the Italiotes of Enotro-Pelasgian descent could prove their affinity to the Epirotes. Only one half of Ligustica was included in Italy. According to a Greek tradition of the original of the Sicani, the latter, an Iberian race, had been driven by the Ligyii from their country, near the unknown river Sicanus 27. It appears that the Iberians originally dwelled as far as the Rhodanus, and the Ligyii, who mixed with them, and inhabited the country from that river to the Pyrenees, were later settlers 28. From the Rhodanus to the borders of Etruria they inhabited a district on the sea-coast, of greater or less width, pressed at a later period by the Celts, even to the shore, but at earlier times extending deep into the Alps, and as far as the Ticinus, on both sides of the Padus. When, upon the downfall of the Etruscans, they enlarged their borders into the Apennines, they probably only recovered what had been forcibly torn from them at an earlier period. Corsica was partly inhabited by them 29. Their national affinities are unknown to us; we only learn that they were neither Iberians nor Celts, but a peculiar nation. Dionysius says their origin is unknown 30, and Cato seems to have fruitlessly investigated it; for which reason he calls them an ignorant, lying, and treacherous race 31. Illiterate certainly

they must have been, who had to struggle with so many hardships to support existence, and were un

able to cultivate their rocky soil with the plough. The rest of Cato's unwarranted censure is not confirmed by other ancient authors; on the contrary, they praise the industry, the perseverance, and the frugality of the Ligurians, as much as their courage and activity 32. When Cato wrote, the Romans had scarcely completed their subjugation, which occupied them nearly forty years, though almost every tribe was engaged singly. This war also occasioned on the part of the Ligurians very destructive and cruel irruptions; and the hatred thus nurtured may have biassed Cato to such an unjustifiable opinion.

Whilst the Ligurians, tribe after tribe, were subdued or exterminated, or carried away from their mountains, and settled in far distant plains, the Veneti were as rich and unwarlike as the former were poor and brave. They cast themselves without a struggle under the protection of Rome, and appear as Roman subjects, without any traces being left of the mode in which they became so. The irruptions of the Gauls may have rendered foreign protection desirable, dwelling as they did, in a small part of what was subsequently Venetia, in the plains and eminences, scarcely reaching the foot of the Alps, between the Cisalpines and the formidable Taurisci in Noricum. Venice has inherited the spirit of commerce and manufactures from the parent city, the ancient Patavium, which, according to tradition,

32 Cicero in Rullum, Or. II. c. 35. Virgil, Georg. II. v. 167. Diodor. V. c. 39.

was founded, long before Rome, by Trojan emigrants, remained uninjured during all the wars and distractions of Italy, flourished in unparalleled wealth, and in the time of Tiberius was the chief city in Italy, after Rome.

This tradition, respecting Antenor, seems altogether different from the Latin story of Æneas. It is not native, but of Greek invention, from the wandering bards (Cyclici), who narrated the treachery and escape of Antenor, and from the national name of the Paphlagonian Heneti. "The tragic writers," observes Polybius, "abound in fables of the Veneti 38" The region towards the Eridanus, the inmost recesses of the Adriatic were celebrated in

poetic fiction. Those seas, rendered unnavigable on account of the Liburnian pirates, appear, even to the later Greeks, exceedingly sequestered and remote. Scylax, who greatly exaggerates the dimensions of the Adriatic, places the Veneti on the eastern shore towards the Eridanus, which disembogues within the innermost bay, round which dwelt the Celtæ 34 But though the Greeks rarely visited those quarters, yet Herodotus has an account, that the Eneti were an Illyrian race ; a very probable supposition, because Illyrian tribes are discovered along the whole eastern coast of Italy, or traces that they once dwelt there. Polybius observed little difference between them and the neighbouring Celts, in customs or dress; but they spoke an entirely

35

34 Scylax, p. 6.

different language, which if it had been properly Illyrian, he would have called by that name. But the Liburnians also are distinguished, strictly speaking, from the Illyrians, whose coast begins at their confines. The writing of the Veneti is known to us by inscriptions; it is a refined Etruscan.

CHAPTER X.

THE THREE ISLANDS.

IN Corsica, we find Iberians and Ligurians; the former the elder inhabitants 36. In Sicily, previous to the Siculi, we have Sicanians, who were driven back by them to the western third of the island. All historians are unanimous in styling these also an Iberian race, but differ respecting their home. They asserted themselves to be a native aboriginal people". In this they are supported by Timæus, who seems, in the opinion of Diodorus 38, to have adduced irrefragable proofs. But Thucydides assures us, that it is demonstrated that they were driven out of Iberia by the Ligyii; and in this Philistus concurs. The decidedness of expression in Thucydides, "this is ascertained to be truth," coming from him, gives great weight to the tradition of western Europe. We dare not otherwise estimate a man who never utters a hasty opinion.

36 Seneca, ad Helviam ut supra. 37 Thucydides, VI. c. 2.

38 Diodor. V. c. 6.