It would appear too, as far as any judgment can be formed on a point essentially obscure, that the Œnotrians were ethnically akin to the primitive population of Rome and Latium on one side,[655] as they were to the Epirots on the other; and that tribes of this race, comprising Sikels, and Itali properly so called, as sections, had at one time occupied most of the territory from the left bank of the river Tiber southward between the Apennines and the Mediterranean. Both Herodotus and his junior contemporary, the Syracusan Antiochus, extend Œnotria as far northward as the river Silarus,[656] and Sophoklês includes the whole coast of the Mediterranean, from the strait of Messina to the gulf of Genoa, under the three successive names of Œnotria, the Tyrrhenian gulf, and Liguria.[657] Before or during the fifth century B. C., however, a different population, called Opicians, Oscans, or Ausonians, had descended from their original seats on or north of the Apennines,[658] and had conquered the territory between Latium and the Silarus, expelling or subjugating the Œnotrian inhabitants, and planting outlying settlements even down to the strait of Messina and the Liparæan isles. Hence the more precise Thucydidês designates the Campanian territory, in which Cumæ stood, as the country of the Opici; a denomination which Aristotle extends to the river Tiber, so as to comprehend within it Rome and Latium.[659] Not merely Campania, but in earlier times even Latium, originally occupied by a Sikel or Œnotrian population, appears to have been partially overrun and subdued by fiercer tribes from the Apennines, and had thus received a certain intermixture of Oscan race. But in the regions south of Latium, these Oscan conquests were still more overwhelming; and to this cause (in the belief of inquiring Greeks of the fifth century B. C.)[660] were owing the first migrations of the Œnotrian race out of southern Italy, which wrested the larger portion of Sicily from the preëxisting Sikanians.
This imperfect account, representing the ideas of Greeks of the fifth century B. C. as to the early population of southern Italy, is borne out by the fullest comparison which can be made between the Greek, Latin, and Oscan language,—the first two certainly, and the third probably, sisters of the same Indo-European family of languages. While the analogy, structural and radical, between Greek and Latin, establishes completely such community of family—and while comparative philology proves that on many points the Latin departs less from the supposed common type and mother-language than the Greek—there exists also in the former a non-Grecian element, and non-Grecian classes of words, which appear to imply a confluence of two or more different people with distinct tongues; and the same non-Grecian element, thus traceable in the Latin, seems to present itself still more largely developed in the scanty remains of the Oscan.[661] Moreover, the Greek colonies in Italy and Sicily caught several peculiar words from their association with the Sikels, which words approach in most cases very nearly to the Latin,—so that a resemblance thus appears between the language of Latium on the one side, and that of Œnotrians and Sikels (in southern Italy and Sicily) on the other, prior to the establishments of the Greeks. These are the two extremities of the Sikel population; between them appear, in the intermediate country, the Oscan or Ausonian tribes and language; and these latter seem to have been in a great measure conquerors and intruders from the central mountains. Such analogies of language countenance the supposition of Thucydidês and Antiochus, that these Sikels had once been spread over a still larger portion of southern Italy, and had migrated from thence into Sicily in consequence of Oscan invasions. The element of affinity existing between Latins, Œnotrians, and Sikels—to a certain degree also between all of them together and the Greeks, but not extending to the Opicians or Oscans, or to the Iapygians—may be called Pelasgic, for want of a better name; but, by whatever name it be called, the recognition of its existence connects and explains many isolated circumstances in the early history of Rome as well as in that of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks.
The earliest Grecian colony in Italy or Sicily, of which we know the precise date, is placed about 735 B. C., eighteen years subsequent to the Varronian era of Rome; so that the causes, tending to subject and Hellenize the Sikel population in the southern region, begin their operation nearly at the same time as those which tended gradually to exalt and aggrandize the modified variety of it which existed in Latium. At that time, according to the information given to Thucydidês, the Sikels had been established for three centuries in Sicily: Hellanikus and Philistus—who both recognized a similar migration into that island out of Italy, though they give different names, both to the emigrants and to those who expelled them—assign to the migration a date three generations before the Trojan war.[662] Earlier than 735 B. C., however, though we do not know the precise era of its commencement, there existed one solitary Grecian establishment in the Tyrrhenian sea,—the Campanian Cumæ, near cape Misenum; which the more common opinion of chronologists supposed to have been founded in 1050 B. C., and which has even been carried back by some authors to 1139 B. C.[663] Without reposing any faith in this early chronology, we may at least feel certain that it is the most ancient Grecian establishment in any part of Italy, and that a considerable time elapsed before any other Greek colonists were bold enough to cut themselves off from the Hellenic world by occupying seats on the other side of the strait of Messina,[664] with all the hazards of Tyrrhenian piracy as well as of Scylla and Charybdis. The Campanian Cumæ—known almost entirely by this its Latin designation—received its name and a portion of its inhabitants from the Æolic Kymê in Asia Minor. A joint band of settlers, partly from this latter town, partly from Chalkis in Eubœa,—the former under the Kymæan Hippoklês, the latter under the Chalkidian Megasthenês,—having combined to form the new town, it was settled by agreement that Kymê should bestow the name, and that Chalkis should enjoy the title and honors of the mother-city.[665]
Cumæ, situated on the neck of the peninsula which terminates in cape Misenum, occupied a lofty and rocky hill overhanging the sea,[666] and difficult of access on the land side. The unexampled fertility of the Phlegræan plains in the immediate vicinity of the city, the copious supply of fish in the Lucrine lake,[667] and the gold mines in the neighboring island of Pithekusæ,—both subsisted and enriched the colonists. They were joined by fresh settlers from Chalkis, from Eretria, and even from Samos; and became numerous enough to form distinct towns at Dikæarchia and Neapolis, thus spreading over a large portion of the bay of Naples. In the hollow rock under the very walls of the town was situated the cavern of the prophetic Sibyl,—a parallel and reproduction of the Gergithian Sibyl, near Kymê in Æolis: in the immediate neighborhood, too, stood the wild woods and dark lake of Avernus, consecrated to the subterranean gods, and offering an establishment of priests, with ceremonies evoking the dead, for purposes of prophecy or for solving doubts and mysteries. It was here that Grecian imagination localized the Cimmerians and the fable of Odysseus; and the Cumæans derived gains from the numerous visitors to this holy spot,[668] perhaps hardly less than those of the inhabitants of Krissa from the vicinity of Delphi. Of the relations of these Cumæans with the Hellenic world generally, we unfortunately know nothing; but they seem to have been in intimate connection with Rome during the time of the kings, and especially during that of the last king Tarquin,[669]—forming the intermediate link between the Greek and Latin world, whereby the feelings of the Teukrians and Gergithians near the Æolic Kymê, and the legendary stories of Trojan as well as Grecian heroes—Æneas and Odysseus—passed into the antiquarian imagination of Rome and Latium.[670] The writers of the Augustan age knew Cumæ only in its decline, and wondered at the vast extent of its ancient walls, yet remaining in their time. But during the two centuries prior to 500 B. C., these walls inclosed a full and thriving population, in the plenitude of prosperity,—with a surrounding territory extensive as well as fertile,[671] resorted to by purchasers of corn from Rome in years of scarcity, and unassailed as yet by formidable neighbors,—and with a coast and harbors well suited to maritime commerce. At that period, the town of Capua, if indeed it existed at all, was of very inferior importance, and the chief part of the rich plain around it was included in the possessions of Cumæ[672]—not unworthy probably, in the sixth century B. C., to be numbered with Sybaris and Krotôn.
The decline of Cumæ begins in the first half of the fifth century B. C. (500-450 B. C.), first, from the growth of hostile powers in the interior,—the Tuscans and Samnites,—next, from violent intestine dissensions and a destructive despotism. The town was assailed by a formidable host of invaders from the interior, Tuscans reinforced by Umbrian and Daunian allies; which Dionysius refers to the 64th Olympiad (524-520 B. C.), though upon what chronological authority we do not know, and though this same time is marked by Eusebius as the date of the foundation of Dikæarchia from Cumæ. The invaders, in spite of great disparity of number, were bravely repelled by the Cumæans, chiefly through the heroic example of a citizen then first known and distinguished,—Aristodêmus Malakus. The government of the city was oligarchical, and the oligarchy from that day became jealous of Aristodêmus; who, on his part, acquired extraordinary popularity and influence among the people. Twenty years afterwards, the Latin city of Aricia, an ancient ally of Cumæ was attacked by a Tuscan host, and intreated succor from the Cumæans. The oligarchy of the latter thought this a good opportunity to rid themselves of Aristodêmus, whom they despatched by sea to Aricia, with rotten vessels and an insufficient body of troops. But their stratagem failed and proved their ruin; for the skill and intrepidity of Aristodêmus sufficed for the rescue of Aricia, and he brought back his troops victorious and devoted to himself personally. Partly by force, partly by stratagem, he subverted the oligarchy, put to death the principal rulers, and constituted himself despot: by a jealous energy, by disarming the people, and by a body of mercenaries, he maintained himself in this authority for twenty years, running his career of lust and iniquity until old age. At length a conspiracy of the oppressed population proved successful against him; he was slain, with all his family and many of his chief partisans, and the former government was restored.[673]
The despotism of Aristodêmus falls during the exile of the expelled Tarquin[674] (to whom he gave shelter) from Rome, and during the government of Gelôn at Syracuse; and this calamitous period of dissension and misrule was one of the great causes of the decline of Cumæ. Nearly at the same time, the Tuscan power, both by land and sea, appears at its maximum, and the Tuscan establishment at Capua begins, if we adopt the era of the town as given by Cato.[675] There was thus created at the expense of Cumæ a powerful city, which was still farther aggrandized afterwards when conquered and occupied by the Samnites; whose invading tribes, under their own name or that of Lucanians, extended themselves during the fifth and fourth centuries B. C., even to the shores of the gulf of Tarentum.[676] Cumæ was also exposed to formidable dangers from the sea-side: a fleet, either of Tuscans alone, or of Tuscans and Carthaginians united, assailed it in 474 B. C., and it was only rescued by the active interposition of Hiero, despot of Syracuse; by whose naval force the invaders were repelled with slaughter.[677] These incidents go partly to indicate, partly to explain, the decline of the most ancient Hellenic settlement in Italy,—a decline from which it never recovered.
After briefly sketching the history of Cumæ, we pass naturally to that series of powerful colonies which were established in Sicily and Italy, beginning with 735 B. C.—enterprises in which Chalkis, Corinth, Megara, Sparta, the Achæans in Peloponnesus, and the Lokrians out of Peloponnesus, were all concerned. Chalkis, the metropolis of Cumæ, became also the metropolis of Naxos, the most ancient Grecian colony in Sicily, on the eastern coast of the island, between the strait of Messina and Mount Ætna.
The great number of Grecian settlements, from different colonizing towns, which appear to have taken effect within a few years upon the eastern coast of Italy and Sicily—from the Iapygian cape to cape Pachynus—leads us to suppose that the extraordinary capacities of the country for receiving new settlers had become known only suddenly. The colonies follow so close upon each other, that the example of the first cannot have been the single determining motive to those which followed. I shall have occasion to point out, even a century later (on the occasion of the settlement of Kyrênê), the narrow range of Grecian navigation; so that the previous supposed ignorance would not be at all incredible, were it not for the fact of the preëxisting colony of Cumæ. According to the practice universal with Grecian ships—which rarely permitted themselves to lose sight of the coast except in cases of absolute necessity—every man, who navigated from Greece to Italy or Sicily, first coasted along the shores of Akarnania and Epirus until he reached the latitude of Korkyra; he then struck across first to that island, next to the Iapygian promontory, from whence he proceeded along the eastern coast of Italy (the gulfs of Tarentum and Squillace) to the southern promontory of Calabria and the Sicilian strait; he would then sail, still coastwise, either to Syracuse or to Cumæ, according to his destination. So different are nautical habits now, that this fact requires special notice; we must recollect, moreover, that in 735 B. C., there were yet no Grecian settlements either in Epirus or in Korkyra: outside of the gulf of Corinth, the world was non-Hellenic, with the single exception of the remote Cumæ. A little before the last-mentioned period, Theoklês (an Athenian or a Chalkidian—probably the latter) was cast by storms on the coast of Sicily, and became acquainted with the tempting character of the soil, as well as the dispersed and half-organized condition of the petty Sikel communities who occupied it.[678] The oligarchy of Chalkis, acting upon the information which he brought back, sent out under his guidance settlers,[679] Chalkidian and Naxian, who founded the Sicilian Naxos. Theoklês and his companions on landing first occupied the eminence of Taurus, immediately overhanging the sea (whereon was established four centuries afterwards the town of Tauromenium, after Naxos had been destroyed by the Syracusan despot Dionysius); for they had to make good their position against the Sikels, who were in occupation of the neighborhood, and whom it was requisite either to dispossess or to subjugate. After they had acquired secure possession of the territory, the site of the city was transferred to a convenient spot adjoining; but the hill first occupied remained ever memorable, both to Greeks and to Sikels. On it was erected the altar of Apollo Archêgetês, the divine patron who (through his oracle at Delphi) had sanctioned and determined Hellenic colonization in the island. The altar remained permanently as a sanctuary common to all the Sicilian Greeks, and the Theôrs or sacred envoys from their various cities, when they visited the Olympic and other festivals of Greece, were always in the habit of offering sacrifice upon it immediately before their departure. To the autonomous Sikels, on the other hand, the hill was an object of durable but odious recollection, as the spot in which Grecian conquest and intrusion had first begun; and at the distance of three centuries and a half from the event, we find them still animated by this sentiment in obstructing the foundation of Tauromenium.[680]
At the time when Theoklês landed, the Sikels were in possession of the larger half of the island, lying chiefly to the east of the Heræan mountains,[681]—a chain of hills stretching in a southerly direction from that principal chain, called the Neurode or Nebrode mountains, which runs from east to west for the most part parallel with the northern shore. West of the Heræan hills were situated the Sikans; and west of these latter, Eryx and Egesta, the possessions of the Elymi: along the western portion of the northern coast, also, were placed Motyê, Soloêis, and Panormus (now Palermo), the Phenician or Carthaginian seaports. The formation, or at least the extension, of these three last-mentioned ports, however, was a consequence of the multiplied Grecian colonies; for the Phenicians down to this time had not founded any territorial or permanent establishments, but had contented themselves with occupying in a temporary way various capes or circumjacent islets, for the purpose of trade with the interior. The arrival of formidable Greek settlers, maritime like themselves, induced them to abandon these outlying factories, and to concentrate their strength in the three considerable towns above named, all near to that corner of the island which approached most closely to Carthage. The east side of Sicily, and most part of the south, were left open to the Greeks, with no other opposition than that of the indigenous Sikels and Sikans, who were gradually expelled from all contact with the sea-shore, except on part of the north side of the island,—and who were indeed, so unpractised at sea as well as destitute of shipping, that in the tale of their old migration out of Italy into Sicily, the Sikels were affirmed to have crossed the narrow strait upon rafts at a moment of favorable wind.[682]
In the very next year[683] to the foundation of Naxos, Corinth began her part in the colonization of the island. A body of settlers, under the œkist Archias, landed in the islet Ortygia, farther southward on the eastern coast, expelled the Sikel occupants, and laid the first stone of the mighty Syracuse. Ortygia, two English miles in circumference, was separated from the main island only by a narrow channel, which was bridged over when the city was occupied and enlarged by Gelôn in the 72d Olympiad, if not earlier. It formed only a small part, though the most secure and best-fortified part, of the vast space which the city afterwards occupied; but it sufficed alone for the inhabitants during a considerable time, and the present city in its modern decline has again reverted to the same modest limits. Moreover, Ortygia offered another advantage of not less value; it lay across the entrance of a spacious harbor, approached by a narrow mouth, and its fountain of Arethusa was memorable in antiquity both for the abundance and goodness of its water. We should have been glad to learn something respecting the numbers, character, position, nativity, etc. of these primitive emigrants, the founders of a city which we shall hereafter find comprising a vast walled circuit, which Strabo reckons at one hundred and eighty stadia, but which the modern observations of Colonel Leake announce as fourteen English miles,[684] or about one hundred and twenty-two stadia. We are told only that many of them came from the Corinthian village of Tenea, and that one of them sold to a comrade on the voyage his lot of land in prospective, for the price of a honey-cake: the little which we hear about the determining motives[685] of the colony refers to the personal character of the œkist. Archias son of Euagêtus, one of the governing gens of the Bacchiadæ at Corinth, in the violent prosecution of unbridled lust, had caused, though unintentionally, the death of a free youth named Aktæon, whose father Melissus, after having vainly endeavored to procure redress, slew himself at the Isthmian games, invoking the vengeance of Poseidôn against the aggressor.[686] Such were the destructive effects of this paternal curse, that Archias was compelled to expatriate, and the Bacchiadæ placed him at the head of the emigrants to Ortygia, in 734 B. C.: at that time, probably, this was a sentence of banishment to which no man of commanding station would submit except under the pressure of necessity.