Italy, in official language, was again limited within a smaller circle in the North, as it originally had been in the extreme South. In this sense, Italy, properly so called, included the five tributary provinces, Æmilia, Liguria, Flaminia, Venetia, and Istria 25; and, in the same sense, the kingdom of that name, whose crown was assumed by the Lombards, and whose boundaries, if Istria be excluded, stretched considerably further to the South, was no empty title. The name is evidently of native origin26; the early Greeks deduced it, according to their custom, from one of the native kings; others, from the original or old Greek word, 'Iraλòs, or 'Irouλos, signifying a bull. The more ancient referred it mythically to the Heracleian traditions. Timæus, in his Roman History, quite in the spirit of his age, connects the mythical tradition with a fanciful reference to the abundance of herds in the country". That the Romans borrowed the word, is unquestionable; but we have no trace of the exact period when it was first 25 See Jac. Gothofredus ad lib. 6, Cod. Theod. de Annonis et tributis. 26 Bolder etymologists will discover perhaps an identity between Siculus and Italus, as both nations, according to tradition, sprang from a common stock. All the good manuscripts of Thucydides mention (vi. c. 2.) Italus, King of the Siculi, where the badlyprinted text has 'Apkádwr. (See Var. Lect. Thucydid. Duker.) 27 The same is done by Hellanicus of Lesbus, (in Dionysius I. c. 35.) Apollodorus follows him with a slight variation. (Bibliothec. II. c. 5. 10.) Timæus' Etymology, from his Roman History in Gellius, (xi. c. 1:) from him Piso certainly borrowed it. (See Varro de re rust. ii. c. 1.) adopted amongst them. Probably, however, the necessity for a word to designate that aggregate, which was formed by their ascendancy, led to the general use of the term in its wider signification, towards the end of the fifth century. Dionysius says 28 that, before the time of Hercules, the Greeks called the entire Peninsula, Hesperia, or Ausonia; but the natives, Saturnia. We will not seriously notice the folly of distinguishing the earlier or later historical statements in the Mythic age; but the Alexandrine critics reasoned consistently, when they censured Apollonius for mentioning in his Argonautics, Ausonia 29, which had derived its name from a son of Ulysses and Calypso. Hesperia is frequently used as the ancient name of Italy by the Roman poets, after their Greek predecessors, though amongst the Greeks themselves it is very rarely found. The inscriptions of the Tabula Iliaca render it probable that Stesichorus, in his 'IXov wépois, sang of the wanderings of Æneas to HESPERIA 30; and Agathyllus (in Dionysius) says, "Æneas hastened to Hesperia ";" but, strictly speak 28 I. c. 35. 29 Schol. Apoll. ad iv, v. 553. It is derived from the barbarous district-name, A¿¿ǹv, in Etym. Magn. § v. Avoóves. 30 Αἰνήας (sic) απαίρων εἰς τὴν Ἑσπερίαν. Tychsen. Comm. de Q. Smyrnæo, III. §. 11, p. 74. 31 Αὐτὸς δ ̓ Ἑσπερίην ἔσυτο χθόνα, Ι. c. 49 ; but this Agathyllus seems to belong to the Alexandrine age. The verse in Ennius, "Est locus, Hesperiam quam mortales perhibebant," may as well have been constructed from a very modern Greek, as from a poet of the good times. In the Anthologia, the word Hesperia is found in Agathias. ing, it comprised, as Hesperia Magna, the whole WEST, of which Italy formed but a part, and to which also belonged Iberia. So, in modern language the Levant and Anatolia are described as countries in the East. Ausonia was originally synonimous with Opica; it was afterwards applied to the country between the Apennines and the Mare Inferum 32. As Hecatæus styled Nola an Ausonian city, another would have called it a city in Opica. Ausonia, in the second meaning, certainly signifies (in Apollonius 33) the whole western coast of Italy, on the Mare Inferum, including also Tyrrhenia. But this poet, who flourished under Ptolemy Evergetes, (from 506 to 531,) was already accustomed to a general appellation for the Peninsula. Lycophron, in the time of Philadelphus, applied the same term to the entire southern half, (because it was called Italy in his time,) still excepting Tyrrhenia and Umbria 34. The name Saturnia, which, according to Dionysius, was used in the (later) Sybilline oracles, was cer 32 Festus. In the Extracts, sub voce Ausonia. 33 Stephanus of Byzantium, in voce. In this sense only was Ææa (the island of Circe) considered by the ancients as belonging to Ausonia. Apollodorus, Bibl. I. c. 9. 24. 34 The Straits of Sicily, v. 44; Arpi and Apulia, v. 592 and 615; Opica (proper) and the Apennines, v. 702; ŒŒnotria, v. 922 and 1047. The separation of Tyrrhenia and Umbria is proved in v. 1239 and 1360. He also mentions Agylla as Ausonian, but before the Tyrrhenians had gotten possession of it, v. 1355. Ausonia is very generally used in the Anthologia for Italy, yet by no author of higher antiquity than Antipater of Thessalonica. The worthless Argonautic of Orpheus includes, under the Ausonian. Islands, (v. 1249,) even Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. tainly that by which the earlier Latins designated a part of Central Italy, including Latium, but whose confines we cannot accurately determine : hence the Saturnian verses, sung in the peculiar Rhythmus of that people; but the traces of this name are so indistinct, that we can only affirm, with certainty, it was never a general one for the Peninsula. CHAPTER II. THE CENOTRIANS. 36 35 RESPECTING the origin of the Enotrians, Pherecydes states that they derived their name from Enotrus, one of the twenty-two sons of Lycaon, as the Peucetians on the Ionian Gulf had theirs from his brother Peucetus. They emigrated from Arcadia seventeen generations before the Trojan war, with several Arcadians and other Greeks, whose country was too confined; and this, as Pausanias 3 remarks, is the earliest colony, whether of Greeks or Barbarians, of which any records have been preserved. No sober-minded man can treat these genealogies and traditions as historical narratives. Equally vain would be the attempt to reconcile the genealogy of Pherecydes with the contradictory one of Apollodorus, in which Enotrus is wanting 38. But if we receive them as genealogical tables, like those * In Dionysius, I. c. 13. 36 Ibid. c. 11. 38 Bibliothec. III. c. 8. 1. |