to preserve the tradition of their art.  That there was some mode
of excluding unskilled persons is probable; but no traces are to be
met with either of monopolizing tendencies or of protective steps
against inferior manufactures.  There is no aspect, however, of
the life of the Roman people respecting which our information is
so scanty as that of the Roman trades.

Inland Commerce of the Italians

Italian commerce must, it is obvious, have been limited in the
earliest epoch to the mutual dealings of the Italians themselves.
Fairs (-mercatus-), which must be distinguished from the usual weekly
markets (-nundinae-) were of great antiquity in Latium.  Probably
they were at first associated with international gatherings and
festivals, and so perhaps were connected in Rome with the festival
at the federal temple on the Aventine; the Latins, who came for this
purpose to Rome every year on the 13th August, may have embraced
at the same time the opportunity of transacting their business
in Rome and of purchasing what they needed there.  A similar and
perhaps still greater importance belonged in the case of Etruria
to the annual general assembly at the temple of Voltumna (perhaps
near Montefiascone) in the territory of Volsinii; it served at the
same time as a fair and was regularly frequented by Roman traders.
But the most important of all the Italian fairs was that which was
held at Soracte in the grove of Feronia, a situation than which
none could be found more favourable for the exchange of commodities
among the three great nations.  That high isolated mountain, which
appears to have been set down by nature herself in the midst of the
plain of the Tiber as a goal for the traveller, lay on the boundary
which separated the Etruscan and Sabine lands (to the latter
of which it appears mostly to have belonged), and it was likewise
easily accessible from Latium and Umbria.  Roman merchants regularly
made their appearance there, and the wrongs of which they complained
gave rise to many a quarrel with the Sabines.

Beyond doubt dealings of barter and traffic were carried on at these
fairs long before the first Greek or Phoenician vessel entered the
western sea.  When bad harvests had occurred, different districts
supplied each other at these fairs with grain; there, too, they
exchanged cattle, slaves, metals, and whatever other articles were
deemed needful or desirable in those primitive times.  Oxen and
sheep formed the oldest medium of exchange, ten sheep being reckoned
equivalent to one ox.  The recognition of these objects as universal
legal representatives of value or in other words as money, as well
as the scale of proportion between the large and smaller cattle,
may be traced back--as the recurrence of both especially among the
Germans shows--not merely to the Graeco-Italian period, but beyond
this even to the epoch of a purely pastoral economy.(16)  In
Italy, where metal in considerable quantity was everywhere required
especially for agricultural purposes and for armour, but few of its
provinces themselves produced the requisite metals, copper (-aes-)
very early made its appearance alongside of cattle as a second
medium of exchange; and so the Latins, who were poor in copper,
designated valuation itself as "coppering" (-aestimatio-).  This
establishment of copper as a general equivalent recognized throughout
the whole peninsula, as well as the simplest numeral signs of
Italian invention to be mentioned more particularly below(17) and
the Italian duodecimal system, may be regarded as traces of this
earliest international intercourse of the Italian peoples while
they still had the peninsula to themselves.

Transmarine Traffic of the Italians

We have already indicated generally the nature of the influence
exercised by transmarine commerce on the Italians who continued
independent.  The Sabellian stocks remained almost wholly unaffected
by it.  They were in possession of but a small and inhospitable
belt of coast, and received whatever reached them from foreign
nations--the alphabet for instance--only through the medium of the
Tuscans or Latins; a circumstance which accounts for their want of
urban development.  The intercourse of Tarentum with the Apulians
and Messapians appears to have been at this epoch still unimportant.
It was otherwise along the west coast.  In Campania the Greeks and
Italians dwelt peacefully side by side, and in Latium, and still
more in Etruria, an extensive and regular exchange of commodities
took place.  What were the earliest articles of import, may
be inferred partly from the objects found in the primitive tombs,
particularly those at Caere, partly from indications preserved in
the language and institutions of the Romans, partly and chiefly from
the stimulus given to Italian industry; for of course they bought
foreign manufactures for a considerable time before they began
to imitate them.  We cannot determine how far the development of
handicrafts had advanced before the separation of the stocks, or
what progress it thereafter made while Italy remained left to its
own resources; it is uncertain how far the Italian fullers, dyers,
tanners, and potters received their impulse from Greece or Phoenicia
or had their own independent development But certainly the trade
of the goldsmiths, which existed in Rome from time immemorial, can
only have arisen after transmarine commerce had begun and ornaments
of gold had to some extent found sale among the inhabitants of the
peninsula.  We find, accordingly, in the oldest sepulchral chambers
of Caere and Vulci in Etruria and of Praeneste in Latium, plates
of gold with winged lions stamped upon them, and similar ornaments
of Babylonian manufacture.  It may be a question in reference to
the particular object found, whether it has been introduced from
abroad or is a native imitation; but on the whole it admits of
no doubt that all the west coast of Italy in early times imported
metallic wares from the East.  It will be shown still more clearly
in the sequel, when we come to speak of the exercise of art, that
architecture and modelling in clay and metal received a powerful
stimulus in very early times through Greek influence, or, in
other words, that the oldest tools and the oldest models came from
Greece.  In the sepulchral chambers just mentioned, besides the
gold ornaments, there were deposited vessels of bluish enamel or
greenish clay, which, judging from the materials and style as well
as from the hieroglyphics impressed upon them, were of Egyptian
origin;(18) perfume-vases of Oriental alabaster, several of them
in the form of Isis; ostrich-eggs with painted or carved sphinxes
and griffins; beads of glass and amber.  These last may have come
by the land-route from the north; but the other objects prove the
import of perfumes and articles of ornament of all sorts from the
East.  Thence came linen and purple, ivory and frankincense, as is
proved by the early use of linen fillets, of the purple dress and
ivory sceptre for the king, and of frankincense in sacrifice, as
well as by the very ancient borrowed names for them (--linon--,
-linum-; --porphura--, -purpura-; --skeiptron--, --skipon--, -scipio-;
perhaps also --elephas--, -ebur-; --thuos--, -thus-).  Of similar
significance is the derivation of a number of words relating to
articles used in eating and drinking, particularly the names of
oil,(19) of jugs (--amphoreus--, -amp(h)ora-, -ampulla-, --krateir--,
-cratera-), of feasting (--komazo--, -comissari-), of a dainty dish
(--opsonion--, -opsonium-) of dough (--maza--, -massa-), and various
names of cakes (--glukons--, -lucuns-; --plakons--, -placenta-;
--turons--, -turunda-); while conversely the Latin names for dishes
(-patina-, --patanei--) and for lard (-arvina-, --arbinei--) have
found admission into Sicilian Greek.  The later custom of placing
in the tomb beside the dead Attic, Corcyrean, and Campanian vases
proves, what these testimonies from language likewise show, the
early market for Greek pottery in Italy.  That Greek leather-work
made its way into Latium at least in the shape of armour is apparent
from the application of the Greek word for leather --skutos-- to
signify among the Latins a shield (-scutum-; like -lorica-, from
-lorum-).  Finally, we deduce a similar inference from the numerous
nautical terms borrowed from the Greek (although it is remarkable
that the chief technical expressions in navigation--the terms
for the sail, mast, and yard--are pure Latin forms);(20) and from
the recurrence in Latin of the Greek designations for a letter
(--epistolei--, -epistula-), a token (-tessera-, from --tessara--(21)),
a balance (--stateir--, -statera-), and earnest-money (--arrabon--,
-arrabo-, -arra-); and conversely from the adoption of Italian
law-terms in Sicilian Greek,(22) as well as from the exchange of
the proportions and names of coins, weights, and measures, which
we shall notice in the sequel.  The character of barbarism which
all these borrowed terms obviously present, and especially the
characteristic formation of the nominative from the accusative
(-placenta- = --plakounta--; -ampora- = --amphorea--; -statera-=
--stateira--), constitute the clearest evidence of their great
antiquity.  The worship of the god of traffic (-Mercurius-) also
appears to have been from the first influenced by Greek conceptions;
and his annual festival seems even to have been fixed on the ides
of May, because the Hellenic poets celebrated him as the son of
the beautiful Maia.

Commerce, in Latium Passive, in Etruria Active

It thus appears that Italy in very ancient times derived
its articles of luxury, just as imperial Rome did, from the East,
before it attempted to manufacture for itself after the models which
it imported.  In exchange it had nothing to offer except its raw
produce, consisting especially of its copper, silver, and iron,
but including also slaves and timber for shipbuilding, amber from
the Baltic, and, in the event of bad harvests occurring abroad, its
grain.  From this state of things as to the commodities in demand
and the equivalents to be offered in return, we have already
explained why Italian traffic assumed in Latium a form so differing
from that which it presented in Etruria.  The Latins, who were
deficient in all the chief articles of export, could carry on only
a passive traffic, and were obliged even in the earliest times to
procure the copper of which they had need from the Etruscans in
exchange for cattle or slaves--we have already mentioned the very
ancient practice of selling the latter on the right bank of the
Tiber.(23)  On the other hand the Tuscan balance of trade must
have been necessarily favourable in Caere as in Populonia, in Capua
as in Spina.  Hence the rapid development of prosperity in these
regions and their powerful commercial position; whereas Latium
remained preeminently an agricultural country.  The same contrast
recurs in all their individual relations.  The oldest tombs constructed
and furnished in the Greek fashion, but with an extravagance to which
the Greeks were strangers, are to be found at Caere, while--with the
exception of Praeneste, which appears to have occupied a peculiar
position and to have been very intimately connected with Falerii
and southern Etruria--the Latin land exhibits only slight ornaments
for the dead of foreign origin, and not a single tomb of luxury
proper belonging to the earlier times; there as among the Sabellians
a simple turf ordinarily sufficed as a covering for the dead.  The
most ancient coins, of a time not much later than those of Magna
Graecia, belong to Etruria, and to Populonia in particular: during
the whole regal period Latium had to be content with copper by
weight, and had not even introduced foreign coins, for the instances
are extremely rare in which such coins (e.g.  one of Posidonia)
have been found there.  In architecture, plastic art, and embossing,
the same stimulants acted on Etruria and on Latium, but it was only
in the case of the former that capital was everywhere brought to
bear on them and led to their being pursued extensively and with
growing technical skill.  The commodities were upon the whole the
same, which were bought, sold, and manufactured in Latium and in
Etruria; but the southern land was far inferior to its northern
neighbours in the energy with which its commerce was plied.  The
contrast between them in this respect is shown in the fact that
the articles of luxury manufactured after Greek models in Etruria
found a market in Latium, particularly at Praeneste, and even in
Greece itself, while Latium hardly ever exported anything of the
kind.

Etrusco-Attic, and Latino-Sicilian Commerce

A distinction not less remarkable between the commerce of the Latins
and that of the Etruscans appears in their respective routes or
lines of traffic.  As to the earliest commerce of the Etruscans
in the Adriatic we can hardly do more than express the conjecture
that it was directed from Spina and Atria chiefly to Corcyra.
We have already mentioned(24) that the western Etruscans ventured
boldly into the eastern seas, and trafficked not merely with Sicily,
but also with Greece proper.  An ancient intercourse with Attica
is indicated by the Attic clay vases, which are so numerous in the
more recent Etruscan tombs, and had been perhaps even at this time
introduced for other purposes than the already-mentioned decoration
of tombs, while conversely Tyrrhenian bronze candlesticks and gold
cups were articles early in request in Attica.  Still more definitely
is such an intercourse indicated by the coins.  The silver pieces
of Populonia were struck after the pattern of a very old silver
piece stamped on one side with the Gorgoneion, on the other merely
presenting an incuse square, which has been found at Athens and
on the old amber-route in the district of Posen, and which was in
all probability the very coin struck by order of Solon in Athens.
We have mentioned already that the Etruscans had also dealings, and
perhaps after the development of the Etrusco-Carthaginian maritime
alliance their principal dealings, with the Carthaginians.  It is
a remarkable circumstance that in the oldest tombs of Caere, besides
native vessels of bronze and silver, there have been found chiefly
Oriental articles, which may certainly have come from Greek merchants,
but more probably were introduced by Phoenician traders.  We must
not, however, attribute too great importance to this Phoenician trade,
and in particular we must not overlook the fact that the alphabet,
as well as the other influences that stimulated and matured native
culture, were brought to Etruria by the Greeks, and not by the
Phoenicians.

Latin commerce assumed a different direction.  Rarely as we have
opportunity of instituting comparisons between the Romans and the
Etruscans as regards the reception of Hellenic elements, the cases
in which such comparisons can be instituted exhibit the two nations
as completely independent of each other.  This is most clearly
apparent in the case of the alphabet.  The Greek alphabet brought
to the Etruscans from the Chalcidico-Doric colonies in Sicily or
Campania varies not immaterially from that which the Latins derived
from the same quarter, so that, although both peoples have drawn
from the same source, they have done so at different times and
different places.  The same phenomenon appears in particular words:
the Roman Pollux and the Tuscan Pultuke are independent corruptions
of the Greek Polydeukes; the Tuscan Utuze or Uthuze is formed from
Odysseus, the Roman Ulixes is an exact reproduction of the form of
the name usual in Sicily; in like manner the Tuscan Aivas corresponds
to the old Greek form of this name, the Roman Aiax to a secondary
form that was probably also Sicilian; the Roman Aperta or Apello
and the Samnite Appellun have sprung from the Doric Apellon, the
Tuscan Apulu from Apollon.  Thus the language and writing of Latium
indicate that the direction of Latin commerce was exclusively towards
the Cumaeans and Siceliots.  Every other trace which has survived
from so remote an age leads to the same conclusion: such as, the
coin of Posidonia found in Latium; the purchase of grain, when
a failure of the harvest occurred in Rome, from the Volscians,
Cumaeans, and Siceliots (and, as was natural, from the Etruscans
as well); above all, the relations subsisting between the Latin
and Sicilian monetary systems.  As the local Dorico-Chalcidian
designation of silver coin --nomos--, and the Sicilian measure
--eimina--, were transferred with the same meaning to Latium as
-nummus- and -hemina-, so conversely the Italian designations of
weight, -libra-, -triens-, -quadrans-, -sextans-, -uncia-, which
arose in Latium for the measurement of the copper which was used
by weight instead of money, had found their way into the common
speech of Sicily in the third century of the city under the corrupt
and hybrid forms, --litra--, --trias--, --tetras--, --exas--,
--ougkia--.  Indeed, among all the Greek systems of weights and
moneys, the Sicilian alone was brought into a determinate relation
to the Italian copper-system; not only was the value of silver set
down conventionally and perhaps legally as two hundred and fifty
times that of copper, but the equivalent on this computation of a
Sicilian pound of copper (1/120th of the Attic talent, 2/3 of the
Roman pound) was in very early times struck, especially at Syracuse,
as a silver coin (--litra argurion--, i.e.  "copper-pound in
silver").  Accordingly it cannot be doubted that Italian bars of
copper circulated also in Sicily instead of money; and this exactly
harmonizes with the hypothesis that the commerce of the Latins
with Sicily was a passive commerce, in consequence of which Latin
money was drained away thither.  Other proofs of ancient intercourse
between Sicily and Italy, especially the adoption in the Sicilian
dialect of the Italian expressions for a commercial loan, a prison,
and a dish, and the converse reception of Sicilian terms in Italy,
have been already mentioned.(25)  We meet also with several, though
less definite, traces of an ancient intercourse of the Latins with
the Chalcidian cities in Lower Italy, Cumae and Neapolis, and with
the Phocaeans in Velia and Massilia.  That it was however far less
active than that with the Siceliots is shown by the well-known
fact that all the Greek words which made their way in earlier times
to Latium exhibit Doric forms--we need only recall -Aesculapius-,
-Latona-, -Aperta-, -machina-.  Had their dealings with the originally
Ionian cities, such as Cumae(26) and the Phocaean settlements,
been even merely on a similar scale with those which they had with
the Sicilian Dorians, Ionic forms would at least have made their
appearance along with the others; although certainly Dorism early
penetrated even into these Ionic colonies themselves, and their
dialect varied greatly.  While all the facts thus combine to attest
the stirring traffic of the Latins with the Greeks of the western
main generally, and especially with the Sicilians, there hardly
occurred any immediate intercourse with the Asiatic Phoenicians,
and the intercourse with those of Africa, which is sufficiently
attested by statements of authors and by articles found, can only
have occupied a secondary position as affecting the state of culture
in Latium; in particular it is significant that--if we leave out of
account some local names--there is an utter absence of any evidence
from language as to ancient intercourse between the Latins and the
nations speaking the Aramaic tongue.(27)

If we further inquire how this traffic was mainly carried on, whether
by Italian merchants abroad or by foreign merchants in Italy, the
former supposition has all the probabilities in its favour, at
least so far as Latium is concerned.  It is scarcely conceivable
that those Latin terms denoting the substitute for money and the
commercial loan could have found their way into general use in the
language of the inhabitants of Sicily through the mere resort of
Sicilian merchants to Ostia and their receipt of copper in exchange
for ornaments.  Lastly, in regard to the persons and classes
by whom this traffic was carried on in Italy, no special superior
class of merchants distinct from and independent of the class of
landed proprietors developed itself in Rome.  The reason of this
surprising phenomenon was, that the wholesale commerce of Latium was
from the beginning in the hands of the large landed proprietors--a
hypothesis which is not so singular as it seems.  It was natural
that in a country intersected by several navigable rivers the great
landholder, who was paid by his tenants their quotas of produce in
kind, should come at an early period to possess barks; and there is
evidence that such was the case.  The transmarine traffic conducted
on the trader's own account must therefore have fallen into the
hands of the great landholder, seeing that he alone possessed the
vessels for it and--in his produce--the articles for export.(28)
In fact the distinction between a landed and a moneyed aristocracy
was unknown to the Romans of earlier times; the great landholders
were at the same time the speculators and the capitalists.  In
the case of a very energetic commerce such a combination certainly
could not have been maintained; but, as the previous representation
shows, while there was a comparatively vigorous traffic in Rome in
consequence of the trade of the Latin land being there concentrated,
Rome was by no means essentially a commercial city like Caere or
Tarentum, but was and continued to be the centre of an agricultural
community.

Notes for Book I Chapter XIII

1.  I. II. Agriculture

2.  I. III. Clan Villages, I. V. The Community

3.  The system which we meet with in the case of the Germanic joint
tillage, combining a partition of the land in property among the
clansmen with its joint cultivation by the clan, can hardly ever
have existed in Italy.  Had each clansman been regarded in Italy,
as among the Germans, in the light of proprietor of a particular
spot in each portion of the collective domain that was marked off
for tillage, the separate husbandry of later times would probably
have set out from a minute subdivision of hides.  But the very
opposite was the case; the individual names of the Roman hides
(-fundus Cornelianus-) show clearly that the Roman proprietor owned
from the beginning a possession not broken up but united.

4.  Cicero (de Rep. ii. 9, 14, comp. Plutarch, Q. Rom. 15) states:
-Tum (in the time of Romulus) erat res in pecore et locorum
possessionibus, ex quo pecuniosi et locupletes vocabantur--(Numa)
primum agros, quos bello Romulus ceperat, divisit viritim civibus-.
In like manner Dionysius represents Romulus as dividing the land into
thirty curial districts, and Numa as establishing boundary-stones
and introducing the festival of the Terminalia (i. 7, ii. 74; and
thence Plutarch, -Numa-, 16).

5.  I. XI. Contracts

6.  Since this assertion still continues to be disputed, we
shall let the numbers speak for themselves.  The Roman writers on
agriculture of the later republic and the imperial period reckon on
an average five -modii- of wheat as sufficient to sow a -jugerum-, and
the produce as fivefold.  The produce of a -heredium- accordingly
(even when, without taking into view the space occupied by
the dwelling-house and farm-yard, we regard it as entirely arable
land, and make no account of years of fallow) amounts to fifty, or
deducting the seed forty, modii.  For an adult hard-working slave
Cato (c. 56) reckons fifty-one -modii-of wheat as the annual
consumption.  These data enable any one to answer for himself the
question whether a Roman family could or could not subsist on the
produce of a -heredium-.  The attempted proof to the contrary is
based on the ground that the slave of later times subsisted more
exclusively on corn than the free farmer of the earlier epoch, and
that the assumption of a fivefold return is one too low for this
earlier epoch; both assumptions are probably correct, but for both
there is a limit.  Doubtless the subsidiary produce yielded by
the arable land itself and by the common pasture, such as figs,
vegetables, milk, flesh (especially as derived from the old and
zealously pursued rearing of swine), and the like, are specially
to be taken into account for the older period; but the older Roman
pastoral husbandry, though not unimportant, was withal of subordinate
importance, and the chief subsistence of the people was always
notoriously grain.  We may, moreover, on account of the thoroughness
of the earlier cultivation obtain a very considerable increase,
especially of the gross produce--and beyond doubt the farmers of
this period drew a larger produce from their lands than the great
landholders of the later republic and the empire obtained (iii.
Latium); but moderation must be exercised in forming such estimates,
because we have to deal with a question of averages and with a mode
of husbandry conducted neither methodically nor with large capital.
The assumption of a tenfold instead of a fivefold return will be
the utmost limit, and yet it is far from sufficing.  In no case
can the enormous deficit, which is left even according to those
estimates between the produce of the -heredium- and the requirements
of the household, be covered by mere superiority of cultivation.
In fact the counter-proof can only be regarded as successful, when
it shall have produced a methodical calculation based on rural
economics, according to which among a population chiefly subsisting
on vegetables the produce of a piece of land of an acre and a quarter
proves sufficient on an average for the subsistence of a family.

It is indeed asserted that instances occur even in historical times
of colonies founded with allotments of two -jugera-; but the only
instance of the kind (Liv. iv. 47) is that of the colony of Labici
in the year 336--an instance, which will certainly not be reckoned
(by such scholars as are worth the arguing with) to belong to the
class of traditions that are trustworthy in their historical details,
and which is beset by other very serious difficulties (see book
ii. ch. 5, note).  It is no doubt true that in the non-colonial
assignation of land to the burgesses collectively (-adsignatio
viritana-) sometimes only a few -jugera- were granted (as e. g.
Liv. viii. ii, 21).  In these cases however it was the intention
not to create new farms with the allotments, but rather, as a rule,
to add to the existing farms new parcels from the conquered lands
(comp. C. I. L. i. p. 88).  At any rate, any supposition is better
than a hypothesis which requires us to believe as it were in
a miraculous multiplication of the food of the Roman household.
The Roman farmers were far less modest in their requirements than
their historiographers; they themselves conceived that they could
not subsist even on allotments of seven -jugera- or a produce of
one hundred and forty -modii-.

7.  I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform

8.  Perhaps the latest, although probably not the last, attempt
to prove that a Latin farmer's family might have subsisted on two
-jugera- of land, finds its chief support in the argument that Varro
(de R. R. i. 44, i) reckons the seed requisite for the -jugerum-
at five -modii- of wheat but ten -modii- of spelt, and estimates
the produce as corresponding to this, whence it is inferred that
the cultivation of spelt yielded a produce, if not double, at least
considerably higher than that of wheat.  But the converse is more
correct, and the nominally higher quantity sown and reaped is simply
to be explained by the fact that the Romans garnered and sowed the
wheat already shelled, but the spelt still in the husk (Pliny, H.
N.  xviii. 7, 61), which in this case was not separated from the
fruit by threshing.  For the same reason spelt is at the present
day sown twice as thickly as wheat, and gives a produce twice as
great by measure, but less after deduction of the husks.  According
to Wurtemberg estimates furnished to me by G. Hanssen, the average
produce of the Wurtemberg -morgen- is reckoned in the case of
wheat (with a sowing of 1/4 to 1/2 -scheffel-) at 3 -scheffel- of
the medium weight of 275 Ibs. (= 825 Ibs.); in the case of spelt
(with a sowing of 1/2 to 1 1/2 -scheffel-) at least 7 -scheffel- of
the medium weight of 150 lbs.  ( = 1050 Ibs.), which are reduced
by shelling to about 4 -scheffel-.  Thus spelt compared with wheat
yields in the gross more than double, with equally good soil perhaps
triple the crop, but--by specific weight--before the shelling not
much above, after shelling (as "kernel") less than, the half.  It
was not by mistake, as has been asserted, but because it was fitting
in computations of this sort to start from estimates of a like
nature handed down to us, that the calculation instituted above was
based on wheat; it may stand, because, when transferred to spelt,
it does not essentially differ and the produce rather falls than
rises.  Spelt is less nice as to soil and climate, and exposed
to fewer risks than wheat; but the latter yields on the whole,
especially when we take into account the not inconsiderable expenses
of shelling, a higher net produce (on an average of fifty years in
the district of Frankenthal in Rhenish Bavaria the -malter- of wheat
stands at 11 -gulden- 3 krz., the -malter- of spelt at 4 -gulden-30
krz.), and, as in South Germany, where the soil admits, the growing
of wheat is preferred and generally with the progress of cultivation
comes to supersede that of spelt, so the analogous transition of
Italian agriculture from the culture of spelt to that of wheat was
undeniably a progress.

9.  I. II. Agriculture

10.  -Oleum- and -oliva- are derived from --elaion--, --elaia--,
and -amurca- (oil-less) from --amorgei--.

11.  But there is no proper authority for the statement that the
fig-tree which stood in front of the temple of Saturn was cut down
in the year 260 (Plin. H. N. xv. 18, 77); the date CCLX. is wanting
in all good manuscripts, and has been interpolated, probably with
reference to Liv. ii. 21.

12.  I. XI. Property

13.  I. VI. Class of --Metoeci-- Subsisting by the Side of the
Community

14.  I. XI. Guardianship

15.  I. XII. Oldest Table of Roman Festivals

16.  The comparative legal value of sheep and oxen, as is well known,
is proved by the fact that, when the cattle-fines were converted
into money-fines, the sheep was rated at ten, and the ox at a
hundred asses (Festus, v. -peculatus-, p. 237, comp. pp. 34, 144;
Gell. xi. i; Plutarch, Poplicola, ii).  By a similar adjustment the
Icelandic law makes twelve rams equivalent to a cow; only in this
as in other instances the Germanic law has substituted the duodecimal
for the older decimal system.

It is well known that the term denoting cattle was transferred to
denote money both among the Latins (-pecunia-) and among the Germans
(English fee).

17.  I. XIV. Decimal System

18.  There has lately been found at Praeneste a silver mixing-jug,
with a Phoenician and a hieroglyphic inscription (Mon. dell Inst.
x.  plate 32), which directly proves that such Egyptian wares as
come to light in Italy have found their way thither through the
medium of the Phoenicians.

19.  comp. I. XIII. Culture of the Olive

20.  -Velum- is certainly of Latin origin; so is -malus-, especially
as that term denotes not merely the mast, but the tree in general:
-antenna- likewise may come from --ana-- (-anhelare-, -antestari-),
and -tendere- = -supertensa-.  Of Greek origin, on the other
hand, are -gubenare-, to steer (--kubernan--); -ancora-, anchor
(--agkura--); -prora-, ship's bow (--prora--); -aplustre-,
ship's stern (--aphlaston--); -anquina-, the rope fastening the
yards (--agkoina--); -nausea-, sea-sickness (--nausia--).  The
four chief winds of the ancients- -aquilo-, the "eagle-wind," the
north-easterly Tramontana; -voltumus- (of uncertain derivation,
perhaps the "vulture-wind"), the south-easterly; -auster- the
"scorching" southwest wind, the Sirocco; -favonius-, the "favourable"
north-west wind blowing from the Tyrrhene Sea--have indigenous
names bearing no reference to navigation; but all the other Latin
names for winds are Greek (such as -eurus-, -notus-), or translations
from the Greek (e.g. -solanus- = --apelioteis--, -Africus- =
--lips--).

21.  This meant in the first instance the tokens used in the service
of the camp, the --xuleiphia kata phulakein brachea teleos echonta
charakteira-- (Polyb. vi. 35, 7); the four -vigiliae- of the
night-service gave name to the tokens generally.  The fourfold
division of the night for the service of watching is Greek as well
as Roman; the military science of the Greeks may well have exercised
an influence--possibly through Pyrrhus (Liv. xxxv. 14)--in the
organization of the measures for security in the Roman camp.  The
employment of the non-Doric form speaks for the comparatively late
date at which theword was taken over.

22.  I. XI. Character of the Roman Law

23.  I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium

24.  I. X. Etruscan Commerce

25.  I. XI. Clients and Foreigners, I. XIII. Commerce, in Latium
Passive, in Etruria Active

26.  I. X. Greek Cities Near Vesuvius

27.  If we leave out of view -Sarranus-, -Afer-, and other local
designations (I. X. Phoenicians and Italians in Opposition to the
Hellenes), the Latin language appears not to possess a single word
immediately derived in early times from the Phoenician.  The very
few words from Phoenician roots which occur in it, such as -arrabo-
or -arra- and perhaps also -murra-, -nardus-, and the like, are
plainly borrowed proximately from the Greek, which has a considerable
number of such words of Oriental extraction as indications of its
primitive intercourse with the Aramaeans.  That --elephas-- and
-ebur- should have come from the same Phoenician original with or
without the addition of the article, and thus have been each formed
independently, is a linguistic impossibility, as the Phoenician
article is in reality -ha-, and is not so employed; besides the
Oriental primitive word has not as yet been found.  The same holds
true of the enigmatical word -thesaurus-; whether it may have been
originally Greek or borrowed by the Greeks from the Phoenician
or Persian, it is at any rate, as a Latin word, derived from the
Greek, as the very retaining of its aspiration proves (xii. Foreign
Worships).

28.  Quintus Claudius, in a law issued shortly before 534, prohibited
the senators from having sea-going vessels holding more than 300
-amphorae- (1 amph. = nearly 6 gallons): -id satis habitum ad fructus
ex agris vectandos; quaestus omnis patribus indecorus visus- (Liv.
xxi. 63).  It was thus an ancient usage, and was still permitted,
that the senators should possess sea-going vessels for the transport
of the produce of their estates: on the other hand, transmarine
mercantile speculation (-quaestus-, traffic, fitting-out of vessels,
&c.) on their part was prohibited.  It is a curious fact that the
ancient Greeks as well as the Romans expressed the tonnage of their
sea-going ships constantly in amphorae; the reason evidently being,
that Greece as well as Italy exported wine at a comparatively early
period, and on a larger scale than any other bulky article.

CHAPTER XIV

Measuring and Writing

The art of measuring brings the world into subjection to man;
the art of writing prevents his knowledge from perishing along
with himself; together they make man--what nature has not made
him--all-powerful and eternal.  It is the privilege and duty of
history to trace the course of national progress along these paths
also.

Italian Measures

Measurement necessarily presupposes the development of the several
ideas of units of time, of space, and of weight, and of a whole
consisting of equal parts, or in other words of number and of
a numeral system.  The most obvious bases presented by nature for
this purpose are, in reference to time, the periodic returns of
the sun and moon, or the day and the month; in reference to space,
the length of the human foot, which is more easily applied in
measuring than the arm; in reference to gravity, the burden which
a man is able to poise (-librare-) on his hand while he holds
his arm stretched out, or the "weight" (-libra-).  As a basis for
the notion of a whole made up of equal parts, nothing so readily
suggests itself as the hand with its five, or the hands with their
ten, fingers; upon this rests the decimal system.  We have already
observed that these elements of all numeration and measuring
reach back not merely beyond the separation of the Greek and Latin
stocks, but even to the most remote primeval times.  The antiquity
in particular of the measurement of time by the moon is demonstrated
by language;(1) even the mode of reckoning the days that elapse
between the several phases of the moon, not forward from the phase
on which it had entered last, but backward from that which was
next to be expected, is at least older than the separation of the
Greeks and Latins.

Decimal System

The most definite evidence of the antiquity and original exclusive
use of the decimal system among the Indo-Germans is furnished by
the well-known agreement of all Indo-Germanic languages in respect
to the numerals as far as a hundred inclusive.(2)  In the case of
Italy the decimal system pervaded all the earliest arrangements: it
may be sufficient to recall the number ten so usual in the case of
witnesses, securities, envoys, and magistrates, the legal equivalence
of one ox and ten sheep, the partition of the canton into ten curies
and the pervading application generally of the decurial system, the
-limitatio-, the tenth in offerings and in agriculture, decimation,
and the praenomen -Decimus-.  Among the applications of this most
ancient decimal system in the sphere of measuring and of writing,
the remarkable Italian ciphers claim a primary place.  When the Greeks
and Italians separated, there were still evidently no conventional
signs of number.  On the other hand we find the three oldest and
most indispensable numerals, one, five, and ten, represented by
three signs--I, V or /\, X, manifestly imitations of the outstretched
finger, and the open hand single and double--which were not derived
either from the Hellenes or the Phoenicians, but were common to
the Romans, Sabellians, and Etruscans.  They were the first steps
towards the formation of a national Italian writing, and at the same
time evidences of the liveliness of that earlier inland intercourse
among the Italians which preceded their transmarine commerce.(3)
Which of the Italian stocks invented, and which of them borrowed,
these signs, can of course no longer be ascertained.  Other traces
of the pure decimal system occur but sparingly in this field;
among them are the -versus-, the Sabellian measure of surface of
100 square feet,(4) and the Roman year of 10 months.

The Duodecimal System

Otherwise generally in the case of those Italian measures, which
were not connected with Greek standards and were probably developed
by the Italians before they came into contact with the Greeks, there
prevailed the partition of the "whole" (-as-) into twelve "units"
(-unciae-).  The very earliest Latin priesthoods, the colleges of
the Salii and Arvales,(5) as well as the leagues of the Etruscan
cities, were organized on the basis of the number twelve.  The
same number predominated in the Roman system of weights and in the
measures of length, where the pound (-libra-) and the foot (-pes-)
were usually subdivided into twelve parts; the unit of the Roman
measures of surface was the "driving" (-actus-) of 120 square feet,
a combination of the decimal and duodecimal systems.(6)  Similar
arrangements as to the measures of capacity may have passed into
oblivion.

If we inquire into the basis of the duodecimal system and consider
how it can have happened that, in addition to ten, twelve should
have been so early and universally singled out from the equal series
of numbers, we shall probably be able to find no other source to
which it can be referred than a comparison of the solar and lunar
periods.  Still more than the double hand of ten fingers did the
solar cycle of nearly twelve lunar periods first suggest to man
the profound conception of an unit composed of equal units, and
thereby originate the idea of a system of numbers, the first step
towards mathematical thought.  The consistent duodecimal development
of this idea appears to have belonged to the Italian nation, and
to have preceded the first contact with the Greeks.

Hellenic Measures in Italy

But when at length the Hellenic trader had opened up the route to
the west coast of Italy, the measures of surface remained unaffected,
but the measures of length, of weight, and above all of capacity--in
other words those definite standards without which barter and traffic
are impossible--experienced the effects of the new international
intercourse.  The oldest Roman foot has disappeared; that which we
know, and which was in use at a very early period among the Romans,
was borrowed from Greece, and was, in addition to its new Roman
subdivision into twelfths, divided after the Greek fashion into four
hand-breadths (-palmus-) and sixteen finger-breadths (-digitus-).
Further, the Roman weights were brought into a fixed proportional
relation to the Attic system, which prevailed throughout Sicily
but not in Cumae--another significant proof that the Latin traffic
was chiefly directed to the island; four Roman pounds were assumed as
equal to three Attic -minae-, or rather the Roman pound was assumed
as equal to one and a half of the Sicilian -litrae- or half-minae.(7)
But the most singular and chequered aspect is presented by the
Roman measures of capacity, as regards both their names and their
proportions.  Their names have come from the Greek terms either by
corruption (-amphora-, -modius- after --medimnos--, -congius- from
--choeus--, -hemina-, -cyathus-) or by translation (-acetabulum-from
--ozubaphon--); while conversely --zesteis-- is a corruption of
-sextarius-.  All the measures are not identical, but those in most
common use are so; among liquid measures the -congius- or -chus-,
the -sextarius-, and the -cyathus-, the two last also for dry
goods; the Roman -amphora- was equalized in water-weight to the
Attic talent, and at the same time stood to the Greek --metretes--
in the fixed ratio of 3:2, and to the Greek --medimnos-- of 2:1.  To
one who can decipher the significance of such records, these names
and numerical proportions fully reveal the activity and importance
of the intercourse between the Sicilians and the Latins.  The Greek
numeral signs were not adopted; but the Roman probably availed
himself of the Greek alphabet, when it reached him, to form ciphers
for 50 and 1000, perhaps also for 100, out of the signs for the
three aspirated letters which he had no use for.  In Etruria the
sign for 100 at least appears to have been obtained in a similar
way.  Afterwards, as usually happens, the systems of notation among
the two neighbouring nations became assimilated by the adoption in
substance of the Roman system in Etruria.

The Italian Calendar before the Period of Greek Influence in Italy

In like manner the Roman calendar--and probably that of the Italians
generally--began with an independent development of its own, but
subsequently came under the influence of the Greeks.  In the division
of time the returns of sunrise and sunset, and of the new and full
moon, most directly arrest the attention of man; and accordingly
the day and the month, determined not by cyclic calculation but
by direct observation, were long the exclusive measures of time.
Down to a late age sunrise and sunset were proclaimed in the Roman
market-place by the public crier, and in like manner it may be
presumed that in earlier times, at each of the four phases of the
moon, the number of days that would elapse from that phase until
the next was proclaimed by the priests.  The mode of reckoning
therefore in Latium--and the like mode, it may be presumed, was in
use not merely among the Sabellians, but also among the Etruscans--was
by days, which, as already mentioned, were counted not forward
from the phase that had last occurred, but backward from that which
was next expected; by lunar weeks, which varied in length between
7 and 8 days, the average length being 7 3/8; and by lunar months
which in like manner were sometimes of 29, sometimes of 30 days,
the average duration of the synodical month being 29 days 12 hours
44 minutes.  For some time the day continued to be among the Italians
the smallest, and the month the largest, division of time.  It was
not until afterwards that they began to distribute day and night
respectively into four portions, and it was much later still when
they began to employ the division into hours; which explains why
even stocks otherwise closely related differed in their mode of
fixing the commencement of day, the Romans placing it at midnight,
the Sabellians and the Etruscans at noon.  No calendar of the year
had, at least when the Greeks separated from the Italians, as yet
been organized, for the names for the year and its divisions in the
two languages have been formed quite independently of each other.
Nevertheless the Italians appear to have already in the pre-Hellenic
period advanced, if not to the arrangement of a fixed calendar,
at any rate to the institution of two larger units of time.  The
simplifying of the reckoning according to lunar months by the
application of the decimal system, which was usual among the Romans,
and the designation of a term of ten months as a "ring" (-annus-)
or complete year, bear in them all the traces of a high antiquity.
Later, but still at a period very early and undoubtedly previous
to the operation of Greek influences, the duodecimal system (as
we have already stated) was developed in Italy, and, as it derived
its very origin from the observation of the fact that the solar
period was equal to twelve lunar periods, it was certainly applied
in the first instance to the reckoning of time.  This view accords
with the fact that the individual names of the months--which can
only have originated after the month was viewed as part of a solar
year--particularly those of March and of May, were similar among
the different branches of the Italian stock, while there was
no similarity between the Italian names and the Greek.  It is not
improbable therefore that the problem of laying down a practical
calendar which should correspond at once to the moon and the sun--a
problem which may be compared in some sense to the quadrature of the
circle, and the solution of which was only recognized as impossible
and abandoned after the lapse of many centuries--had already employed
the minds of men in Italy before the epoch at which their contact
with the Greeks began; these purely national attempts to solve it,
however, have passed into oblivion.

The Oldest Italo-Greek Calendar

What we know of the oldest calendar of Rome and of some other Latin
cities--as to the Sabellian and Etruscan measurement of time we
have no traditional information--is decidedly based on the oldest
Greek arrangement of the year, which was intended to answer both
to the phases of the moon and to the seasons of the solar year,
constructed on the assumption of a lunar period of 29 1/2 days and
a solar period of 12 1/2 lunar months or 368 3/4 days, and on the
regular alternation of a full month or month of thirty days with a
hollow month or month of twenty-nine days and of a year of twelve
with a year of thirteen months, but at the same time maintained
in some sort of harmony with the actual celestial phenomena by
arbitrary curtailments and intercalations.  It is possible that
this Greek arrangement of the year in the first instance came into
use among the Latins without undergoing any alteration; but the
oldest form of the Roman year which can be historically recognized
varied from its model, not indeed in the cyclical result nor yet in
the alternation of years of twelve with years of thirteen months,
but materially in the designation and in the measuring off of the
individual months.  The Roman year began with the beginning of
spring; the first month in it and the only one which bears the name
of a god, was named from Mars (-Martius-), the three following from
sprouting (-aprilis-) growing (-maius-), and thriving (-iunius-),
the fifth onward to the tenth from their ordinal numbers (-quinctilis-,
-sextilis-, -september-, -october-, -november-, -december), the
eleventh from commencing (-ianuarius-),(8) with reference presumably
to the renewal of agricultural operations that followed midwinter
and the season of rest, the twelfth, and in an ordinary year the
last, from cleansing (-februarius-).  To this series recurring
in regular succession there was added in the intercalary year a
nameless "labour-month" (-mercedonius-) at the close of the year,
viz. after February.  And, as the Roman calendar was independent
as respected the names of the months which were probably taken from
the old national ones, it was also independent as regarded their
duration.  Instead of the four years of the Greek cycle, each
composed of six months of 30 and six of 29 days and an intercalary
month inserted every second year alternately of 29 and 30 days (354 +
384 + 354 + 383 = 1475 days), the Roman calendar substituted four
years, each containing four months--the first, third, fifth, and
eighth--of 31 days and seven of 29 days, with a February of 28
days during three years and of 29 in the fourth, and an intercalary
month of 27 days inserted every second year (355 + 383 + 355 +
382 = 1475 days).  In like manner this calendar departed from the
original division of the month into four weeks, sometimes of 7,
sometimes of 8 days; it made the eight-day-week run on through the
years without regard to the other relations of the calendar, as our
Sundays do, and placed the weekly market on the day with which it
began (-noundinae-).  Along with this it once for all fixed the
first quarter in the months of 31 days on the seventh, in those
of 29 on the fifth day, and the full moon in the former on the
fifteenth, in the latter on the thirteenth day.  As the course of
the months was thus permanently arranged, it was henceforth necessary
to proclaim only the number of days lying between the new moon and
the first quarter; thence the day of the newmoon received the name
of "proclamation-day" (-kalendae-).  The first day of the second
section of the month, uniformly of 8 days, was--in conformity with
the Roman custom of reckoning, which included the -terminus ad
quem- --designated as "nine-day" (-nonae-).  The day of the full
moon retained the old name of -idus- (perhaps "dividing-day").
The motive lying at the bottom of this strange remodelling of the
calendar seems chiefly to have been a belief in the salutary virtue
of odd numbers;(9) and while in general it is based on the oldest
form of the Greek year, its variations from that form distinctly
exhibit the influence of the doctrines of Pythagoras, which were
then paramount in Lower Italy, and which especially turned upon a
mystic view of numbers.  But the consequence was that this Roman
calendar, clearly as it bears traces of the desire that it should
harmonize with the course both of sun and moon, in reality by
no means so corresponded with the lunar course as did at least on
the whole its Greek model, while, like the oldest Greek cycle, it
could only follow the solar seasons by means of frequent arbitrary
excisions, and did in all probability follow them but very imperfectly,
for it is scarcely likely that the calendar would be handled with
greater skill than was manifested in its original arrangement.
The retention moreover of the reckoning by months or--which is the
same thing--by years of ten months implies a tacit, but not to be
misunderstood, confession of the irregularity and untrustworthiness
of the oldest Roman solar year.  This Roman calendar may be regarded,
at least in its essential features, as that generally current
among the Latins.  When we consider how generally the beginning of
the year and the names of the months are liable to change, minor
variations in the numbering and designations are quite compatible
with the hypothesis of a common basis; and with such a calendar-system,
which practically was irrespective of the lunar course, the Latins
might easily come to have their months of arbitrary length, possibly
marked off by annual festivals--as in the case of the Alban months,
which varied between 16 and 36 days.  It would appear probable
therefore that the Greek --trieteris-- had early been introduced
from Lower Italy at least into Latium and perhaps also among the
other Italian stocks, and had thereafter been subjected in the
calendars of the several cities to further subordinate alterations.

For the measuring of periods of more than one year the regnal years
of the kings might have been employed: but it is doubtful whether
that method of dating, which was in use in the East, occurred in Greece
or Italy during earlier times.  On the other hand the intercalary
period recurring every four years, and the census and lustration
of the community connected with it, appear to have suggested
a reckoning by -lustra- similar in plan to the Greek reckoning by
Olympiads--a method, however, which early lost its chronological
significance in consequence of the irregularity that now prevailed
as to the due holding of the census at the right time.

Introduction of Hellenic Alphabets into Italy

The art of expressing sounds by written signs was of later origin
than the art of measurement.  The Italians did not any more than
the Hellenes develop such an art of themselves, although we may
discover attempts at such a development in the Italian numeral
signs,(10) and possibly also in the primitive Italian custom--formed
independently of Hellenic influence--of drawing lots by means
of wooden tablets.  The difficulty which must have attended the
first individualizing of sounds--occurring as they do in so great
a variety of combinations--is best demonstrated by the fact that a
single alphabet propagated from people to people and from generation
to generation has sufficed, and still suffices, for the whole of
Aramaic, Indian, Graeco-Roman, and modern civilization; and this
most important product of the human intellect was the joint creation
of the Aramaeans and the Indo-Germans.  The Semitic family of
languages, in which the vowel has a subordinate character and never
can begin a word, facilitates on that very account the individualizing
of the consonants; and it was among the Semites accordingly that
the first alphabet--in which the vowels were still wanting--was
invented.  It was the Indians and Greeks who first independently
of each other and by very divergent methods created, out of the
Aramaean consonantal writing brought to them by commerce, a complete
alphabet by the addition of the vowels--which was effected by the
application of four letters, which the Greeks did not use as consonantal
signs, for the four vowels -a -e -i -o, and by the formation of a
new sign for -u --in other words by the introduction of the syllable
into writing instead of the mere consonant, or, as Palamedes says
in Euripides,

--Ta teis ge leitheis pharmak orthosas monos
Aphona kai phonounta, sullabas te theis,
Ezeupon anthropoisi grammat eidenai.--

This Aramaeo-Hellenic alphabet was accordingly brought to the
Italians through the medium, doubtless, of the Italian Hellenes;
not, however, through the agricultural colonies of Magna Graecia,
but through the merchants possibly of Cumae or Tarentum, by whom it
would be brought in the first instance to the very ancient emporia
of international traffic in Latium and Etruria--to Rome and Caere.
The alphabet received by the Italians was by no means the oldest
Hellenic one; it had already experienced several modifications,
particularly the addition of the three letters --"id:xi", --"id:phi",
--"id:chi" and the alteration of the signs for --"id:iota",
--"id:gamma", --"id:lambda".(11)  We have already observed(12) that
the Etruscan and Latin alphabets were not derived the one from the
other, but both directly from the Greek; in fact the Greek alphabet
came to Etruria in a form materially different from that which
reached Latium.  The Etruscan alphabet has a double sign -s (sigma
-"id:s" and san -"id:sh") and only a single -k,(13) and of the
-r only the older form -"id:P"; the Latin has, so far as we know,
only a single -s, but a double sign for -k (kappa -"id:k" and koppa
-"id:q") and of the -r almost solely the more recent form -"id:R".
The oldest Etruscan writing shows no knowledge of lines, and winds
like the coiling of a snake; the more recent employs parallel
broken-off lines from right to left: the Latin writing, as far as
our monuments reach back, exhibits only the latter form of parallel
lines, which originally perhaps may have run at pleasure from left
to right or from right to left, but subsequently ran among the Romans
in the former, and among the Faliscans in the latter direction.
The model alphabet brought to Etruria must notwithstanding its
comparatively remodelled character reach back to an epoch very ancient,
though not positively to be determined; for, as the two sibilants
sigma and san were always used by the Etruscans as different
sounds side by side, the Greek alphabet which came to Etruria must
doubtless still have possessed both of them in this way as living
signs of sound; but among all the monuments of the Greek language
known to us not one presents sigma and san in simultaneous use.

The Latin alphabet certainly, as we know it, bears on the whole
a more recent character; and it is not improbable that the Latins
did not simply receive the alphabet once for all, as was the case
in Etruria, but in consequence of their lively intercourse with
their Greek neighbours kept pace for a considerable period with
the alphabet in use among these, and followed its variations.  We
find, for instance, that the forms -"id:/\/\/", -"id:P",(14) and
-"id:SIGMA" were not unknown to the Romans, but were superseded
in common use by the later forms -"id:/\/\", -"id:R", and -"id:S"
--a circumstance which can only be explained by supposing that
the Latins employed for a considerable period the Greek alphabet
as such in writing either their mother-tongue or Greek.  It is
dangerous therefore to draw from the more recent character of the
Greek alphabet which we meet with in Rome, as compared with the
older character of that brought to Etruria, the inference that
writing was practised earlier in Etruria than in Rome.

The powerful impression produced by the acquisition of the treasure
of letters on those who received them, and the vividness with which
they realized the power that slumbered in those humble signs, are
illustrated by a remarkable vase from a sepulchral chamber of Caere
built before the invention of the arch, which exhibits the old
Greek model alphabet as it came to Etruria, and also an Etruscan
syllabarium formed from it, which may be compared to that
of Palamedes--evidently a sacred relic of the introduction and
acclimatization of alphabetic writing in Etruria.

Development of Alphabets in Italy

Not less important for history than the derivation of the alphabet
is the further course of its development on Italian soil: perhaps
it is even of more importance; for by means of it a gleam of light
is thrown upon the inland commerce of Italy, which is involved
in far greater darkness than the commerce with foreigners on its
coasts.  In the earliest epoch of Etruscan writing, when the alphabet
was used without material alteration as it had been introduced, its
use appears to have been restricted to the Etruscans on the Po and
in what is now Tuscany.  In course of time this alphabet, manifestly
diffusing itself from Atria and Spina, reached southward along
the east coast as far as the Abruzzi, northward to the Veneti and
subsequently even to the Celts at the foot of, among, and indeed
beyond the Alps, so that its last offshoots reached as far as the
Tyrol and Styria.  The more recent epoch starts with a reform of
the alphabet, the chief features of which were the introduction of
writing in broken-off lines, the suppression of the -"id:o", which
was no longer distinguished in pronunciation from the -"id:u", and
the introduction of a new letter -"id:f" for which the alphabet as
received by them had no corresponding sign.  This reform evidently
arose among the western Etruscans, and while it did not find
reception beyond the Apennines, became naturalized among all the
Sabellian tribes, and especially among the Umbrians.  In its further
course the alphabet experienced various fortunes in connection with
the several stocks, the Etruscans on the Arno and around Capua, the
Umbrians and the Samnites; frequently the mediae were entirely or
partially lost, while elsewhere again new vowels and consonants
were developed.  But that West-Etruscan reform of the alphabet
was not merely as old as the oldest tombs found in Etruria; it was
considerably older, for the syllabarium just mentioned as found
probably in one of these tombs already presents the reformed
alphabet in an essentially modified and modernized shape; and, as
the reformed alphabet itself is relatively recent as compared with
the primitive one, the mind almost fails in the effort to reach back
to the time when that alphabet came to Italy.  While the Etruscans
thus appear as the instruments in diffusing the alphabet in the
north, east, and south of the peninsula, the Latin alphabet on
the other hand was confined to Latium, and maintained its ground,
upon the whole, there with but few alterations; only the letters
-"id:gamma" -"id:kappa" and -"id:zeta" -"id:sigma" gradually
became coincident in sound, the consequence of which was, that in
each case one of the homophonous signs (-"id:kappa" -"id:zeta")
disappeared from writing.  In Rome it can be shown that these were
already laid aside before the end of the fourth century of the
city,(15) and the whole monumental and literary tradition that has
reached us knows nothing of them, with a single exception.(16)  Now
when we consider that in the oldest abbreviations the distinction
between -"id:gamma" -"id:c" and -"id:kappa" -"id:k" is still
regularly maintained;(17) that the period, accordingly, when the
sounds became in pronunciation coincident, and before that again
the period during which the abbreviations became fixed, lies beyond
the beginning of the Samnite wars; and lastly, that a considerable
interval must necessarily have elapsed between the introduction
of writing and the establishment of a conventional system of
abbreviation; we must, both as regards Etruria and Latium, carry
back the commencement of the art of writing to an epoch which
more closely approximates to the first incidence of the Egyptian
Sirius-period within historical times, the year 1321 B.C., than to
the year 776, with which the chronology of the Olympiads began in
Greece.(18)  The high antiquity of the art of writing in Rome is
evinced otherwise by numerous and plain indications.  The existence
of documents of the regal period is sufficiently attested; such
was the special treaty between Rome and Gabii, which was concluded
by a king Tarquinius and probably not by the last of that name,
and which, written on the skin of the bullock sacrificed on the
occasion, was preserved in the temple of Sancus on the Quirinal,
which was rich in antiquities and probably escaped the conflagration
of the Gauls; and such was the alliance which king Servius Tullius
concluded with Latium, and which Dionysius saw on a copper tablet
in the temple of Diana on the Aventine.  What he saw, however, was
probably a copy restored after the fire with the help of a Latin
exemplar, for it was not likely that engraving on metal was practised
as early as the time of the kings.  The charters of foundation of
the imperial period still refer to the charter founding this temple
as the oldest document of the kind in Rome and the common model for
all.  But even then they scratched (-exarare-, -scribere-, akin to
-scrobes- (19)) or painted (-linere-, thence -littera-) on leaves
(-folium-), inner bark (-liber-), or wooden tablets (-tabula-,
-album-), afterwards also on leather and linen.  The sacred records
of the Samnites as well as of the priesthood of Anagnia were
inscribed on linen rolls, and so were the oldest lists of the Roman
magistrates preserved in the temple of the goddess of recollection
(-Iuno moneta-) on the Capitol.  It is scarcely necessary to recall
further proofs in the primitive marking of the pastured cattle
(-scriptura-), in the mode of addressing the senate, "fathers and
enrolled" (-patres conscripti-), and in the great antiquity of
the books of oracles, the clan-registers, and the Alban and Roman
calendars.  When Roman tradition speaks of halls in the Forum,
where the boys and girls of quality were taught to read and write,
already in the earliest times of the republic, the statement may
be, but is not necessarily to be deemed, an invention.  We have
been deprived of information as to the early Roman history, not in
consequence of the want of a knowledge of writing, or even perhaps
of the lack of documents, but in consequence of the incapacity of
the historians of the succeeding age, which was called to investigate
the history, to work out the materials furnished by the archives,
and of the perversity which led them to desire for the earliest
epoch a delineation of motives and of characters, accounts of
battles and narratives of revolutions, and while engaged in inventing
these, to neglect what the extant written tradition would not have
refused to yield to the serious and self-denying inquirer.

Results

The history of Italian writing thus furnishes in the first place
a confirmation of the weak and indirect influence exercised by the
Hellenic character over the Sabellians as compared with the more
western peoples.  The fact that the former received their alphabet
from the Etruscans and not from the Romans is probably to be
explained by supposing that they already possessed it before they
entered upon their migration along the ridge of the Apennines, and
that therefore the Sabines as well as Samnites carried it along
with them from the mother-land to their new abodes.  On the other
hand this history of writing contains a salutary warning against the
adoption of the hypothesis, originated by the later Roman culture
in its devotedness to Etruscan mysticism and antiquarian trifling,
and patiently repeated by modern and even very recent inquirers,
that Roman civilization derived its germ and its pith from Etruria.
If this were the truth, some trace of it ought to be more especially
apparent in this field; but on the contrary the germ of the Latin
art of writing was Greek, and its development was so national,
that it did not even adopt the very desirable Etruscan sign for
-"id:f".(20)  Indeed, where there is an appearance of borrowing,
as in the numeral signs, it is on the part of the Etruscans, who
took over from the Romans at least the sign for 50.

Corruption of Language and Writing

Lastly it is a significant fact, that among all the Italian stocks
the development of the Greek alphabet primarily consisted in a
process of corruption.  Thus the -mediae- disappeared in the whole
of the Etruscan dialects, while the Umbrians lost -"id:gamma" and
-"id:d", the Samnites -"id:d", and the Romans -"id:gamma"; and among
the latter -"id:d" also threatened to amalgamate with -"id:r".
In like manner among the Etruscans -"id:o" and -"id:u" early
coalesced, and even among the Latins we meet with a tendency to
the same corruption.  Nearly the converse occurred in the case of
the sibilants; for while the Etruscan retained the three signs
-"id:z", -"id:s", -"id:sh", and the Umbrian rejected the last but
developed two new sibilants in its room, the Samnite and the Faliscan
confined themselves like the Greek to -"id:s" and -"id:z", and the
Roman of later times even to -"id:s" alone.  It is plain that the
more delicate distinctions of sound were duly felt by the introducers
of the alphabet, men of culture and masters of two languages;
but after the national writing Became wholly detached from the
Hellenic mother-alphabet, the -mediae- and their -tenues- gradually
came to coincide, and the sibilants and vowels were thrown into
disorder--transpositions or rather destructions of sound, of which
the first in particular is entirely foreign to the Greek.  The
destruction of the forms of flexion and derivation went hand in
hand with this corruption of sounds.  The cause of this barbarization
was thus, upon the whole, simply the necessary process of
corruption which is continuously eating away every language, where
its progress is not stemmed by literature and reason; only in this
case indications of what has elsewhere passed away without leaving a
trace have been preserved in the writing of sounds.  The circumstance
that this barbarizing process affected the Etruscans more strongly
than any other of the Italian stocks adds to the numerous proofs
of their inferior capacity for culture.  The fact on the other hand
that, among the Italians, the Umbrians apparently were the most
affected by a similar corruption of language, the Romans less so,
the southern Sabellians least of all, probably finds its explanation,
at least in part, in the more lively intercourse maintained by the
former with the Etruscans, and by the latter with the Greeks.

Notes for Book I Chapter XIV

1.  I. II. Indo-Germanic Culture

2.  I. II. Indo-Germanic Culture

3.  I. XII. Inland Commerce of the Italians

4.  I. II. Agriculture

5.  I. XII. Priests

6.  Originally both the -actus-, "riving," and its still more
frequently occurring duplicate, the -jugerum-, "yoking," were,
like the German "morgen," not measures of surface, but measures of
labour; the latter denoting the day's work, the former the half-day's
work, with reference to the sharp division of the day especially
in Italy by the ploughman's rest at noon.

7.  I. XIII. Etrusco-Attic and Latino-Sicilian Commerce

8.  I. XII. Nature of the Roman Gods

9.  From the same cause all the festival-days are odd, as well those
recurring every month (-kalendae- on the 1st.  -nonae- on the 5th
or 7th, -idus- on the 13th or 15th), as also, with but two exceptions,
those of the 45 annual festivals mentioned above (xii. Oldest Table
Of Roman Festivals).  This is carried so far, that in the case of
festivals of several days the intervening even days were dropped
out, and so, for example, that of Carmentis was celebrated on Jan.
11, 15, that of the Grove-festival (-Lucaria-) on July 19, 21, and
that of the Ghosts-festival on May 9, 11, and 13.

10.  I. XIV. Decimal System

11.  The history of the alphabet among the Hellenes turns essentially
on the fact that--assuming the primitive alphabet of 23 letters,
that is to say, the Phoenician alphabet vocalized and enlarged by
the addition of the -"id:u" --proposals of very various kinds were
made to supplement and improve it, and each of these proposals has
a history of its own.  The most important of these, which it is
interesting to keep in view as bearing on the history of Italian
writing, are the following:--I. The introduction of special signs
for the sounds --"id:xi" --"id:phi" --"id:chi".  This proposal
is so old that all the Greek alphabets--with the single exception
of that of the islands Thera, Melos, and Crete--and all alphabets
derived from the Greek without exception, exhibit its influence.
At first probably the aim was to append the signs --"id:CHI"
= --"id:xi iota", --"id:PHI" = --"id:phi iota", and --"id:PSI"=
--"id:chi iota" to the close of the alphabet, and in this shape it
was adopted on the mainland of Hellas--with the exception of Athens
and Corinth--and also among the Sicilian and Italian Greeks.  The
Greeks of Asia Minor on the other hand, and those of the islands of
the Archipelago, and also the Corinthians on the mainland appear,
when this proposal reached them, to have already had in use for the
sound --"id:xi iota" the fifteenth sign of the Phoenician alphabet
--"id:XI" (Samech); accordingly of the three new signs they adopted
the --"id:PHI" for --"id:phi iota", but employed the --"id:CHI"
not for --"id:xi iota", but for --"id:chi iota".  The third sign
originally invented for --"id:chi iota" was probably allowed in
most instances to drop; only on the mainland of Asia Minor it was
retained, but received the value of --"id:psi iota".  The mode of
writing adopted in Asia Minor was followed also by Athens; only in
its case not merely the --"id:psi iota", but the --"id:xi iota" also,
was not received and in their room the two consonants continued to
be written as before.--II.  Equally early, if not still earlier,
an effort was made to obviate the confusion that might so easily
occur between the forms for --"id:iota S" and for --"id:s E"; for
all the Greek alphabets known to us bear traces of the endeavour to
distinguish them otherwise and more precisely.  Already in very
early times two such proposals of change must have been made,
each of which found a field for its diffusion.  In the one case
they employed for the sibilant--for which the Phoenician alphabet
furnished two signs, the fourteenth ( --"id:/\/\") for --"id:sh" and
the eighteenth (--"id:E") for --"id:s" --not the latter, which was
in sound the more suitable, but the former; and such was in earlier
times the mode of writing in the eastern islands, in Corinth and
Corcyra, and among the Italian Achaeans.  In the other case they
substituted for the sign of --"id:i" the simple stroke --"id:I",
which was by far the more usual, and at no very late date became
at least so far general that the broken --"id:iota S" everywhere
disappeared, although individual communities retained the --"id:s"
in the form --"id:/\/\" alongside of the --"I".--III.  Of later
date is the substitution of --"id:\/" for --"id:/\" (--"id:lambda")
which might readily be confounded with --"id:GAMMA gamma".  This we
meet with in Athens and Boeotia, while Corinth and the communities
dependent on Corinth attained the same object by giving
to the --"id:gamma" the semicircular form --"id:C" instead of the
hook-shape.--IV.  The forms for --"id:p" --"id:P (with broken-loop)"
and --"id:r" --"id:P", likewise very liable to be confounded, were
distinguished by transforming the latter into --"id:R"; which more
recent form was not used by the Greeks of Asia Minor, the Cretans,
the Italian Achaeans, and a few other districts, but on the other
hand greatly preponderated both in Greece proper and in Magna
Graecia and Sicily.  Still the older form of the --"id:r" --"id:P"
did not so early and so completely disappear there as the older
form of the --"id:l"; this alteration therefore beyond doubt is to
be placed later.--V.  The differentiating of the long and short -e
and the long and short -o remained in the earlier times confined
to the Greeks of Asia Minor and of the islands of the Aegean Sea.

All these technical improvements are of a like nature and from a
historical point of view of like value, in so far as each of them
arose at a definite time and at a definite place and thereafter
took its own mode of diffusion and found its special development.
The excellent investigation of Kirchhoff (-Studien zur Geschichte
des griechischen Alphabets-), which has thrown a clear light on
the previously so obscure history of the Hellenic alphabet, and has
also furnished essential data for the earliest relations between the
Hellenes and Italians--establishing, in particular, incontrovertibly
the previously uncertain home of the Etruscan alphabet--is affected
by a certain one-sidedness in so far as it lays proportionally too
great stress on a single one of these proposals.  If systems are
here to be distinguished at all, we may not divide the alphabets into
two classes according to the value of the --"id:X" as --"id:zeta"
or as --"id:chi", but we shall have to distinguish the alphabet
of 23 from that of 25 or 26 letters, and perhaps further in this
latter case to distinguish the Ionic of Asia Minor, from which the
later common alphabet proceeded, from the common Greek of earlier
times.  In dealing, however, with the different proposals for
the modification of the alphabet the several districts followed
an essentially eclectic course, so that one was received here and
another there; and it is just in this respect that the history of
the Greek alphabet is so instructive, because it shows how particular
groups of the Greek lands exchanged improvements in handicraft
and art, while others exhibited no such reciprocity.  As to Italy
in particular we have already called attention to the remarkable
contrast between the Achaean agricultural towns and the Chalcidic
and Doric colonies of a more mercantile character (x. Iono-Dorian
Towns); in the former the primitive forms were throughout retained,
in the latter the improved forms were adopted, even those which
coming from different quarters were somewhat inconsistent, such
as the --"id:C" --"id:gamma" alongside of the --"id:\/" --"id:l".
The Italian alphabets proceed, as Kirchhoff has shown, wholly
from the alphabet of the Italian Greeks and in fact from the
Chalcidico-Doric; but that the Etruscans and Latins received their
alphabet not the one from the other but both directly from the
Greeks, is placed beyond doubt especially by the different form of
the --"id:r".  For, while of the four modifications of the alphabet
above described which concern the Italian Greeks (the fifth
was confined to Asia Minor) the first three were already carried
out before the alphabet passed to the Etruscans and Latins, the
differentiation of --"id:p" and --"id:r" had not yet taken place
when it came to Etruria, but on the other hand had at least begun
when the Latins received it; for which reason the Etruscans do
not at all know the form -"id:R" for -"id:r", whereas among the
Faliscans and the Latins, with the single exception of the Dressel
vase (xiv. Note 14 ), the younger form is met with exclusively.

12.  I. XIII. Etrusco-Attic and Latino-Sicilian Commerce

13.  That the Etruscans always were without the koppa, seems
not doubtful; for not only is no sure trace of it to be met with
elsewhere, but it is wanting in the model alphabet of the Galassi
vase.  The attempt to show its presence in the syllabarium of the
latter is at any rate mistaken, for the syllabarium can and does
only take notice of the Etruscan letters that were afterwards
in common use, and to these the koppa notoriously did not belong;
moreover the sign placed at the close cannot well from its position
have any other value than that of the -f, which was in fact the last
letter in the Etruscan alphabet, and which could not be omitted in
a syllabarium exhibiting the variations of that alphabet from its
model.  It is certainly surprising that the koppa should be absent
from the Greek alphabet that came to Etruria, when it otherwise
so long maintained its place in the Chalcidico-Doric ; but this
may well have been a local peculiarity of the town whose alphabet
first reached Etruria.  Caprice and accident have at all times had
a share in determining whether a sign becoming superfluous shall
be retained or dropped from the alphabet; thus the Attic alphabet
lost the eighteenth Phoenician sign, but retained the others which
had disappeared from the -u.

14.  The golden bracelet of Praeneste recently brought to light
(Mitth. der rom. Inst. 1887), far the oldest of the intelligible
monuments of the Latin language and Latin writing, shows the older
form of the -"id:m"; the enigmatic clay vase from the Quirinal
(published by Dressel in the Annali dell Instituto, 1880) shows
the older form of the -"id:r".

15.  At this period we shall have to place that recorded form of the
Twelve Tables, which subsequently lay before the Roman philologues,
and of which we possess fragments.  Beyond doubt the code was
at its very origin committed to writing; but that those scholars
themselves referred their text not to the original exemplar, but to
an official document written down after the Gallic conflagration,
is proved by the story of the Tables having undergone reproduction
at that time.  This enables us easily to explain how their text by
no means exhibited the oldest orthography, which was not unknown to
them; even apart from the consideration that in the case of such
a written document, employed, moreover, for the purpose of being
committed to memory by the young, a philologically exact transmission
cannot possibly be assumed.

16.  This is the inscription of the bracelet of Praeneste which
has been mentioned at xiv, note 14.  On the other hand even on the
Ficoroni cista -"id:C" has the later form of -"id:K".

17.  Thus -"id:C" represents -Gaius-; -"id:CN" -Gnaeus-; while
-"id:K" stands for -Kaeso-.  With the more recent abbreviations of
course this is not the case; in these -"id:gamma" is represented
not by -"id:C", but by -"id:G" (-GAL- -Galeria-), --"id:kappa", as
a rule, by -"id:C" (-C- -centum- -COS- -consul; -COL -Collina-), or
before -"id:a" by -"id:K" (-KAR- -karmetalia-; -MERK- -merkatus-).
For they expressed for a time the sound --k before the vowels -e
-i -o and before all consonants by -"id:C", before -a on the other
hand by -"id:K", before -u by the old sign of the koppa -"id:Q".

18.  If this view is correct, the origin of the Homeric poems (though
of course not exactly that of the redaction in which we now have
them) must have been far anterior to the age which Herodotus assigns
for the flourishing of Homer (100 before Rome); for the introduction
of the Hellenic alphabet into Italy, as well as the beginning of
intercourse at all between Hellas and Italy, belongs only to the
post-Homeric period.

19.  Just as the old Saxon -writan- signifies properly to tear,
thence to write.

20.  The enigma as to how the Latins came to employ the Greek sign
corresponding to -v for the -f quite different in sound, has been
solved by the bracelet of Praeneste (xiv. Developments Of Alphabets
in Italy, note) with its -fhefhaked- for -fecit-, and thereby at the
same time the derivation of the Latin alphabet from the Chalcidian
colonies of Lower Italy has been confirmed.  For in a Boeotian
inscription belonging to the same alphabet we find in the word
-fhekadamoe-(Gustav Meyer, Griech. Grammatik, sec. 244, ap. fin.)
the same combination of sound, and an aspirated v might certainly
approximate in sound to the Latin -f.

20.  -Ratio Tuscanica,: cavum aedium Tuscanicum.-

21.  When Varro (ap. Augustin. De Civ. Dei, iv. 31; comp. Plutarch
Num. 8) affirms that the Romans for more than one hundred and
seventy years worshipped the gods without images, he is evidently
thinking of this primitive piece of carving, which, according to
the conventional chronology, was dedicated between 176 and 219, and,
beyond doubt, was the first statue of the gods, the consecration
of which was mentioned in the authorities which Varro had before
him.  Comp, above, XIV.  Development of Alphabets in Italy.

22.  I. XIII. Handicrafts

23.  I. XII. Nature of the Roman Gods

24.  I. XII. Pontifices

Chapter XV

Art

Artistic Endowment of the Italians

Poetry is impassioned language, and its modulation is melody.  While
in this sense no people is without poetry and music, some nations
have received a pre-eminent endowment of poetic gifts.  The Italian
nation, however, was not and is not one of these.  The Italian is
deficient in the passion of the heart, in the longing to idealize
what is human and to confer humanity on what is lifeless, which
form the very essence of poetic art.  His acuteness of perception
and his graceful versatility enabled him to excel in irony and in
the vein of tale-telling which we find in Horace and Boccaccio,
in the humorous pleasantries of love and song which are presented
in Catullus and in the good popular songs of Naples, above all in
the lower comedy and in farce.  Italian soil gave birth in ancient
times to burlesque tragedy, and in modern times to mock-heroic
poetry.  In rhetoric and histrionic art especially no other nation
equalled or equals the Italians.  But in the more perfect kinds of
art they have hardly advanced beyond dexterity of execution, and
no epoch of their literature has produced a true epos or a genuine
drama.  The very highest literary works that have been successfully
produced in Italy, divine poems like Dante's Commedia, and historical
treatises such as those of Sallust and Macchiavelli, of Tacitus and
Colletta, are pervaded by a passion more rhetorical than spontaneous.
Even in music, both in ancient and modern times, really creative
talent has been far less conspicuous than the accomplishment which
speedily assumes the character of virtuosoship, and enthrones in
the room of genuine and genial art a hollow and heart-withering
idol.  The field of the inward in art--so far as we may in the case
of art distinguish an inward and an outward at all--is not that
which has fallen to the Italian as his special province; the power
of beauty, to have its full effect upon him, must be placed not
ideally before his mind, but sensuously before his eyes.  Accordingly
he is thoroughly at home in architecture, painting, and sculpture;
in these he was during the epoch of ancient culture the best disciple
of the Hellenes, and in modern times he has become the master of
all nations.

Dance, Music, and Song in Latium

From the defectiveness of our traditional information it is
not possible to trace the development of artistic ideas among the
several groups of nations in Italy; and in particular we are no
longer in a position to speak of the poetry of Italy; we can only
speak of that of Latium.  Latin poetry, like that of every other
nation, began in the lyrical form, or, to speak more correctly,
sprang out of those primitive festal rejoicings, in which dance,
music, and song were still inseparably blended.  It is remarkable,
however, that in the most ancient religious usages dancing, and
next to dancing instrumental music, were far more prominent than
song.  In the great procession, with which the Roman festival of
victory was opened, the chief place, next to the images of the gods
and the champions, was assigned to the dancers grave and merry.
The grave dancers were arranged in three groups of men, youths,
and boys, all clad in red tunics with copper belts, with swords
and short lances, the men being moreover furnished with helmets,
and generally in full armed attire.  The merry dancers were divided
into two companies--"the sheep" in sheep-skins with a party-coloured
over-garment, and "the goats" naked down to the waist, with a buck's
skin thrown over them.  In like manner the "leapers" (-salii-)
were perhaps the most ancient and sacred of all the priesthoods,(1)
and dancers (-ludii-, -ludiones-) were indispensable in all public
processions, and particularly at funeral solemnities; so that
dancing became even in ancient times a common trade.  But, wherever
the dancers made their appearance, there appeared also the musicians
or--which was in the earliest times the same thing--the pipers.
They too were never wanting at a sacrifice, at a marriage, or at
a funeral; and by the side of the primitive public priesthood of
the "leapers" there was ranged, of equal antiquity although of far
inferior rank, the guild of the "pipers" (-collegium tibicinum-(2)),
whose true character as strolling musicians is evinced by their
ancient privilege--maintained even in spite of the strictness
of Roman police--of wandering through the streets at their annual
festival, wearing masks and full of sweet wine.  While dancing thus
presents itself as an honourable function and music as one subordinate
but still necessary, so that public corporations were instituted
for both of them, poetry appears more as a matter incidental and,
in some measure, indifferent, whether it may have come into existence
on its own account or to serve as an accompaniment to the movements
of the dancers.

Religious Chants

The earliest chant, in the view of the Romans, was that which the
leaves sang to themselves in the green solitude of the forest.  The
whispers and pipings of the "favourable spirit" (-faunus-, from
-favere-) in the grove were reproduced for men, by those who had
the gift of listening to him, in rhythmically measured language
(-casmen-, afterwards -carmen-, from -canere-).  Of a kindred nature
to these soothsaying songs of inspired men and women (-vates-) were
the incantations properly so called, the formulae for conjuring
away diseases and other troubles, and the evil spells by which they
prevented rain and called down lightning or even enticed the seed
from one field to another; only in these instances, probably from
the outset, formulae of mere sounds appear side by side with formulae
of words.(3)  More firmly rooted in tradition and equally ancient
were the religious litanies which were sung and danced by the Salii
and other priesthoods; the only one of which that has come down to
us, a dance-chant of the Arval Brethren in honour of Mars probably
composed to be sung in alternate parts, deserves a place here.

-Enos, Lases, iuvate!
Ne velue rue, Marmar, sins incurrere in pleores!
Satur fu, fere Mars! limen sali! sta! berber!
Semunis alternei advocapit conctos!
Enos, Marmar, iuvato!
Triumpe!-

Which may be thus interpreted:

To the gods:
-Nos, Lares, iuvate!
Ne veluem (= malam luem) ruem (= ruinam), Mamers,
   sinas incurrere in plures!
Satur esto, fere Mars!

To the individual brethren:
In limen insili! sta! verbera (limen?)!

To all the brethren:
Semones alterni advocate cunctos!

To the god:
Nos, Mamers, iuvato!

To the individual brethren:
Tripudia!-(4)

The Latin of this chant and of kindred fragments of the Salian
songs, which were regarded even by the philologues of the Augustan
age as the oldest documents of their mother-tongue, is related
to the Latin of the Twelve Tables somewhat as the language of the
Nibelungen is related to the language of Luther; and we may perhaps
compare these venerable litanies, as respects both language and
contents, with the Indian Vedas.

Panegyrics and Lampoons

Lyrical panegyrics and lampoons belonged to a later epoch.  We might
infer from the national character of the Italians that satirical
songs must have abounded in Latium in ancient times, even if their
prevalence had not been attested by the very ancient measures of
police directed against them.  But the panegyrical chants became
of more importance.  When a burgess was borne to burial, the bier
was followed by a female relative or friend, who, accompanied by a
piper, sang his dirge (-nenia-).  In like manner at banquets boys,
who according to the fashion of those days attended their fathers
even at feasts out of their own houses, sang by turns songs in
praise of their ancestors, sometimes to the pipe, sometimes simply
reciting them without accompaniment (-assa voce canere-).  The custom
of men singing in succession at banquets was presumably borrowed
from the Greeks, and that not till a later age.  We know no further
particulars of these ancestral lays; but it is self-evident that
they must have attempted description and narration and thus have
developed, along with and out of the lyrical element, the features
of epic poetry.

The Masked Farce

Other elements of poetry were called into action in the primitive
popular carnival, the comic dance or -satura-,(5) which beyond
doubt reached back to a period anterior to the separation of the
stocks.  On such occasions song would never be wanting; and the
circumstances under which such pastimes were exhibited, chiefly
at public festivals and marriages, as well as the mainly practical
shape which they certainly assumed, naturally suggested that several
dancers, or sets of dancers, should take up reciprocal parts;
so that the singing thus came to be associated with a species of
acting, which of course was chiefly of a comical and often of a
licentious character.  In this way there arose not merely alternative
chants, such as afterwards went by the name of Fescennine songs, but
also the elements of a popular comedy--which were in this instance
planted in a soil admirably adapted for their growth, as an acute
sense of the outward and the comic, and a delight in gesticulation
and masquerade have ever been leading traits of Italian character.

No remains have been preserved of these -incunabula- of the Roman
epos and drama.  That the ancestral lays were traditional is
self-evident, and is abundantly demonstrated by the fact that they
were regularly recited by children; but even in the time of Cato
the Elder they had completely passed into oblivion.  The comedies
again, if it be allowable so to name them, were at this period and
long afterwards altogether improvised.  Consequently nothing of
this popular poetry and popular melody could be handed down but
the measure, the accompaniment of music and choral dancing, and
perhaps the masks.

Metre

Whether what we call metre existed in the earlier times is doubtful;
the litany of the Arval Brethren scarcely accommodates itself to
an outwardly fixed metrical system, and presents to us rather the
appearance of an animated recitation.  On the other hand we find in
subsequent times a very ancient rhythm, the so-called Saturnian(6)
or Faunian metre, which is foreign to the Greeks, and may be
conjectured to have arisen contemporaneously with the oldest Latin
popular poetry.  The following poem, belonging, it is true, to a
far later age, may give an idea of it:--

Quod re sua difeidens--aspere afleicta

Parens timens heic vovit--voto hoc soluto
___
Decuma facta poloucta--leibereis lubentis
                 ____          _____
Donu danunt__hercolei--maxsume--mereto
      _____
Semol te orant se voti--crebro con__demnes.

__--'__--'__--'__^/ __--'__--'__--'_^

That which, misfortune dreading--sharply to afflict him, An anxious
parent vowed here,--when his wish was granted, A sacred tenth for
banquet--gladly give his children to Hercules a tribute--most of
all deserving; And now they thee beseech, that--often thou wouldst
hear them.

Panegyrics as well as comic songs appear to have been uniformly
sung in Saturnian metre, of course to the pipe, and presumably in
such a way that the -caesura- in particular in each line was strongly
marked; and in alternate singing the second singer probably took
up the verse at this point.  The Saturnian measure is, like every
other occurring in Roman and Greek antiquity, based on quantity;
but of all the antique metres perhaps it is the least thoroughly
elaborated, for besides many other liberties it allows itself the
greatest license in omitting the short syllables, and it is at the
same time the most imperfect in construction, for these iambic and
trochaic half-lines opposed to each other were but little fitted
to develop a rhythmical structure adequate for the purposes of the
higher poetry.

Melody

The fundamental elements of the national music and choral dancing
in Latium, which must likewise have been established during this
period, are buried for us in oblivion; except that the Latin pipe
is reported to have been a short and slender instrument, provided
with only four holes, and originally, as the name shows, made out
of the light thighbone of some animal.

Masks

Lastly, the masks used in after times for the standing characters
of the Latin popular comedy or the Atellana, as it was called:
Maccus the harlequin, Bucco the glutton, Pappus the good papa, and
the wise Dossennus--masks which have been cleverly and strikingly
compared to the two servants, the -pantalon- and the -dottore-, in
the Italian comedy of Pulcinello--already belonged to the earliest
Latin popular art.  That they did so cannot of course be strictly
proved; but as the use of masks for the face in Latium in the case
of the national drama was of immemorial antiquity, while the Greek
drama in Rome did not adopt them for a century after its first
establishment, as, moreover, those Atellane masks were of decidedly
Italian origin, and as, in fine, the origination as well as
the execution of improvised pieces cannot well be conceived apart
from fixed masks assigning once for all to the player his proper
position throughout the piece, we must associate fixed masks with
the rudiments of the Roman drama, or rather regard them as constituting
those rudiments themselves.

Earliest Hellenic Influences

If our information respecting the earliest indigenous culture and
art of Latium is so scanty, it may easily be conceived that our
knowledge will be still scantier regarding the earliest impulses
imparted in this respect to the Romans from without.  In a certain
sense we may include under this head their becoming acquainted with
foreign languages, particularly the Greek.  To this latter language, of
course, the Latins generally were strangers, as was shown by their
enactment in respect to the Sibylline oracles;(7) but an acquaintance
with it must have been not at all uncommon in the case of merchants.
The same may be affirmed of the knowledge of reading and writing,
closely connected as it was with the knowledge of Greek.(8)  The
culture of the ancient world, however, was not based either
on the knowledge of foreign languages or on elementary technical
accomplishments.  An influence more important than any thus imparted
was exercised over the development of Latium by the elements of the
fine arts, which were already in very early times received from the
Hellenes.  For it was the Hellenes alone, and not the Phoenicians
or the Etruscans, that in this respect exercised an influence on
the Italians.  We nowhere find among the latter any stimulus of
the fine arts which can be referred to Carthage or Caere, and the
Phoenician and Etruscan forms of civilization may be in general
perhaps classed with those that are hybrid, and for that reason
not further productive.(9)  But the influence of Greece did not
fail to bear fruit.  The Greek seven-stringed lyre, the "strings"
(-fides-, from --sphidei--, gut; also -barbitus-, --barbitos--),
was not like the pipe indigenous in Latium, and was always regarded
there as an instrument of foreign origin; but the early period at
which it gained a footing is demonstrated partly by the barbarous
mutilation of its Greek name, partly by its being employed even in
ritual.(10)  That some of the legendary stores of the Greeks during
this period found their way into Latium, is shown by the ready
reception of Greek works of sculpture with their representations
based so thoroughly upon the poetical treasures of the nation; and
the old Latin barbarous conversions of Persephone into Prosepna,
Bellerophontes into Melerpanta, Kyklops into Cocles, Laomedon into
Alumentus, Ganymedes into Catamitus, Neilos into Melus, Semele into
Stimula, enable us to perceive at how remote a period such stories
had been heard and repeated by the Latins.  Lastly and especially,
the Roman chief festival or festival of the city (-ludi maximi-,
-Romani-) must in all probability have owed, if not its origin,
at any rate its later arrangements to Greek influence.  It was an
extraordinary thanksgiving festival celebrated in honour of the
Capitoline Jupiter and the gods dwelling along with him, ordinarily
in pursuance of a vow made by the general before battle, and
therefore usually observed on the return home of the burgess-force
in autumn.  A festal procession proceeded toward the Circus staked
off between the Palatine and Aventine, and furnished with an arena
and places for spectators; in front the whole boys of Rome, arranged
according to the divisions of the burgess-force, on horseback and
on foot; then the champions and the groups of dancers which we have
described above, each with their own music; thereafter the servants
of the gods with vessels of frankincense and other sacred utensils;
lastly the biers with the images of the gods themselves.  The
spectacle itself was the counterpart of war as it was waged in
primitive times, a contest on chariots, on horseback, and on foot.
First there ran the war-chariots, each of which carried in Homeric
fashion a charioteer and a combatant; then the combatants who had
leaped off; then the horsemen, each of whom appeared after the Roman
style of fighting with a horse which he rode and another led by the
hand (-desultor-); lastly, the champions on foot, naked to the girdle
round their loins, measured their powers in racing, wrestling, and
boxing.  In each species of contest there was but one competition,
and that between not more than two competitors.  A chaplet rewarded
the victor, and the honour in which the simple branch which formed
the wreath was held is shown by the law permitting it to be laid
on the bier of the victor when he died.  The festival thus lasted
only one day, and the competitions probably still left sufficient
time on that day for the carnival proper, at which the groups of
dancers may have displayed their art and above all exhibited their
farces; and doubtless other representations also, such as competitions
in juvenile horsemanship, found a place.(11)  The honours won in
real war also played their part in this festival; the brave warrior
exhibited on this day the equipments of the antagonist whom he had
slain, and was decorated with a chaplet by the grateful community
just as was the victor in the competition.

Such was the nature of the Roman festival of victory or city-festival;
and the other public festivities of Rome may be conceived to
have been of a similar character, although less ample in point of
resources.  At the celebration of a public funeral dancers regularly
bore a part, and along with them, if there was to be any further
exhibition, horse-racers; in that case the burgesses were specially
invited beforehand to the funeral by the public crier.

But this city-festival, so intimately bound up with the manners
and exercises of the Romans, coincides in all essentials with the
Hellenic national festivals: more especially in the fundamental
idea of combining a religious solemnity and a competition in warlike
sports; in the selection of the several exercises, which at the
Olympic festival, according to Pindar's testimony, consisted from
the first in running, wrestling, boxing, chariot-racing, and throwing
the spear and stone; in the nature of the prize of victory, which
in Rome as well as in the Greek national festivals was a chaplet,
and in the one case as well as in the other was assigned not to the
charioteer, but to the owner of the team; and lastly in introducing
the feats and rewards of general patriotism in connection with
the general national festival.  This agreement cannot have been
accidental, but must have been either a remnant of the primitive
connection between the peoples, or a result of the earliest
international intercourse; and the probabilities preponderate in
favour of the latter hypothesis.  The city-festival, in the form
in which we are acquainted with it, was not one of the oldest
institutions of Rome, for the Circus itself was only laid out in the
later regal period;(12) and just as the reform of the constitution
then took place under Greek influence,(13) the city-festival may
have been at the same time so far transformed as to combine Greek
races with, and eventually to a certain extent to substitute them
for, an older mode of amusement--the "leap" (-triumpus-,(14)), and
possibly swinging, which was a primitive Italian custom and long
continued in use at the festival on the Alban mount.  Moreover,
while there is some trace of the use of the war-chariot in actual
warfare in Hellas, no such trace exists in Latium.  Lastly, the
Greek term --stadion-- (Doric --spadion--) was at a very early period
transferred to the Latin language, retaining its signification,
as -spatium-; and there exists even an express statement that the
Romans derived their horse and chariot races from the people of
Thurii, although, it is true, another account derives them from
Etruria.  It thus appears that, in addition to the impulses imparted
by the Hellenes in music and poetry, the Romans were indebted to
them for the fruitful idea of gymnastic competitions.

Character of Poetry and of Education in Latium

Thus there not only existed in Latium the same fundamental elements
out of which Hellenic culture and art grew, but Hellenic culture
and art themselves exercised a powerful influence over Latium in
very early times.  Not only did the Latins possess the elements
of gymnastic training, in so far as the Roman boy learned like
every farmer's son to manage horses and waggon and to handle the
hunting-spear, and as in Rome every burgess was at the same time
a soldier; but the art of dancing was from the first an object
of public care, and a powerful impulse was further given to such
culture at an early period by the introduction of the Hellenic
games.  The lyrical poetry and tragedy of Hellas grew out of songs
similar to the festal lays of Rome; the ancestral lay contained the
germs of epos, the masked farce the germs of comedy; and in this
field also Grecian influences were not wanting.

In such circumstances it is the more remarkable that these germs
either did not spring up at all, or were soon arrested in their
growth.  The bodily training of the Latin youth continued to be
solid and substantial, but far removed from the idea of artistic
culture for the body, such as was the aim of Hellenic gymnastics.
The public games of the Hellenes when introduced into Italy, changed
not so much their formal rules as their essential character.  While
they were intended to be competitions of burgesses and beyond doubt
were so at first in Rome, they became contests of professional
riders and professional boxers, and, while the proof of free and
Hellenic descent formed the first condition for participating in
the Greek festal games, those of Rome soon passed into the hands
of freedmen and foreigners and even of persons not free at all.
Consequently the circle of fellow-competitors became converted into
a public of spectators, and the chaplet of the victorious champion,
which has been with justice called the badge of Hellas, was afterwards
hardly ever mentioned in Latium.

A similar fate befel poetry and her sisters.  The Greeks and Germans
alone possess a fountain of song that wells up spontaneously; from
the golden vase of the Muses only a few drops have fallen on the
green soil of Italy.  There was no formation of legend in the strict
sense there.  The Italian gods were abstractions and remained such;
they never became elevated into or, as some may prefer to say,
obscured under, a true personal shape.  In like manner men, even the
greatest and noblest, remained in the view of the Italian without
exception mortal, and were not, as in the longing recollection
and affectionately cherished tradition of Greece, elevated in the
conception of the multitude into god-like heroes.  But above all
no development of national poetry took place in Latium.  It is
the deepest and noblest effect of the fine arts and above all of
poetry, that they break down the barriers of civil communities and
create out of tribes a nation and out of the nations a world.  As
in the present day by means of our cosmopolitan literature the
distinctions of civilized nations are done away, so Greek poetic
art transformed the narrow and egoistic sense of tribal relationship
into the consciousness of Hellenic nationality, and this again
into the consciousness of a common humanity.  But in Latium nothing
similar occurred.  There might be poets in Alba and in Rome, but there
arose no Latin epos, nor even--what were still more conceivable--a
catechism for the Latin farmer of a kind similar to the "Works and
Days" of Hesiod.  The Latin federal festival might well have become
a national festival of the fine arts, like the Olympian and Isthmian
games of the Greeks.  A cycle of legends might well have gathered
around the fall of Alba, such as was woven around the conquest of
Ilion, and every community and every noble clan of Latium might
have discovered in it, or imported into it, the story of its own
origin.  But neither of these results took place, and Italy remained
without national poetry or art.

The inference which of necessity follows from these facts, that the
development of the fine arts in Latium was rather a shrivelling up
than an expanding into bloom, is confirmed in a manner even now not
to be mistaken by tradition.  The beginnings of poetry everywhere,
perhaps, belong rather to women than to men; the spell of incantation
and the chant for the dead pertain pre-eminently to the former,
and not without reason the spirits of song, the Casmenae or Camenae
and the Carmentis of Latium, like the Muses of Hellas, were conceived
as feminine.  But the time came in Hellas, when the poet relieved
the songstress and Apollo took his place at the head of the Muses.
In Latium there was no national god of song, and the older Latin
language had no designation for the poet.(15)  The power of song
emerging there was out of all proportion weaker, and was rapidly
arrested in its growth.  The exercise of the fine arts was there
early restricted, partly to women and children, partly to incorporated
or unincorporated tradesmen.  We have already mentioned that funeral
chants were sung by women and banquet-lays by boys; the religious
litanies also were chiefly executed by children.  The musicians formed
an incorporated, the dancers and the wailing women (-praeficae-)
unincorporated, trades.  While dancing, music, and singing remained
constantly in Greece--as they were originally also in Latium--reputable
employments redounding to the honour of the burgess and of the
community to which he belonged, in Latium the better portion of the
burgesses drew more and more aloof from these vain arts, and that
the more decidedly, in proportion as art came to be more publicly
exhibited and more thoroughly penetrated by the quickening impulses
derived from other lands.  The use of the native pipe was sanctioned,
but the lyre remained despised; and while the national amusement of
masks was allowed, the foreign amusements of the -palaestra- were
not only regarded with indifference, but esteemed disgraceful.  While
the fine arts in Greece became more and more the common property of
the Hellenes individually and collectively and thereby became the
means of developing a universal culture, they gradually disappeared
in Latium from the thoughts and feelings of the people; and, as
they degenerated into utterly insignificant handicrafts, the idea
of a general national culture to be communicated to youth never
suggested itself at all.  The education of youth remained entirely
confined within the limits of the narrowest domesticity.  The boy
never left his father's side, and accompanied him not only to the
field with the plough and the sickle, but also to the house of
a friend or to the council-hall, when his father was invited as a
guest or summoned to the senate.  This domestic education was well
adapted to preserve man wholly for the household and wholly for
the state.  The permanent intercommunion of life between father
and son, and the mutual reverence felt by adolescence for ripened
manhood and by the mature man for the innocence of youth, lay at the
root of the steadfastness of the domestic and political traditions,
of the closeness of the family bond, and in general of the grave
earnestness (-gravitas-) and character of moral worth in Roman life.
This mode of educating youth was in truth one of those institutions
of homely and almost unconscious wisdom, which are as simple as
they are profound.  But amidst the admiration which it awakens we
may not overlook the fact that it could only be carried out, and
was only carried out, by the sacrifice of true individual culture
and by a complete renunciation of the equally charming and perilous
gifts of the Muses.

Dance, Music, and Song among the Sabellians and Etruscans

Regarding the development of the fine arts among the Etruscans
and Sabellians our knowledge is little better than none.(16)  We
can only notice the fact that in Etruria the dancers (-histri-,
-histriones-) and the pipe-players (-subulones-) early made a trade
of their art, probably earlier even than in Rome, and exhibited
themselves in public not only at home, but also in Rome for small
remuneration and less honour.  It is a circumstance more remarkable
that at the Etruscan national festival, in the exhibition of which
the whole twelve cities were represented by a federal priest, games
were given like those of the Roman city-festival; we are, however,
no longer in a position to answer the question which it suggests,
how far the Etruscans were more successful than the Latins in
attaining a national form of fine art beyond that of the individual
communities.  On the other hand a foundation probably was laid in
Etruria, even in early times, for that insipid accumulation of learned
lumber, particularly of a theological and astrological nature, by
virtue of which afterwards, when amidst the general decay antiquarian
dilettantism began to flourish, the Tuscans divided with the Jews,
Chaldeans, and Egyptians the honour of being admired as primitive
sources of divine wisdom.  We know still less, if possible, of
Sabellian art; but that of course by no means warrants the inference
that it was inferior to that of the neighbouring stocks.  On the
contrary, it may be conjectured from what we otherwise know of
the character of the three chief races of Italy, that in artistic
gifts the Samnites approached nearest to the Hellenes and the
Etruscans were farthest removed from them; and a sort of confirmation
of this hypothesis is furnished by the fact, that the most gifted
and most original of the Roman poets, such as Naevius, Ennius,
Lucilius, and Horace, belonged to the Samnite lands, whereas
Etruria has almost no representatives in Roman literature except
the Arretine Maecenas, the most insufferable of all heart-withered
and affected(17) court-poets, and the Volaterran Persius, the true
ideal of a conceited and languid, poetry-smitten, youth.

Earliest Italian Architecture

The elements of architecture were, as has been already indicated,
a primitive common possession of the stocks.  The dwelling-house
constitutes the first attempt of structural art; and it was the
same among Greeks and Italians.  Built of wood, and covered with a
pointed roof of straw or shingles it formed a square dwelling-chamber,
which let out the smoke and let in the light by an opening in the
roof corresponding with a hole for carrying off the rain in the
ground (-cavum aedium-).  Under this "black roof" (-atrium-) the
meals were prepared and consumed; there the household gods were
worshipped, and the marriage bed and the bier were set out; there
the husband received his guests, and the wife sat spinning amid the
circle of her maidens.  The house had no porch, unless we take as
such the uncovered space between the house door and the street,
which obtained its name -vestibulum-, i. e.  dressing-place, from
the circumstance that the Romans were in the habit of going about
within doors in their tunics, and only wrapped the toga around
them when they went abroad.  There was, moreover, no division of
apartments except that sleeping and store closets might be provided
around the dwelling-room; and still less were there stairs, or
stories placed one above another.

Earliest Hellenic Influence

Whether, or to what extent, a national Italian architecture arose
o ut of these beginnings can scarcely be determined, for in this
field Greek influence, even in the earliest times, had a very
powerful effect and almost wholly overgrew such national attempts
as possibly had preceded it.  The very oldest Italian architecture
with which we are acquainted is not much less under the influence
of that of Greece than the architecture of the Augustan age.  The
primitive tombs of Caere and Alsium, and probably the oldest one
also of those recently discovered at Praeneste, have been, exactly
like the --thesauroi--of Orchomenos and Mycenae, roofed over with
courses of stone placed one above another, gradually overlapping,
and closed by a large stone cover.  A very ancient building at
the city wall of Tusculum was roofed in the same way, and so was
originally the well-house (-tullianum-) at the foot of the Capitol,
till the top was pulled down to make room for another building.
The gates constructed on the same system are entirely similar in
Arpinum and in Mycenae.  The tunnel which drains the Alban lake(18)
presents the greatest resemblance to that of lake Copais.  What are
called Cyclopean ring-walls frequently occur in Italy, especially
in Etruria, Umbria, Latium, and Sabina, and decidedly belong in
point of design to the most ancient buildings of Italy, although
the greater portion of those now extant were probably not executed
till a much later age, several of them certainly not till the
seventh century of the city.  They are, just like those of Greece,
sometimes quite roughly formed of large unwrought blocks of rock
with smaller stones inserted between them, sometimes disposed
in square horizontal courses,(19) sometimes composed of polygonal
dressed blocks fitting into each other.  The selection of one or
other of these systems was doubtless ordinarily determined by the
material, and accordingly the polygonal masonry does not occur in
Rome, where in the most ancient times tufo alone was employed for
building.  The resemblance in the case of the two former and simpler
styles may perhaps be traceable to the similarity of the materials
employed and of the object in view in building; but it can hardly
be deemed accidental that the artistic polygonal wall-masonry, and
the gate with the path leading up to it universally bending to the
left and so exposing the unshielded right side of the assailant to
the defenders, belong to the Italian fortresses as well as to the
Greek.  The facts are significant that in that portion of Italy
which was not reduced to subjection by the Hellenes but yet was
in lively intercourse with them, the true polygonal masonry was at
home, and it is found in Etruria only at Pyrgi and at the towns,
not very far distant from it, of Cosa and Saturnia; as the design
of the walls of Pyrgi, especially when we take into account the
significant name ("towers"), may just as certainly be ascribed to
the Greeks as that of the walls of Tiryns, in them most probably
there still stands before our eyes one of the models from which
the Italians learned how to build their walls.  The temple in fine,
which in the period of the empire was called the Tuscanic and was
regarded as a kind of style co-ordinate with the various Greek
temple-structures, not only generally resembled the Greek temple
in being an enclosed space (-cello-) usually quadrangular, over
which walls and columns raised aloft a sloping roof, but was also
in details, especially in the column itself and its architectural
features, thoroughly dependent on the Greek system.  It is in accordance
with all these facts probable, as it is credible of itself, that
Italian architecture previous to its contact with the Hellenes was
confined to wooden huts, abattis, and mounds of earth and stones,
and that construction in stone was only adopted in consequence of
the example and the better tools of the Greeks.  It is scarcely
to be doubted that the Italians first learned from them the use of
iron, and derived from them the preparation of mortar (-cal[e]x-,
-calecare-, from --chaliz--), the machine (-machina-, --meichanei--),
the measuring-rod (-groma-, a corruption from --gnomon--, --gnoma--),
and the artificial latticework (-clathri-, --kleithron--).  Accordingly
we can scarcely speak of an architecture peculiarly Italian.  Yet
in the woodwork of the Italian dwelling-house--alongside of
alterations produced by Greek influence--various peculiarities may
have been retained or even for the first time developed, and these
again may have exercised a reflex influence on the building of
the Italian temples.  The architectural development of the house
proceeded in Italy from the Etruscans.  The Latin and even the
Sabellian still adhered to the hereditary wooden hut and to the
good old custom of assigning to the god or spirit not a consecrated
dwelling, but only a consecrated space, while the Etruscan had
already begun artistically to transform his dwelling-house, and to
erect after the model of the dwelling-house of man a temple also
for the god and a sepulchral chamber for the spirit.  That the
advance to such luxurious structures in Latium first took place
under Etruscan influence, is proved by the designation of the
oldest style of temple architecture and of the oldest style of house
architecture respectively as Tuscanic.(20) As concerns the character
of this transference, the Grecian temple probably imitated the
general outlines of the tent or dwelling-house; but it was essentially
built of hewn stone and covered with tiles, and the nature of the
stone and the baked clay suggested to the Greek the laws of necessity
and beauty.  The Etruscan on the other hand remained a stranger to
the strict Greek distinction between the dwelling of man necessarily
erected of wood and the dwelling of the gods necessarily formed
of stone.  The peculiar characteristics of the Tuscan temple--the
outline approaching nearer to a square, the higher gable, the
greater breadth of the intervals between the columns, above all,
the increased inclination of the roof and the singular projection
of the roof-corbels beyond the supporting columns--all arose out
of the greater approximation of the temple to the dwelling-house,
and out of the peculiarities of wooden architecture.

Plastic Art in Italy

The plastic and delineative arts are more recent than architecture;
the house must be built before any attempt is made to decorate
gable and walls.  It is not probable that these arts really gained
a place in Italy during the regal period of Rome; it was only
in Etruria, where commerce and piracy early gave rise to a great
concentration of riches, that art or handicraft--if the term be
preferred--obtained a footing in the earliest times.  Greek art,
when it acted on Etruria, was still, as its copy shows, at a very
primitive stage, and the Etruscans may have learned from the Greeks
the art of working in clay and metal at a period not much later than
that at which they borrowed from them the alphabet.  The silver
coins of Populonia, almost the only works that can be with any
precision assigned to this period, give no very high idea of Etruscan
artistic skill as it then stood; yet the best of the Etruscan works
in bronze, to which the later critics of art assigned so high a
place, may have belonged to this primitive age; and the Etruscan
terra-cottas also cannot have been altogether despicable, for the
oldest works in baked clay placed in the Roman temples--the statue
of the Capitoline Jupiter, and the four-horse chariot on the roof
of his temple--were executed in Veii, and the large ornaments of a
similar kind placed on the roofs of temples passed generally among
the later Romans under the name of "Tuscanic works."

On the other hand, among the Italians--not among the Sabellian
stocks merely, but even among the Latins--native sculpture and
design were at this period only coming into existence.  The most
considerable works of art appear to have been executed abroad.
We have just mentioned the statues of clay alleged to have been
executed in Veii; and very recent excavations have shown that works
in bronze made in Etruria, and furnished with Etruscan inscriptions,
circulated in Praeneste at least, if not generally throughout
Latium.  The statue of Diana in the Romano-Latin federal temple on
the Aventine, which was considered the oldest statue of a divinity
in Rome,(21) exactly resembled the Massiliot statue of the Ephesian
Artemis, and was perhaps manufactured in Velia or Massilia.  The
guilds, which from ancient times existed in Rome, of potters,
coppersmiths, and goldsmiths,(22) are almost the only proofs of
the existence of native sculpture and design there; respecting the
position of their art it is no longer possible to gain any clear
idea.

Artistic Relations and Endowments of the Etruscans and Italians

If we endeavour to obtain historical results from the archives of
the tradition and practice of primitive art, it is in the first place
manifest that Italian art, like the Italian measures and Italian
writing, developed itself not under Phoenician, but exclusively
under Hellenic influence.  There is not a single one of the aspects
of Italian art which has not found its definite model in the art
of ancient Greece; and, so far, the legend is fully warranted which
traces the manufacture of painted clay figures, beyond doubt the
most ancient form of art in Italy, to the three Greek artists,
the "moulder," "fitter," and "draughtsman," Eucheir, Diopos, and
Eugrammos, although it is more than doubtful whether this art came
directly from Corinth or came directly to Tarquinii.  There is
as little trace of any immediate imitation of oriental models as
there is of an independently-developed form of art.  The Etruscan
lapidaries adhered to the form of the beetle or -scarabaeus-, which
was originally Egyptian; but --scarabaei-- were also used as models
for carving in Greece in very early times (e. g. such a beetle-stone,
with a very ancient Greek inscription, has been found in Aegina),
and therefore they may very well have come to the Etruscans through
the Greeks.  The Italians may have bought from the Phoenician; they
learned only from the Greek.

To the further question, from what Greek stock the Etruscans in
the first instance received their art-models, a categorical answer
cannot be given; yet relations of a remarkable kind subsist between
the Etruscan and the oldest Attic art.  The three forms of art, which
were practised in Etruria at least in after times very extensively,
but in Greece only to an extent very limited, tomb-painting,
mirror-designing, and graving on stone, have been hitherto met with
on Grecian soil only in Athens and Aegina.  The Tuscan temple does
not correspond exactly either to the Doric or to the Ionic; but in
the more important points of distinction, in the course of columns
carried round the -cella-, as well as in the placing of a separate
pedestal under each particular column, the Etruscan style follows
the more recent Ionic; and it is this same Iono-Attic style of
building still pervaded by a Doric element, which in its general
design stands nearest of all the Greek styles to the Tuscan.  In
the case of Latium there is an almost total absence of any certain
traces of intercourse bearing on the history of art.  If it was--as
is indeed almost self-evident--the general relations of traffic
and intercourse that determined also the introduction of models
in art, it may be assumed with certainty that the Campanian and
Sicilian Hellenes were the instructors of Latium in art, as in
the alphabet; and the analogy between the Aventine Diana and the
Ephesian Artemis is at least not inconsistent with such an hypothesis.
Of course the older Etruscan art also served as a model for Latium.
As to the Sabellian tribes, if Greek architectural and plastic art