It is well known that it was not till the close of the republic, or rather the beginning of the empire, that the name of Italy was employed, as we now employ it, to designate the whole peninsula, from the Alps to the Straits of Messina. The term Italia, borrowed from the name of a primeval tribe which occupied the southern portion of the land, was gradually adopted as a generic title in the same obscure manner in which most of the countries of Europe, or (we may say) the continents of the world have received their appellations. In the remotest times the name only included lower Calabria; from these narrow limits it gradually spread upwards, till about the time of the Punic Wars its northern boundary ascended the little river Rubicon (between Umbria and Cisalpine Gaul), then followed the ridge of the Apennines westward to the source of the Macra, and was carried down the bed of that small stream to the Gulf of Genoa.
But under Roman rule even this narrower Italy wanted that unity of race and language which, in spite of political severance, we are accustomed to attribute to the name. Within the boundaries just indicated there were at least six distinct races, some no doubt more widely separated, but all marked by strong national characteristics. These were the Pelasgians, the Oscans, the Sabellians, the Umbrians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks.
It is certain that in primitive times the coasts and lower valleys of Italy were peopled by tribes that had crossed over from the opposite shores of Greece and Epirus. These tribes belonged to that ancient stock called the Pelasgian, of which so much has been written and so little is known. The names that remained in southern Italy were practically all of a half-Hellenic character. Such were, in the heel of Italy, the Daunians and Peucetians (reputed to be of Arcadian origin), the Messapians and Salentines; to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum, the Chaonians (who are also found in Epirus); and in the toe the Œnotrians, who once gave name to all southern Italy. Such also were the Siculians and other tribes along the coast from Etruria to Campania, who were driven out by the invading Oscan and Sabellian nations.
The Oscan or Opican race was at one time very widely spread over the south. The Auruncans of lower Latium belonged to this race, as also the Ausonians, who once gave name to central Italy, and probably also the Volscians and the Æquians. In Campania the Oscan language was preserved to a late period in Roman history, and inscriptions still remain which can be interpreted by those familiar with Latin.
The Umbrians at one time possessed dominion over great part of central Italy. Inscriptions in their language also remain, and manifestly show that they spoke a tongue not alien to the Latin. The irruption of the Sabellian and of the Etruscan nations was probably the cause which broke the power of the Umbrians, and drove them back to a scanty territory between the Æsis, the Rubicon, and the Tiber.
The greatest of the Italian nations was the Sabellian. Under this name we include the Sabines, who are said by tradition to have been the progenitors of the whole race, the Samnites, the Picenians, Vestinians, Marsians, Marrucinians, Pelignians, and Frentanians. This race seems to have been naturally given to a pastoral life, and therefore fixed its early settlements in the upland valleys of the Apennines. Pushing gradually along this central range, the mountaineers penetrated downwards towards the Gulf of Tarentum; and as their population became too dense to find support in their native hills, bands of warrior youths issued forth to settle in the richer plains below. Thus they mingled with the Opican and Hellenic races of the south, and formed new tribes, known by the names of Apulians, Lucanians, and Campanians. These more recent tribes, in turn, threatened the great Greek colonies on the coast, of which we shall speak presently.
We now come to the Etruscans, the most singular people of the peninsula. This people called themselves Rasena, or Rasenna—a name that reminds us of the Etruscan surnames Porsenna, Vibenna, Sisenna. At one time they possessed not only the country known to the Romans as Etruria (that is, the country bounded by the Macra, the central Apennine ridge, and the Tiber), but also occupied a large portion of Liguria and Cisalpine Gaul; and perhaps they had settlements in Campania. In early times they possessed a powerful navy, and in the primitive Greek legends they are represented as infesting the Mediterranean with their piratical galleys. They seem to have been driven out of their trans-Apennine possession by early invasions of the Gauls; and their naval power never recovered the blow which it received in the year 480 B.C., when Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated their navy, combined with that of Carthage, on the same day on which the battle of Salamis crippled the power of Persia.[2]
But who this people were, or whence they came, baffles conjecture. It may be assumed as certain, that Hellenic settlers came in by sea from the western coasts of Epirus, which are distant from Italy less than fifty miles; and that the Opican, Umbrian, and Sabellian races came in from the north by land. But with respect to the Etruscans all is doubtful. One well-known legend represents them as Lydians, who fled by sea from Asia Minor to avoid the terrible presence of famine. Another indicates that they came down over the Alps, and the origin of their name Rasena is traced in Rætia. On the former supposition, Etruria was their earliest settlement, and, pushing northward, they conquered the plain of the Po; on the latter, they first took possession of this fertile plain, and then spread southward over the Apennines.
Their language, if it could be interpreted, might help to solve the riddle. But though characters in which their inscriptions are written bear close affinity to the Greek and Roman alphabets, the tongue of this remarkable people has as yet baffled the deftest efforts of philology.
Of the Greek settlements that studded the coast of lower Italy, and gave to that district the name of Magna Græcia, little need here be said. They were not planted till after the foundation of Rome. Many of them, indeed, attained to great power and splendour; and the native Osco-Pelasgian population of the south became their subjects or their serfs. Sybaris alone, in the course of two centuries, is said to have become mistress of four nations and twenty-five towns, and to have been able to raise a civic force of 300,000 men. Croton, her rival, was even larger. Greek cities appear as far north as Campania, where Naples still preserves in a corrupt form her Hellenic name, Neapolis. The Greek remains discovered at Canusium (Canosi) in the heart of Apulia, attest the extent of Hellenic dominion. But the Greeks seem to have held aloof from mixture with the native Italians, whom they considered as barbarians. Rome is not mentioned by any Greek writer before the time of Aristotle (about 340 B.C.).