[17]. Varronianus, i. sec. 10.
[18]. Heyne, Exc. Virg. Æn. iii.
[19]. The religion of Rome furnishes many other traces of Etruscan influence:—ex. gr., the ceremonies of the augurs and haruspices were Etruscan, and the lituus, or augur’s staff, may be seen on old Etruscan monuments. The Tuscan Fortune, Nortia, the etymology of whose name (ne-verto) coincides with that of the Greek Ἀτροπος (the unchangeable,) had the nails, the emblem of necessity, as her device; and hence the consul marked the commencement of the year by driving a nail.
The Roman Hymen, the god of marriage, was Talassius; a fact which illustrates one of the incidents in the tradition which Livy (book i. c. ix.) adopts respecting the rape of the Sabine virgins.
The name Talassius was evidently derived from the Tuscan name Thalna, or Talana, by which was designated the Juno Pronuba of the Romans, and the Ἡρη τελειά of the Greeks.
[20]. Owing to the existence of the Pelasgian element in Latin, as well as in Greek, an affinity can be traced between these languages and the Sanscrit in no fewer than 339 Greek and 319 Latin words.
[21]. See Donaldson’s Varron., c. iii.
[22]. Leps. de Tab. Eug., p. 86.
[23]. B. C. 354.
[24]. Varronianus, c. iii.