163. Dolmen at Saturnia. From Dennis' 'Etruria.'
If this is a correct representation of what took place in Italy, the conclusion seems inevitable that the chambered tumuli of that country—all of which are erected with hewn stones—did not grow out of rude-stone monuments. In no country in Europe are the tumuli so numerous or so important as in Etruria, and, as before mentioned, they certainly extend back to an era twelve or thirteen centuries before Christ. But if the dolmens of France or Scandinavia are prehistoric, or, in other words, extend back to anything like a thousand or fifteen hundred years before Christ, there is no reason whatever why dolmens should not be found also in Italy, if they ever existed there. Either it must be that Italy never possessed any or that those in the rest of Europe are very much more modern. If the northern dolmens are only one thousand to two thousand years old, the matter is easily explained. If they are three thousand or four thousand years old, they ought also to be found in Italy.
The fact seems to be that both the Pelasgi of Greece and the Tyrrheni of Italy came in contact either with Egypt or some early stone-hewing people before they left their homes in the East to migrate into Europe, and that they never passed through the rude-stone stage of architecture at any period, or at any place with which we are acquainted; and as they were, so far as we know, the earliest colonists of the countries they afterwards occupied, it seems in vain to look for dolmens where they settled. If Attila had lived five centuries before instead of after the Christian era, he and his Huns might have produced a rude-stone age in Italy. The inhabitants of Etruria were essentially a burying, dead-reverencing people, and if they had only been thrown back to that stage of barbarism which the rude monuments of our forefathers represent, we might have found dolmens there in thousands. The fate of Italy was different. Pressed by the Celts of Gallia Cisalpina in the north and by the Romans in the south, Etruria was squeezed out of existence, but by two races more civilized and progressive than herself. So far from throwing her back towards barbarism, Rome in adopting many of her forms advanced and improved upon them, and imparted to her architecture a higher and more intellectual form than she had been herself able to impress upon it. So, too, in Greece. The Dorian superseded and extinguished the Pelasgic forms, but after a longer interval of time. Four or five centuries elapsed between the last tomb we know of, at Mycenæ, and the earliest Doric temple at Corinth, and the consequence is that we see far fewer traces of the earlier people in the architecture of Greece than we do in that of Rome. But in neither instance was there any tendency to retrograde to a dolmen stage of civilization.
The case was widely different with such countries as Spain or France. There an aboriginal population had existed for thousands and tens of thousands of years, unprogressive and incapable, so far as we know, of progress within themselves, and only at last
slowly and reluctantly forced by Roman example to adopt a more ambitious mode of sepulture than a mere mound of earth. No semi-civilized race ever settled in their lands, and the Carthaginians at Carthagena or Marseilles hardly penetrated into the interior, and were besides neither a building nor burying race, and had, consequently, very little influence on their modes of sepulture.
With Rome the case was different. She conquered and administered for centuries all those countries in which we find the earliest traces of rude-stone monuments, and she could hardly fail to leave some impress of her magnificence in lands which she had so long occupied. But when she withdrew her protecting care, France, Spain, and Britain relapsed into, and for centuries remained sunk in, a state of anarchy and barbarism as bad, if not worse than, that in which Rome had found them three or four centuries before. It was in vain to expect that the hapless natives could maintain either the arts or the institutions with which Rome had endowed them. But it is natural to suppose that they would remember the evidences of her greatness and her power, and would hardly go back for their sepulchres to the unchambered mole-hill barrows of their forefathers, but attempt something in stone, though only in such rude fashion as the state of the arts among them enabled them to execute.
Footnotes
[441] 'Memoria sobre el Tempio Druida de Antequera,' Malaga, 1847.
[442] 'Antegüedades prehistoricos de Andalucia,' Madrid, 1868.
[443] For a great part of the information regarding them, I am indebted to my friend Don J. F. Riaño, of Madrid.
[444] 'Bible in Spain,' ii. p. 35.
[445] Strabo, iii. p. 138.
[446] There is an interesting paper by Lord Talbot de Malahide on this subject in the 'Archæological Journal,' 108, 1870, illustrated by drawings of hitherto unknown dolmens, by Sir Vincent Eyre.
[447] 'Revue archéologique,' new series, viii. p. 530.
[448] "In the year B.C. 218, the second and fiercest struggle between the rival republics of Carthage and Rome was commenced by Hannibal taking Seguntum. The Peninsula thereafter became the theatre of a war afterwards carried by Hannibal into Italy, which was not concluded till 202 B.C., when Spain was added to the growing Italian Republic. But the nation of Spain did not willingly bow to the yoke. One of the bloodiest of all the Roman wars commenced in Spain in 153, and did not finally terminate for twenty years, during which cities were razed to the ground, multitudes massacred and made slaves, and the triumphant arms of Rome borne to the Atlantic shores. Here, therefore, is an epoch in the history of the Spanish peninsula which seems completely to coincide with the ancient traditions of the Scoti, and the knowledge we possess of the period of their arrival in Ireland."—Dan Wilson, 'Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' p. 475.
[449] See a paper on the migration from Spain to Ireland, by Dr. Madden, 'Proceedings of Royal Irish Academy,' viii. pp. 372 et seq.
[450] Madden, l. s. c. p. 377.
[452] Petrie, "Essay on Tara," 'Trans. R. S. A.' xviii.
[453] "The two provinces which the race of Heremon possessed were the province of Gailian (i.e. Leinster) and the province of Olnemacht (i.e. Connaught)."—Petrie, 'Round Towers,' p. 100.
[454] Reeves, translation of Nennius, p. 55.
[455] 'True Principles of Beauty in Art,' by the Author, appendix, 526.
[456] These dimensions are taken from Mitjana's book, merely turned into their equivalents in English feet. They do not, however, agree in scale with the plan, but are probably approximately correct.
[457] There is a view of the mound and church in Parcerisa, 'Recuerdos y Bellezas de España, Asturias y Leon,' p. 30, but too small to enable us to be able to form any idea of its age from the lithograph.
[458] The woodcut is copied from one in Frank Leslie's 'Illustrated News;' which is itself, taken from a French illustrated journal. I do not doubt that the American copy is a correct reproduction of the French original; but there may be exaggerations in the first. I see no reason, however, for doubting that the great stones do exist in the hermitage, and that they are parts, at least, of a dolmen—-and this is all that concerns the argument. I wish, however, we had some more reliable information on the subject.
[460] Borrow, 'Bible in Spain,' ii. p. 35.
[461] 'Congrès international préhistorique,' Paris volume, p. 182.
[462] 'Congrès international préhistorique,' Paris volume, p. 197.
[463] 'Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria,' ii. p. 314.