The third and last period terminates with the death of Theodoric, 526 A.D. Notwithstanding the numerous excellences which distinguished the literature of this time, its decline had evidently commenced, and, as the age of Augustus has been distinguished by the epithet "golden," the succeeding period, to the death of Hadrian, 138 A.D., on account of its comparative inferiority, has been designated "the Silver Age." From this time to the close of the reign of Theodoric, only a few distinguished names are to be found.
2. THE LANGUAGE.—The origin of the Latin language is necessarily connected with that of the Romans themselves. In the most distant ages to which tradition extends, Italy appears to have been inhabited by three stocks or tribes of the great Indo-European family. One of these is commonly known by the name of Oscans; another consisted of two branches, the Sabelians or Sabines, and the Umbrians; the third was called Sikeli, sometimes Vituli or Itali.
The original settlements of the Umbrians extended over the district bounded on one side by the Tiber, and on the other by the Po. All the country to the south was in possession of the Oscans, with the exception of Latium, which was inhabited by the Sikeli. But, in process of time, the Oscans, pressed upon by the Sabines, invaded the abodes of this peaceful and rural people, some of whom submitted, and amalgamated with their conquerors; the rest were driven across the narrow sea into Sicily, and gave their name to the island.
These tribes were not left in undisturbed possession of their rich inheritance. More than 1000 B.C. there arrived in the northern part of Italy the Pelasgians (or dark Asiatics), an enterprising race, famed for their warlike spirit and their skill in the arts of peace, who became the civilizers of Italy. They were far advanced in the arts of civilization and refinement, and in the science of politics and social life. They enriched their newly acquired country with commerce, and filled it with strongly fortified and populous cities, and their dominion rapidly spread over the whole peninsula. Entering the territory of the Umbrians, they drove them into the mountainous districts, or compelled them to live among them as a subject people, while they possessed themselves of the rich and fertile plains. The headquarters of the invaders was Etruria, and that portion of them who settled there were known as Etrurians. Marching southward, they vanquished the Oscans and occupied the plains of Latium. They did not, however, remain long at peace in the districts which they had conquered. The old inhabitants returned from the neighboring highlands to which they had been driven, and subjugated the northern part of Latium, and established a federal anion between the towns of the north, of which Alba was the capital, while of the southern confederacy the chief city was Lavinium.
At a later period, a Latin tribe, belonging to the Alban federation, established itself on the Mount Palatine, and founded Rome, while a Sabine community occupied the neighboring heights of the Quirinal. Mutual jealousy of race kept them, for some time, separate from each other; but at length the two communities became one people, called the Romans. These were, at an early period, subjected to Etruscan rule, and when the Etruscan dynasty passed away, its influence still remained, and permanently affected the Roman language.
The Etruscan tongue being a compound of Pelasgian and Umbrian, the language of Latium may be considered as the result of those two elements combined with the Oscan, and brought together by the mingling of those different tribes. These elements, which entered into the formation of the Latin, may be classified under two heads: the one which has, the other which has not a resemblance to the Greek. All Latin words which resemble the Greek are Pelasgian, and all which do not are Etruscan, Oscan, or Umbrian. From the first of these classes must be excepted those words which are directly derived from the Greek, the origin of which dates partly from the time when Rome began to have intercourse with the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia, partly after the Greeks exercised a direct influence on Roman literature.
Of the ancient languages of Italy, which concurred in the formation of the Latin, little is known. The Eugubine Tables are the only extant fragments of the Umbrian language. These were found in the neighborhood of Ugubio, in the year 1414 A.D.; they date as early as 354 B.C., and contain prayers and rules for religious ceremonies. Some of these tables were engraved in Etruscan or Umbrian characters, others in Latin letters. The remains which have come down to us of the Oscan language belong to a composite idiom made up of the Sabine and Oscan, and consist chiefly of an inscription engraved on a brass plate, discovered in 1793 A.D. As the word Bansae occurs in this inscription, it has been supposed to refer to the town of Bantia, which was situated not far from the spot where the tablet was found, and it is, therefore, called the Bantine Table. The similarity between some of the words found in the Eugubine Tables and in Etruscan inscriptions, shows that the Etruscan language was composed of the Pelasgian and Umbrian, and from the examples given by ethnographers, it is evident that the Etruscan element was most influential in the formation of the Latin language.
The old Roman tongue, or lingua prisca, as it was composed of these materials, and as it existed previous to coming in contact with the Greek, has almost entirely perished; it did not grow into the new, like the Greek, by a process of intrinsic development, but it was remoulded by external and foreign influences. So different was the old Roman from the classical Latin, that some of those ancient fragments were with difficulty intelligible to the cleverest and best educated scholars of the Augustan age.
An example of the oldest Latin extant is contained in the sacred chant of the Fratres Arvales. These were a college of priests, whose function was to offer prayers for plenteous harvests, in solemn dances and processions at the opening of spring. Their song was chanted in the temple with closed doors, accompanied by that peculiar dance which was termed the tripudium, from its containing three beats. The inscription which embodied this litany was discovered in Rome in 1778 A.D. The monument belongs to the reign of Heliogabalus, 218 A.D., but although the date is so recent, the permanence of religious formulas renders it probable that the inscription contains the exact words sung by this priesthood in the earliest times. The "Carmen Saliare," or the Salian hymn, the leges regiae, the Tiburtine inscription, the inscription on the sarcophagus of L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, the great-grandfather of the conqueror of Hannibal, the epitaph of Lucius Scipio, his son, and, above all, the Twelve Tables, are the other principal extant monuments of ancient Latin. The laws of the Twelve Tables were engraven on tablets of brass, and publicly set up in the comitium; they were first made public 449 B.C.
Most of these literary monuments were written in Saturnian verse, the oldest measure used by the Latin poets. It was probably derived from the Etruscans, and until Ennius introduced the heroic hexameter, the strains of the Italian bards flowed in this metre. The structure of the Saturnian is very simple, and its rhythmical arrangement is found in the poetry of every age and country. Macaulay adduces, as an example of this measure, the following line from the well-known nursery song,——