The prevalence of Latin in an eastern land, and in a form which is stated to present closer analogies with the language of the Roman period than with any of its western derivatives, had its origin in the Roman conquest of southeastern Europe in the early part of the first Christian millennium. Occupation of the land by important bodies of legionaries and a host of civil administrators, their intermarriage with the natives, the advantages conferred by Roman citizenship, all combined to force Latin into current use. And when in 275 Aurelian recalled Roman troops from the eastern provinces of the empire, the vernacular of Rome had taken too solid a footing on Dacian soil to be extirpated.
Abandonment of the region by the Romans is cited for political reasons by the Magyar rulers of Transylvania to refute Rumanian claims to this Hungarian province. Rumanian historians, however, have been able to demonstrate the untenability of this assumption.[166] They have shown that many of the customs of their country are distinctly reminiscent of Latin Italy. It is still customary in many Rumanian villages to attach a small coin to the finger of the dead after an ancient Roman custom of providing the soul with its fare across the Styx. Bands of traveling musicians in Balkan or Hungarian cities are known to be composed of Rumanians whenever their members carry an instrument which is a faithful imitation of the pipes of Pan as sculptured upon Roman and Gallo-Roman monuments. Rumania’s national dance, the Calusaré, commemorates the rape of the Sabines to this day. Neither does the list of these analogies end with the examples given here. Furthermore the evidence afforded by geography tends also to validate Rumanian claims.
From the valley of the Dniester to the basin of the Theiss the steppes of southern Russia spread in unvarying uniformity save where the tableland of the Transylvanian Alps breaks their continuity. The entire region was the Dacia colonized by the Romans.[167] Unity of life, in this home of Rumanian nationality, has been unaffected by the sharp physical diversity afforded by the inclosure of mountain and plain within the same linguistic boundary. The thoroughness with which Rumanians have adapted themselves to the peculiarities of their land is evinced by the combination of the twin occupations of herder and husbandman characteristic of Moldavians and Wallachians. Cattle and flocks are led every summer to the rich grazing lands of the Transylvania valleys. In winter man and beast seek the pastures of the Danubian steppes and prairies. Rumanians thus maintain mountain and plain residences, which they occupy alternately.[168] This mode of life is the transformation which the nomadism of the Asiatic steppe received on Rumanian soil. It is a true relic of past habitat. These seasonal migrations also account for the intimacy between highlanders and lowlanders in Rumania, besides affording adequate explanation of the peopling of the region by a single nationality.[169]
There was a time, however, when Rumanian nationality was entirely confined to the mountain zone. Invasions which followed the retirement of the Romans had driven Rumanians to the shelter of the Transylvanian ranges. Perched on this natural fortress, they beheld the irruption of Slavs and Tatars in the broad valleys which they once held in undisputed sway. Only after the flow of southeastern migrations had abated did they venture to reoccupy the plains and resume their agricultural life and seasonal wanderings.
The outstanding fact in these historical vicissitudes is that the mountain saved the Latin character of Rumanian speech. Had the Romanized Dacians been unable to find refuge in the Transylvanian Alps their language would probably have been submerged by the Slavic or Tatar flood. As it is, the life of Rumanians is strongly impregnated with eastern influences. Oddly enough its Christianity was derived from Byzantium instead of from Rome and, were it not for a veritable renaissance of Latinism about 1860, its affinity with the Slavic world would be manifest with greater intensity than is apparent in the present century.
The preservation of Roman speech was not confined to the Transylvanian mountain area. In spite of Rome’s waning power in the Balkans, her language had taken such solid root in the peninsula that it has maintained itself to this day in the Pindus mountain region intervening between Epirus and Macedonia. Here the Kutzo-Vlachs of the region speak a language identical with that spoken in the last stretches of the valley of the Danube. In Albania also the same cultural heritage has been treasured to this day in the mountainous tangle of the land. Albanian however is further removed from Latin than Rumanian, probably on account of less intercourse with the Roman world.[170]
The name of Kutzo-Wallachians or Aromunes is given to the mountaineers of Rumanian speech peopling parts of Macedonia, Albania and Thessaly. This detached band of Rumanians occupies mainly the region between the mountains of the Pindus range and the Serbian boundary. In Albania they are found scattered along the upper reaches of the Semeni and Devoli rivers. In Greece, the channels of the Voyussa, the Arta, the Aspropotamos, the Bistritza and the lower Vardar likewise constitute their favorite tramping grounds. A shepherd people, roaming with their flocks, their life is spent either in the valleys of their summer mountain resorts or in the plains which they favor in winter. Tribes or clans among which dialectical differences can be found occur according to locality, but they nevertheless compose when taken together a compact mass of Rumanians settled far from the main body of their kinsmen by speech.
A group 5,000 to 6,000 strong live near the sources of the Aspropotamos around Siracu, and between Kalarites and Malakasi. Northwards this clan extends to Metsovo.[171] In the Olympus mountains Rumanians are known at Vlakho-Livadi and adjoining districts. Eastwards, the Veria Rumanians are found in the villages of Selia, Doliani and Kirolivadi. West of the latter locality, the settlements of Vlakho-Klissura, Blatza and Sisani are likewise composed entirely of Rumanian inhabitants. The same is true of the villages of Nevesca, Belcamen and Pisuderi as well as of Gramosta, in the recesses of the Grammos mountains and of Koritza and Sipiska. Other colonies exist at Okrida, Gopes, Krushevo, Molovista, Tirnova, Magarevo and Monastir. The Struga and Geala settlements are also part of the preceding groups.
Within Albanian territory the village of Frasheri is the most important Rumanian settlement. Its name has passed to the Frasherist group of western Rumanians. Around Berat, a strong contingent occupies about 40 villages and can muster ten thousand men. In the Vardar valley various settlements aggregating 14,000 individuals, all farmers, are distributed near Guevgueli as well as in localities north and south of this town. Many of these peasants are Mohammedans and speak a dialect of their own. A Rumanian settlement is also found in the Jumaya Pass south of Sofia and along the old Turco-Bulgarian frontier.
The nomadic character of these isolated adherents of a Latin language is shown in many of their villages, which are occupied during part of the year only. As an example the villages in the vicinity of Frasheri, the ancient “Little Wallachia,” are inhabited during winter alone. Many Frasherists can be met along the Albanian coast between Kimara and the bay of Valona, as well as along the eastern coast of Corfu and in villages of the Moskopolis and Koritza districts. As a rule they are peddlers and confine their commercial nomadism to profitable routes just as pastoral nomads, who are their kinsmen, seesaw back and forth between the mountain districts nearest their plains.