The Bronze Age and the Celtic World

by Harold Peake

It will be well, then, to leave for a time the consideration of the Celtic evidence, and to endeavour to test our equation without reference to the linguistic data of the west. There remains, then, only one other area in which to search for our confirmatory test, the Italian peninsula.

Professor Conway[470] has given us to understand that the Osco-Umbrian dialects, which were P languages, were spoken throughout Italy from Umbria southwards, and doubtless, if we may judge from the statement of Herodotus already quoted, as far north as the foot-hills of the Alps, before the Gauls had invaded the valley of the Po. The only exceptions to this spread of these dialects were Etruria, or the greater portion of it, and a part of Latium, in which Latin dialects of the Q type were spoken. These Latin dialects, Conway tells us, were spoken by the Latini, the Marsi, the Æqui, the Hernici, the Falisci, who dwelt within the borders of Etruria, and to some extent by the Sabini.[471]

The linguistic position of the Sabines seems uncertain. In the passage quoted Conway enumerates them among the tribes who spoke Q dialects, but later on, when mentioning some of those who had P speech, he adds in a footnote that perhaps Sabine should be included among these. The position of the Sabine tongue is then uncertain. If this were so, the same uncertainty may apply to the Faliscans, for little if anything is known directly of their dialect, but Conway states that it is “certain that they were akin to the Sabines across the Tiber, and that their city was subdued and governed by the Etruscans.”[472]

This leaves us with four tribes, who undoubtedly spoke Q languages, the Latini, Marsi, Æqui, and Hernici. The area occupied by them is only roughly indicated by Conway, but I gather that he agrees with the boundaries delineated by Kiepert.[473] The map given in Fig. 26 gives these bounds, and it will be seen that in many respects the region they occupy agrees with the area in which all the Italian leaf-shaped swords have been found. There are, however, certain marked differences.

Out of nine swords of Type D, four are found within the area of Q speech, and one at Sulmona, only just outside and within the area of Sabine speech. One is a stray, found somewhere in Apulia, and three, together with one of Type C, have been found not far from Lake Trasimene. The solitary sword of Type B, found at Ascoli, seems only to indicate that the line of approach was from the east.

Thus it seems that there is a fair equation between the swords and Q speech, but the latter must have been driven from the Trasimene region, and pushed westward in the Sabine area. Of the former presence and subsequent disappearances of the Q speech from the Trasimene region we have no evidence, but we have seen that the Etruscans arrived later than the leaf-shaped sword people and with a superior culture. We have also found reason for suspecting that the Villa-nova folk, who arrived still later, had made themselves a military aristocracy over the Etruscans, and the conquest or expulsion may have been due to them. We have seen that the Falisci, a tribe with Sabine affinities, were absorbed by the Etruscans. There is nothing inherently impossible in the same fate having overtaken the leaf-shaped sword people who had settled in the region around Lake Trasimene.

FIG. 26.—MAP SHOWING DISTRIBUTION OF SWORDS AND DIALECTS IN ITALY.

But with regard to the westward move of the Q peoples, and to the suggestion that they were driven from what was later Sabine territory, we are not dependent wholly upon conjecture, for Dionysius of Halicarnassus tells us that the tribes who occupied the region around Rome, after the barbarian Siculi, were the Aborigines.[474] Whether this term conveyed to Dionysius the same meaning as it does to us, or whether it was a corruption of a tribal name as some have thought,[475] does not concern us here. It is sufficient for our purpose that he mentions that their original home lay to the east, in the valley of the Velino and its tributary the Salto, which drains Lake Fucino. He mentions by name many of their cities, and describes the position of most of them. The sites of the majority have been identified, though some yet remain unknown. Judging by what can be ascertained of their position, we gather that the Aborigines occupied the Salto valley from Marruvium, on the shores of Lake Fucino, as far as Reatæ, where it joins the Velino, and thence to the junction of the latter with the Nera. One of their cities, Batia, lay considerably to the north, across the Apennines, in the direction of Ascoli, where the Type B sword was found. How far the territory of the Aborigines stretched towards Lake Trasimene is uncertain, as the sites of some of their towns remain unidentified, but several of them lay in that direction, outside the later area of Q speech, but in Sabine territory.