perfectly recovered from the fatal effects of this civil war; it was repeatedly captured by the kings of Syracuse; and after the departure of Pyrrhus from Italy, it became dependant on Rome.

Sybaris was founded by an Achæan colony (B. c. 720). The extreme fertility of the soil, and the generous admission of all strangers to the right of citizenship, caused the population to increase so rapidly, that, in a war against the Crotonians, the Sybarites are said to have brought three hundred thousand men into the field. Its vast wealth, derived chiefly from an extensive trade in wine and oil with northern Africa and Gaul, rendered it the most extensive, populous, and luxurious city in Europe from about B. c. 600 to B. c 550; so that the debauchery and effeminacy of the Sybarites became proverbial. Disputes arose between the aristocratic and democratic factions, which led to a civil war. At length, Télys, the leader of the multitude, obtained possession of the supreme power, and expelled five hundred of the principal nobles, who fled for refuge to Crótona. The Sybarites sent to demand these refugees, and, meeting with a refusal, put to death the Crotonian ambassadors. Such an outrage naturally led to a war between the two cities (B. C. 510). With far inferior forces the Crotonians defeated the Sybarites in the field, took their city by storm, and razed it to the ground. The Sybarites, driven from their habitations, besought the Lacedæmonians and the Athenians to restore them, requesting them, at the same time, to send a colony to share in the new city they had resolved to build. The ambassadors were rejected at Spar'ta; but the Athenians, who delighted in such applications, cheerfully granted their aid (B. c. 446). A squadron of ten ships, having a considerable number of troops on board, was sent to Italy, under the command of Lam'po and Xenoc'rates; and, at the same time, proclamation was made throughout Greece, that all persons willing to emigrate to the new colony should receive the protection of the Athenian fleet. Great numbers availed themselves of the proposition, and the Sybarites, aided by the new settlers, soon recovered their former possessions, and founded Thúrium, near the site of their ancient city. Peace did not long inhabit these new dwellings; the inhabitants, coming from so many various quarters, could not forget their old animosities, and began to dispute which section among them could claim to rank as founders of the city. An appeal was made to the Delphic oracle (B. c. 433): the priests of that temple declared the city to be a colony of Apollo. But this did not put an end to discord; the Sybarites, believing that they had the best right to their own country, began to exclude the foreign colonists, who were by far the majority, from all honors and employments; this provoked a civil war, which ended in a second expulsion of the Sybarite families. The Thurians then invited fresh colonists from Greece, and formed themselves: into a commonwealth, choosing Charon'das, of Catána, for their legis-lator. They soon sunk under the enervating effects of luxury, and, being unable to defend themselves against the Lucanians, placed them-

selves under the protection of the Romans. This afforded the Tarentines an excuse for attacking the city, of which they made themselves masters, and thus brought upon themselves the vengeance of Rome. At the close of the Tarentine war, Thúrium became a Roman dependancy. It suffered very severely in the second Punic war, and, having been almost depopulated, was occupied by a Roman colony (B. c. 190). The city of Locri Epizephy'rii was inhabited by the people of the same name. The original colonists were sent out by the Locri O'zola (B. C. 683); but these were joined by a great variety of settlers, chiefly from western Greece. Zaleúcus, one of their own citizens, became the legislator of the Locrians, and his wise institutions remained unchanged for nearly two centuries. The constitution appears to have been a judicious mixture of aristocracy and democracy. The Locrians continued to be honorably distinguished by their peaceful condition, quiet conduct, and good manners, until Diony'sius II., tyrant of Syracuse, having been expelled by his subjects, sought refuge in Lócri, which was the native country of his mother (B. c. 357). His insolence, his licentiousness, and the excesses of his followers, brought the state to the verge of ruin; and, when he returned to Syracuse (B. c, 347), the Locrians revenged their wrongs on his unfortunate family. When Pyr'rhus invaded Italy, he placed a garrison in Locri (B. c. 277); but the Locrians rose in revolt, and put the intruders to the sword. The king of Epírus, in revenge, stormed and plundered the city. After his return home, it submitted to the Romans, and was one of the places that suffered most severely in the second Punic war.

Rhégium was colonized jointly by the Chalcidians and Messenians (B. C. 668); but the chief power was possessed by the Messenian aristocracy. This oligarchy was subverted by Anaxiláus (B. c. 494), and an absolute despotism established. After some time the Rhegians recovered their freedom, and attempted to secure tranquillity by adopting from the Thurians the constitution of Charon'das. Thenceforward Rhégium enjoyed tranquillity and happiness, until it was captured and destroyed by Dionys'ius I., of Syracuse (B. c. 392). It was partially restored by Dionys'ius II.; but, during the wars of Pyr'rhus in Italy, it was still so weak as to require the protection of a Roman garrison. A legion, raised in Campánia, was sent to Rhégium, under the command of Décius Jubel'lus. These soldiers having been used to a life of hardship, began soon to envy the luxurious ease and wealth of the citizens they had come to protect, and they formed a perfidious plan for their destruction (B. c. 281). They forged letters from the Rhegians to Pyr'rhus, offering to put that monarch in possession of the city, and, under this pretence, they put the principal part of the citizens to death, and drove the rest into exile. The Roman senate was not slow in punishing this atrocious outrage; they sent an army against the guilty Campanians, who had been reinforced by several bands of profligate plunderers, and, after a severe struggle, obtained possession of the city. The survivors of the wicked legionaries were beaten with rods, and beheaded in bands of fifty at a time; and a few Rhégians who survived were reinstated in possession of their estates, liberties, and laws. But the city was too weak to maintain its independence, and it became thenceforth subject to Rome.