CHAPTER IV. THE SABELLI. THE Sabelli Occupied the greater part of ancient Ausonia, and the entire of Enotria. The Sabelli are the Sabines, and all the nations which sprung from that stock. They called themselves Sauini, such is the inscription on the Samnite Denarii in the time of the social war. And the term, Samnites, or Saunites, according to the Roman or Greek. pronunciation, is none other than this native appellation 97. The Sabelli were one of the aboriginal tribes of Italy, and the most extensive and powerful at the time when Rome had passed the boundaries of Latium. The Etruscans had already sunk after witnessing the ruin of the earlier nations, the Umbri and Ausonians. As the Dorian colonies flourished, while the parent state continued feeble; and enjoyed peace while the emigrant tribes were spreading 97 Thus the Campanians name themselves on their coins, Karnavо, with a similar analogy of alteration through the Roman pronunciation and orthography. themselves widely by conquests and settlements, it was the same, according to Cato, with the old Sabine race. He states 98 their original home to have been Amiternum, amongst the loftiest of the Apennines, where some of the pinnacles are said to be covered with perpetual snow; the whole mountain range being of Alpine dimensions and suited to the pastoral life. They left these quarters in very distant ages, long before the Trojan war; and dispossessing the Aborigines in some places, in others the Umbri, seized upon the district which has continued for three thousand years to bear their name. The redundant stream of population poured itself forth from hence, upon various countries. It was a general practice of the ancient Italians, in difficult wars, to consecrate to the Gods a sacred Spring, (ver sacrum,) i. e. all the productions of that season, perhaps of the whole year. The cattle were offered in sacrifice; the youths who had arrived at maturity, were sent out of the country 99. In the second year of the war with Hannibal, the Romans made a similar vow, but only of their actual possessions 100 According to tradition, vows of this kind caused the emigration of the Sabelline colonists. The Gods sent sacred animals to guide them in their path. A woodpecker, the sacred bird of Mamers, conducted one colony to Picenum, then occupied by the Umbrians or Liburnians; another was guided by an 98 * Dionysius, II. c. 49. "Dionysius, I. c. 16. Strabo, V. c. 4. § 12. Festus, in voce, "Ver Sacrum." 100 Livius, XXII. c. 9. ox, into the country of the Opici, and became the great Samnite race, of whom we have historic evidence that they sent out colonists who separated from the parent country. The Frentani on the coast of the Adriatic were Samnites, but retained their connexion'. Campania, and the country as far as Silarus, were conquered by Samnites, who were afterwards named Picentini. Another band, called Lucanians, after their leader Lucius 2, subdued and gave their own name to Lucania 3. 3 It may be assumed that this nation first entered on their new possessions, near Posidonia, in the northwest; that their emigration to the south beyond the Silarus was the result of the conquest of Campanian Etruria by the Samnites as far as that river, and without any original intention of forming an independent state. Distance and extensive conquests separated the Lucanians from the ancient league. The complete occupation of Campania belongs to the first half of the fourth century, and in the remaining half, the Lucanians are for the first time noticed in the History of Magna Græcia. But after the battle near the Laos, their conquests rapidly extended, being favoured by the destruction of the Greek towns by Dionysius of Syracuse. When Scylax of Caryanda wrote, they ruled the whole peninsula from Silarus to the confines of the territories of Thurii and Heraclea. The former was already included in Lucania; Strabo, V. c. 4. § 2. 2 Plinius, H. N. III. c. 10. Etymol. Mag. in voce Aɛvкavoi. * In old Latin, Lucania, in the Epitaph of L. Cornelius Scipio, Barbatus. the latter (improperly indeed,) in Iapygia*, no further mention being made of ancient Italy. The age of this early geographer cannot be fixed earlier than about 390. In the war which Dionysius the younger waged against them, (Ol. 105. 2. year, 3935.) he commenced a line of demarcation across the Isthmus, between the bays of Scyllaceum and Napetinus, in order to secure his Italian cities against their incursions". At that time the Lucanian dominions had reached their utmost extent. Already three years afterwards the Bruttians arose; (Ol. 106. 1. Ami. 3967.) at first a band of robbers, composed of vagabonds from all parts and insurgent slaves, who either assumed the name of slaves in defiance, (for so the word Bruttius signifies,) or retained it, though given to them as a term of reproach 8. That they were descended from a mixed ancestry, partly from notrians (who had become Greeks, and were subdued by the Lucanians) is confirmed by the fact of their speaking not only the Oscan but also the Greek language 9. They were more formidable neighbours to the Greeks 4 Scylax, Peripl, p, 3. 5. 7 Diodor. XVI. c. 16. 5 Diodor. XVI. c. 5. • The Romans also called them "Brutates," according to the two-fold form of many gentilitious names in the Latin language from one of which is derived the name of the country, and from this again, the second form. The first ends in us-the second in as, or is (from ans, or ins.) Thus from Savinus, comes Savnium, Samnium, Samnis. From Lucanus, Lucania, (Lucans,) Lucas, (preserved in, "bos Lucas.") From Bruttius (perhaps Bruttus,) Bruttium, Bruttas. "Festus "Bilingues Brutates." than even the Lucanians. Perhaps they avenged themselves, for a long-endured slavery; for it is highly probable, that the Aborigines under the dominion of the Greeks, had borne that dreadful yoke which was laid on the Mariandyni by Heraclea Pontica. Lucania, however, was deprived of the largest and finest portion of her territory, for which the subsequent conquest of Siris, was a poor equivalent. A conquest which brought into Italy the three Grecian Heroes, Archidamus, Alexander of Epirus, and Cleonymus, and weakened the victors by a wasting and sanguinary warfare. Besides the people described with certainty as Sabelli in historical narratives still extant, the testimony of Ovid assures us, that the Peligni, his fellow-citizens, were of Sabine descent1o. From this it is probable that the other contiguous nations, the Marsi, Marrucini, and Vestini were of the same stock; for the four adhered to each other with a firmness which leads us to infer their common origin, though such is not always the case. When the Vestini formed an alliance with the Samnites (429) a general war with the other three nations would inevitably have resulted, if Rome had attempted to disable the new enemy by a rapid attack ". Polybius, in his account of the number of armed men, which the people of Italy were able to raise upon a pressing emergency in the great war with the Gauls, specifies the contingent of these four na 10 Fast. III. v. 95. "Livius, VIII. c. 29.-Marsi, Pelignique et Marrucini, quos si Vestinus attingeretur, omnes habendos hostes. |