Part 4

the heart of Italy. I do not mean to say that Samnium might not equally well have become the heart of the country, but history has willed it otherwise. Latium is by its situation destined to exercise the sovereignty, while that of Samnium is less favourable in this respect. The name Latium was not always applied to the same extent of country; the Greek name is ἡ Λατίνη, whereas τό Λάτιον is a later form copied from the Latin, and properly signifies _jus Latii_, in which sense it is used, for example, by Appian, who was a jurist. Latium received its name from the people of the Lati or Latini; but in what sense the name was given to the people, remains at least a controverted question.

I cannot, in these Lectures, always attempt to prove to you the correctness of my views, and I have done so only in a few instances; but where, owing to the multiplicity of the traditions, no definite conclusion has been come to, or where I have not been able to arrive at a settled conviction, I state to you what can be said for and against it. What I am now going to state is my well-weighed conviction, and not the result of an inquiry made to-day or yesterday. I commenced studying the subject at a very early age, about thirty-five years ago; afterwards I put it on one side for many years, because I was engaged in others, and those the most practical occupations, in financial, commercial, and exchange matters,—years which I do not regret, for I think that in them I did some service to my contemporaries. But I never lost sight of my favourite inquiries, for I cherished them in my walks, in my travels, nay, in the midst of the confusion of war. One of the most important inquiries, viz., that about the Slavonians and Sarmatians, I made in the interior of Russia, when I had no books with me except a Latin translation of Strabo. With this conviction I will at once lay before you the results of my investigations; it would take several years, if I were to attempt to refute the opinions of others: I shall give you that which I honestly hold to be true and correct.

The extent of Latium was different at different times. In the earliest ages, it cannot have been confined between the Tiber and the Liris, but must have extended far beyond the Liris, perhaps as far as Cumae and the frontiers of Italia in its narrowest sense. Such it appears in the treaty between Rome and Carthage; this is evident from the words in Polybius, where it is stipulated, that the Carthaginians should make no conquests on the coast from Ostia to Terracina, which was subject to the Romans. Latium therefore must have extended farther south; I will not absolutely assert, that in the north also it extended beyond the Tiber. As afterwards the whole of the sea coast was taken possession of by the Volscians, the coast for a time did not belong to Latium, and even Antium must have been separated from it. But Latium, in a narrower sense, is the country of the thirty allied towns forming the Latin state during the first period of the Roman republic, when the sea coast was separated from it. This continued to be the extent of Latium until the end of the fourth century of the city, when the maritime towns again united with Latium and formed the great Latin league, which I have described in the first edition of my history, and which, as I have only now discovered, was formed in the year 397. Latium then extended as far as the Liris, but not beyond it, for in the south of this river we find Campania, which during the earliest times is never mentioned. During this period therefore, the Volscians and Auruncans on the coast are likewise called Latins. This meaning of the name afterwards changed again, and only a portion of that country together with all the Latin colonies was termed _nomen Latinum_, that is _gens Latina_, or _genus Latinum_, just as we have _nomen Romanum_, _nomen Fabium_ in Livy. The Latin colonies consisted of Romans, Latins, and Italicans; they became a single nation, which the Romans planted all over Italy, and they rose to such importance as almost to throw the ancient Latin towns into oblivion, so that at the time of the Hannibalian war the name Latini signified the Latin colonies and the few Latin towns which had belonged to the ancient confederacy and had not yet obtained the Roman franchise. Their number continued to increase until the lex Julia, which conferred the Roman franchise upon all of them; Tibur and Praeneste also, the only remaining towns of the old Latin confederacy, now received the franchise, and for the moment the Latini ceased to exist. However, at Rome any gaps which arose, were immediately filled up; when one generation became effete, another of new and vigorous citizens was established in its place. C. Pompeius Strabo afterwards conferred the _jus Latii_ upon the towns of Gallia Transpadana, and with this wise and progressive measure introduced something quite different from what had been customary before. These new Latins were levied for the Roman legions, whereas the earlier ones had formed cohorts of their own; the latter had been in the relation of isopolity, and by virtue of the _jus municipii_ they might take the Roman franchise whenever they pleased; but the new Latins in Gallia Transpadana could do this only when they had held a municipal office in any of their own towns. They, moreover, had no _connubium_: when a Roman married such a Latin woman, his children were not Roman citizens. Sigonius is intolerable on this subject, and so also most of the moderns. It is sad that our jurists are not better philologers; I think that in questions of this kind an intimate acquaintance with the ancient authors is indispensable. But on the other hand, philologers ought to possess a very accurate knowledge of Roman law.

This creation of Pompeius Strabo naturally produced two off-shoots. In the first place, some people _extra Italiam positi_ now likewise obtained the _jus Latii_, especially certain Spanish tribes and the inhabitants of Provence, and all of them on the same footing as the Galli Transpadani. You ought to know these rights of the Transpadani, because they belong to the age of Cicero and Caesar, and are of interest in the history of that period. Secondly, in the reign of Tiberius there was passed the _Lex Junia Norbani_[2], which limited the manumission of slaves, and provided regulations to effect a state of security for freedmen without their obtaining the franchise. This is the later _Latinitas_, mentioned in the law-books. The _lex Aelia Sentia_ had already established similar limitations, to prevent slaves from becoming Roman citizens by manumission; but these restrictions consisted in the formalities of the law, which had grown obsolete, and were, in many instances, troublesome and even injurious. The law had thus become unsettled. Formerly the earlier Latins were not distinguished from the later ones; but the ancient Latins had the _connubium_; all the Italians, in fact, had it, and most certainly the Latins.

Being a part of larger nations, the Latins bore the names of these nations; hence they were called Tyrrhenians by Greek authors; but even their own names had different forms, for they are called _Lavini_ and no doubt also _Lacini_. The ancient national name Lavini gave rise to the story that Latinus had a brother Lavinus, and that the latter gave the name to the town of Lavinium—a statement which was adopted by those who would not derive the name of the town from Lavinia. This view of the matter at once explains that which puzzled the grammarians, and which our wretched epitomes of the commentaries on the Aeneid cannot solve. Namely, Virgil often speaks of _litora Lavina_ and _arva Lavinia_ before the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, because he entertained the notion that the name _Latini_ arose afterwards from the union of the Trojans and Aborigines; hence he took the poetical form _Lavinus_. In like manner, Virgil, in his catalogue, at the end of the seventh book, when speaking of the tribes of Latium, says _picti scuta Lavici_, which has always been referred to the town of Lavici in Latium, which was called after its inhabitants; but we cannot take this as the name of a town, as both before and after tribes only are mentioned, and _Lavici_ there is nothing else than Latini. There can be no doubt that they were also called _Lacini_. King Latinus is in some traditions called Lacinus, and under this name he was transferred to southern Italy. This is one of the points which are not sufficiently attended to in the grammatical study of the Latin language. It is indeed very difficult to speak of these matters, as we have so few authentic remains of the ancient Latin dialects, and even the very name “Latin dialects” sounds strange to us, for they are mentioned only by the most ancient among the Latin grammarians. We find it stated, for example, that the Praenestines had a peculiar pronunciation. There can be no doubt that the Latins had their different dialects, though the differences were not so strongly marked as in Greek. The Oscan and several dialects to which the Oscan approached more or less, were kindred languages of the Latin. I hope that more light may be thrown upon this subject, especially by means of inscriptions; several have already been discovered, which I have succeeded in explaining; some exist at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and still more will no doubt be discovered. The Oscan is a language which stands to the Latin in nearly the same relation as that in which the Cretan (which we know, e.g., from inscriptions of Hierapytna) stands to the Ionic dialect.

Besides these names of the Latins, I will mention a few others, and first that of _Aborigines_. It is inconceivable that this name should ever have been borne by the Latin nation itself, for it is nothing else but the designation of a primitive people. The ancients generally explain it to mean a nation from which others are descended; but this etymology can scarcely be correct, it is probably synonymous with the Greek αὐτόχθονες, for under this name and in this sense they are actually mentioned in Roman traditions. We must bear in mind that all traditions agree in representing the Latins as a mixed race: in the Trojan legends they consist of Trojans and Aborigines, that is, strangers who arrived by sea, and natives. But these legends do not belong to the history of nations; they are mere fictions, which arose out of the Tyrrhenian origin of the Latins. According to the other legend, which has more of the character of an historical tradition, the Latin nation arose out of an immigrating people, which, descending from the mountains, subdued the _Siculi_ (only a dialectic variety of _Itali_), the ancient inhabitants who extended into the interior as far as Tibur. This immigrating people had no name, or we must suppose that its name or names have disappeared from the traditions. But they were called _Casci_ (which, according to Saufeius in Servius, was the name of the Aborigines) or _Prisci_. In a later and more detailed account of the history, this relation is completely reversed, the immigrating mountaineers being called Aborigines. This is evidently wrong, for those are not autochthons who subdue others, but those who are subdued: thus the natives of Attica are called autochthons by the conquering Ionians. The name _Prisci_ is an original national name, though it is not mentioned by the ancients: _Priscus_, like _Cascus_, became a common appellative in the sense of “old” in the same way as we call a thing Gothic or Old-Frankish; but this is only a later meaning. The name by which the Latins are mentioned in the early history of Rome and in the formulae of the pontifical books, is _Prisci Latini_. This has been translated “the ancient Latins” as opposed to the _colonarii Latini_; but this is quite impossible, for they bore that name at a time when no Latin colonies were in existence. _Prisci Latini_ is a combination of two national names just like _populus Romanus Quirites_, _Patres Conscripti_, and the legal expressions _empti venditi_, _locati conducti_, and signifies “the nation of the Prisci and Latini.” Two words denoting either closely allied, or totally opposed objects, the two extremes or poles of one idea, are put in juxtaposition without any connecting link; this was the practice wherever one whole was to be expressed by two terms. In this respect also much is still to be done for Latin grammar; some things have been treated of with great diffuseness, which might be settled in a few words, while others have been completely neglected. Even in declension entire forms have been misunderstood, but it is especially in regard to syntax that very much remains to be done. The ancient mode of speaking occurs now and then, and is either overlooked altogether or treated as exceptional; but it ought to be treated with the same accuracy as, for example, the epic dialect in Greek. In our case, e.g., the grammatical observation throws light upon history; the Prisci Latini are the people of the thirty towns, consisting of Priscans and Latins. The Priscans are the Oscan conquerors, and the Latins the inhabitants of the coast, or the ancient Tyrrhenian population. As in the genealogies of the Greeks, the Pelasgian race is not separated, whence the heroes of the Trojan time frequently belong to the Pelasgian genealogies, so the heroes of the Oscans also occur among the Latins, and vice versa. Hesiod, in the well-known passage, mentions Latinus, the son of Circe and Odysseus, as ruler of all the Tyrrhenians (Πᾶσι Τυρσηνοῖσιν ἀγακλειτοῖσιν ἀνάσσων), understanding by Tyrrhenians the people dwelling on the coasts, in the wide extent of ἡ Λατίνη.

These are the results of my investigations about the Latins. They are spoken of in two senses: in the most ancient, they comprise all the Siculians or Tyrrhenians on the western coast of Italy; in a narrower and later sense, the Latins are a mixed people of Siculians and the Oscans who had come down from the mountains. The great mass of the real Latins became so amalgamated with the conquerors, that the main body remained essentially Pelasgian; the alleged emigration[3] either does not refer to the Latins at all, or only to a small portion of them; they remained after the foreign conquest in such numbers, that their race did not undergo any change, in the same manner as the Italians, after the Lombard conquest, remained essentially Italians, although the Lombards, who had come with their women and children were the rulers. Even a small people may preserve its peculiar language for a long time; the Franks perhaps had scarcely twenty thousand soldiers. Sismondi, whose judgment is otherwise in most matters of little weight, here observes quite correctly, that in the tenth century, the Dukes of Beneventum still had Lombard names; thus one is called Store Seitz, “preparing seats;”[4] and this was four centuries after the immigration of the Lombards. In like manner, the nobles in Livonia speak Lettish, but among themselves they speak German with a peculiar pronunciation; several of them live on their estates, speak German and have German chaplains, being, among thousands of Livonians, the only Germans. And yet more than five centuries have already elapsed since they settled there.

In describing the physical condition of Latium, I shall use the name in the sense in which we find it, for example, in Pliny, where it signifies the country between the Tiber, the Liris, and the Anio, though on the side of the Anio the frontier must not be taken too strictly. In our maps the boundary line is marked along the Anio; but this is incorrect, for not only Tibur is situated on its right bank, but also Nomentum, Corniculum, and other places. Latium, in a physical point of view, consists of three distinct parts. The first is of a volcanic nature, and its central point is the Mons Albanus (Monte Cavo), with which are connected the hills of Tusculum. This volcanic part extends from the Campagna di Roma as far as Velitrae, so that the country, as it approaches the Tiber and the sea, terminates in low hills and almost forms a plain. This part is at present called the Latin Hills (Monti Latini); the ancients have no corresponding name for it, though it is quite isolated. The second part is on the east of the first, and consists of a continuation of the Apennines, which runs across the Anio as far as the Liris; in front of it are the hills of the Hernicans, which are likewise essentially a part of the Apennines, for they consist of limestone and have no traces of a volcanic nature; they extend as far as the borders of the Pontine marshes. Between them and the neighbourhood of Tivoli, the country is low, and in some parts a perfect plain, as in the district where Gabii was situated; but although the country is level, it still shows traces of volcanic agency. This is the country of the Hernicans, with lofty Praeneste and the Latin colonies on the border of the Pontine marshes; further on, as far as the hills, the country contained the Aequian and Volscian towns. Those hills are extremely beautiful, and the high country of mount Algidus lies between them and the volcanic plain of Campania; the district of mount Algidus forms the watershed, the waters on the one side flowing towards the Liris, and on the other towards the Anio and the sea through the Pontine marshes. On the north-east of Velitrae there is a table-land with broken ground. The third part, or the country in the north-west, the west, and south, is of quite a different character, consisting of loose, volcanic ground, puzzolano and tufo, which are products of volcanic eruptions. The Tiber in the neighbourhood of Rome was once an arm of the sea, as is clear from the undoubted investigations of Brocchi, and pure marine sand is found there; but in whatever part of the country a mineral occurs, it always consists of an immense quantity of puzzolano, which in some parts has become tufo. Such is the nature of all the country round Rome, but strange to say, one part of the Aventine contains a vein of limestone. Towards the sea the nature of the country is, I believe, the same. On the coast, the land sinks down and becomes a plain of sand as in many barren districts of Germany, whence the coast is covered with firs, and was called _ager macerrimus_ by Fabius Maximus.[5] South of Ostia the coast gradually rises and becomes a down connecting Latium with cape Circaeum, the high promontory of Circe. This hill belongs to the Apennines, and it is impossible to say how it may have become attached to Latium; it must, however, originally have been separated from it by an inland sea. Into this sea behind the downs, the river Ufens and several others poured their waters from the hills; and the mud carried down by them has formed the Pontine marshes, the nature of which was distinctly recognised even by the ancients as a πρόσχωσις, that is, a filling up of a place which was once a part of the sea, but they were mistaken as to the period when this happened. Lessing justly observes that many an error consists in merely mistaking the time; I know from my own experience, that even when you entertain a sound and correct view of a thing, you may often err in regard to time: you are anxious at once to fix the time, and commit a blunder. Such is the case also in ancient history. Pliny is one of those men who, by immense industry, have made themselves dull; he is originally not deficient in intelligence and judgment. Many people carry reading and writing to excess; Heyne, for example, would have become a good philologer, had he not undertaken too much, and had he not thereby been obliged to cut many a knotty point instead of solving it. It is possible, therefore, that his name will not be remembered by posterity. In some chapters Pliny does not show his usual manner; many things are treated of with a real love of his subject and with great success, and his history may even have been beautiful and genial. But he thought he was able to produce a work, the extent of which, as he fixed it in his own mind, was beyond the grasp of man, unless he had given up everything else in order to be able to complete it. He dictated, and had a person to read to him even when he was taking his bath or his meals, and by this means all kinds of materials were accumulated without discrimination. It is possible that he may have passed the Pontine marshes a hundred times; but Mucianus had recorded the erroneous opinion, that at one time twenty-three towns had existed there, and Pliny copied it; he states however, in the same breath, that a lake had covered the same country as late as the time of Theophrastus. The latter indeed speaks of islands, but had not seen them himself. The marshes can never have been a high country in which towns existed. The high-road of Trajan was several feet below the present level of the marsh, and it is still constantly rising. The downs continue, but between Terracina and Circeii they leave an opening for the Ufens and other waters so far as they flow out of the marshes.

TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME.

I shall now at once proceed to say something about the topography of Rome; whether I shall be able afterwards to treat of this subject more in detail, depends upon circumstances; but for the present I will give you a general outline. It is a pity that without drawings it is almost impossible to form a clear idea. This is not the place for speaking about the origin of Rome, but I shall not abstain from noticing the most ancient divisions, and briefly to state their origin.

In very remote times, there existed, according to the most credible accounts, a small town on the Palatine hill; this town was probably called _Roma_, and its name was afterwards extended so as to embrace other neighbouring places. Another town existed on the Tarpeian hill opposite, occupying at the same time a portion of the Quirinal (not the whole of it); and I am convinced that I have discovered its name, which was undoubtedly _Quirium_. There are ancient statements that many small towns existed on the summits of the hills in that district—they may, in fact, have been no more than villages. One of these places was situated on mount Caelius, and undoubtedly bore the name of _Lucerum_. These three towns afterwards grew together, and extended south of the Palatine beyond the great chasm of the Circus as far as the higher and more important hill called the Aventine. This hill also contained a town, which at first, unless it was in friendly alliance, might become dangerous to the city; but when a portion of the Latins was admitted to the Roman franchise, they received settlements there, and in this manner that place likewise became united with Rome. The Aventine being, as it were, an outpost, was connected with the city by means of a rampart extending to mount Caelius. These five hills, then, the Palatine, Quirinal, Capitoline, Caelius, and Aventine, formed together one whole, but each had separate rights, just as in Great Britain at the time when England and Scotland were united, and Ireland had its own parliament under British supremacy. A union existed between Roma and Quirium, while Lucerum, like Ireland, was dependent, though it had its own government; and the town on the Aventine stood in the relation of the English colonies. From the Caelian hill to the foot of the Quirinal another great fortification consisting of a mound and a ditch was formed, whereby the whole became united as one city; the Esquiline and Viminal were drawn into the city at a later period.