CHAPTER V. THE TYRRHENIANS, TUSCANS, OR 21 ETRUSCANS. DIONYSIUS Says" that Tyrrhenia was a name by which the Greeks, in early times, designated the whole western part of Italy, calling the Latins, Umbrians and Ausonians, by the one appellation, Tyrrhenians. This may be true, as regards the days of Etruscan glory, when the Greeks admired them as the masters of Campania 22. But the poets of that age are lost to us; and the inference is not warranted by that passage which asserts the most, amongst all those extant; its import being only, that "Latinus ruled over all the Tyrrhenians "." Meantime, however, no nation in Italy was so well known, or of such importance to the Greeks, whether in war or commerce, as the Tyrrhenians, whose greatness and 21 I. c. 25. 29. 23" 22 Polybius, II. c. 17. 23 Hesiod. Theogon. V. 1011-15. What are the “ Holy Islands" mentioned here? naval power, when the Greeks began to visit their seas, had already reached their bloom, and continued to flourish for centuries after. That Herodotus' account of their emigration from Lydia was not founded on a Lydian tradition, is proved by Dionysius, together with the incontrovertible authority of Xanthus; and even were it traditional, it is unworthy of credit, because of the complete diversity of language, customs, and religion, in the two nations. His positive assertion, that the Tyrrhenians spoke a language altogether different from the Italian nations, (which was preserved even later than his time, and, indeed, amongst the latest of all not Latin, probably by their sacred books,) is confirmed by inscriptions; in which, notwithstanding the most strained and far-fetched etymologies, no analogy can be traced between it and the Greek, or the cognate branch of the Latin language. Thus the authority of history sustains the opinion to which our own investigation leads us; and there is nothing to prevent our admitting the Tuscans to be a peculiar aboriginal race. In opposition to the unanimous testimony of antiquity which, with equal certainty, distinguishes the Tuscan language from the Sabine and the Oscan, a notion has been maintained by the Italian literati, that, amongst all the nations of Italy, fragments of whose languages have been found in inscriptions, with the exception of a few nameless tribes in southern Italy, there were spoken only dialects of one mother-tongue. This, they assert, is to be collected from these inscriptions. Unprejudiced research would place beyond a doubt, the Roman opinion respecting their essential diversity. I have not as yet been able to undertake this extensive investigation. Tuscan and Etruscan were names as foreign to them as Tyrrhenian": they called themselves Rasena. In the old phraseology of Rome, Etruria was the name of the country; Tusci, of the people: Etruscan was introduced after the time of Cato. The latter then became more in use amongst authors: but the people must have continued to speak of them by the ancient name, which was preserved even beyond the middle ages; and therefore the land itself, under the later emperors, bore the name of Tuscia. With equal justice, Dionysius rejects the Greek opinion, that the Tyrrhenians were Pelasgi, as the Lydian fable of the Ionians; but not with equal success; for a few passages of the ancients, which strongly express that opinion, have been pertinaciously retained by moderns, who, under their shelter, have bidden defiance to the criticism of Dionysius; the latter, indeed, clings to an equally idle dream about an earlier Pelasgian colony. The tradition is certainly remarkable. Hellanicus 25 states, that the Pelasgi (from Thessaly 26) had been supplanted by the Hellenes; had embarked, crossed the Adriatic, landed on the banks of the river Spina, (the mouth of the Padus,) and from thence had colonized Tyrrhenia. Sophocles, in his Ina "Dionysius, I. c. 30. 25 Ibid. c. 28. " chus 27, calls the Argives, Pelasgian Tyrrhenians; and as ancient Argos and the whole Peloponnesus are styled the abode of the Pelasgi, in the same sense in which that people were considered Aborigines of Greece, so the poet evidently regards them as the ancestors of the Tyrrhenians. Myrsilus, the Lesbian, gives an opposite account, viz. that the Tyrrhenians had forsaken their home. On account of their incursive migrations, as they were observed to depart and return again, they obtained the name, Pelasgi, (Storks.) These Tyrrhenians had some time dwelt in Attica, and there raised the Pelasgian wall 28. This story, as Dionysius justly remarks, is the very reverse of that of Hellanicus. It never occurred to the Greek, that this inversion is the characteristic of all traditional history, as we cannot fail to observe, on examining a richer store of traditions. The account of Myrsilus accords with the mention made of the Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, on the Grecian coasts, by the writers of the golden age of Greece. It is evident that he distinguishes those who came from the West, from the ancient Pelasgi; because he endeavours to explain how they had acquired the name Pelasgi, which did not belong to their race 29. 27 Dionysius, I. c. 25. 28 Ibid. c. 28. 29 The same explanation is found in the Atthides. Strabo, V. c. 2. § 4. In the same sense, though in a somewhat different method, others have derived the name from white linen garments. Etymol., Mag. in voce, Пeλaryukov, in Casaubon on Dionysius. But the name of the early native Pelasgi can He says that, after the Dorian emigration, there appeared at Athens a body of fugitives, who, on condition of doing vassalage to that city, obtained a settlement at the foot of Mount Hymettus 31. According to Strabo, they were, at that time, driven out of Boeotia by the returning Cadmæans 32. They first halted in Acarnania, and were Siculi 33; i. e. from Southern Etruria, where their king, Malaeotes, had his residence, not far from Graviscæ 3+. It is probable that they styled themselves Tyrrhenians; from which, their ancient abode was called Tyrrhenia, and their name transferred by the Greeks to the invading conquerors 35. The Tyrrhenian appellation was retained by their descendants, who, being driven from Attica into Lemnus and Imbrus s6, 34 36 only be explained by their descent from their mythic ancestor Pelasgus. 30 Velleius, I. c. 3; Strabo, IX. c. 2. § 3. 31 Herodot. VI. c. 136; Pausanias Attic. p. 26. Edit. Sylb. 33 Pausanias, ut supra. 32 Ut supra. 34 Strabo, V. c. 2. § 8. 35 For passages in which they are called Tyrrheni, see in Casaubon, on Dionysius, I. c. 28; also, Callimachus in the Scholiast on Aristophanes' Aves, v. 832. Τυρσηνῶν τείχισμα Πελασγικόν. Other passages are found in the admirable work of Cluverius," Italia Antiqua," p. 428, 429; a work which I should have regretted not having perused before these sheets went to press, if passages which an author collects for himself were not necessarily more advantageous to his purpose, than those brought together by the industry of others. The passage from Polyænus, in which the Minyans driven from Lemnus by the Tyrrhenians, are confounded with them, is characteristic of the confusion attending traditional accounts. 36 In the variable sense of tradition already noticed, Anticlides |