WALLACHIA AND MOLDAVIA.--RUMANYOS.--PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.--DESCENT
FROM THE DACI.--SARMATIAN ORIGIN.--SERVIA.--MONTENEGRO.
_Wallachia and Moldavia._--The Wallachians and Moldavians are in the
same relations to the Romans and ancient Daci as the French are to the
Romans and Kelts, or the Spaniards to the Romans and Iberians. Like the
degenerate Greeks of the Byzantine empire, they call themselves _Roman_;
and their language, like the _Rumonsch_ of the Grisons and the _Romaic_
of modern Hellas, is Romane.
As the two principalities represent only a portion of the ancient Dacia,
the ethnological and political divisions differ; for, though all
Wallachians and all Moldavians are _Rumanyos_ the whole of the Rumanyos
are not Wallachian and Moldavian. They are also indigenous to
Transylvania and Bukhovinia. In Bulgaria, Thrace, and Macedonia, there
are, probably, intruders. Light made, with dark skins, black eyes, and
prominent features, they stand in strong contrast to both the Russians
and the Slovaks, with which they are in geographical contact. Nor is it
safe to refer this to Roman blood, since, according to Mr. Paget, the
Dacians of Trajan’s column have similar features--at least as far as the
profile goes, and as far as the description of a Transylvanian _Rumanyo_
applies to those of Wallachia and Moldavia.
Of all the districts on the Danube, Wallachia and Moldavia have been the
least disturbed during the last sixteen centuries. This, though it is
saying but little for a country in the most afflicted part of Europe, is
the inference from the continued existence of their language. Displaced
in all the other Danubian provinces it is still the native tongue to
upwards of 200,000 protected and half independent Rumanyi.
In detail, the ancient inhabitants of Wallachia were the Potulatensii,
the Sensii, the Salrensii, the Kiageisi, and the Piephagi of Strabo.
In Moldavia, there had been a displacement as early as the time of
Herodotus.
The Skoloti of Russia reached the Carpathians, inasmuch as they were
conterminous with the Agathyrsi, and the Agathyrsi were on the Maros,
_i.e._, in Transylvania.
Whether the Skoloti extended thus far westward, when Trajan conquered
Decebalus is uncertain. I think that during the interval between the
time of Herodotus and the Dacian war, the Skoloti had either retired or
become amalgamated; so that the Dacian population lay in one large
uniform mass from the _Vallum Romanum_ in Hungary to the _Solitude of
the Getæ_ in Bessarabia. The reasons for this are drawn from the
language.
1. This is uniform throughout, and uniformity of speech in the case of
exotic languages, is _primâ facie_ evidence of the uniformity in both
the tongue which is introduced and the original tongue of the country.
For identical fruits we must have like stocks as well as like grafts.
The Roman in a Keltic country becomes French; in an Iberic, Spanish.
2. The terminations -_ensii_ and -_dava_ are common to the whole Dacian
area--Predan-_ensii_, Rhatac-_ensii_, Alboc-_ensii_, Burid-_ensii_,
Potulat-_ensii_, Satr-_ensii_, S-_ensii_, Cot-_ensii_,
Cauco-_ensii_--Comi-_dava_, Perobori-_dava_, Rhami-_dava_, Neter-_dava_,
Burri-_dava_, Argi-_dava_, &c.
Of the uniformity of language no country, of which the early history is
equally obscure, shows stronger proofs than ancient Dacia.
The reasons for believing this to have been Sarmatian will be given in
the sequel.
Tolerably pure, for a Danubian population, the Rumanyos of Wallachia are
Romano-Slavonic. In Moldavia there is a trace of Turk (Skolotic) blood.
_Servia._--Our divisions are political; so Servia, as an independent
principality, must be dealt with by itself; and as, from their
complexity, the Austrian and Ottoman empires are reserved for the last,
it will be separated from the areas with which it is most immediately
connected--Southern Hungary and Bosnia.
Bounded by the rivers Drin and Timoc, the present principality coincides
nearly, though not quite, with the Roman Province of Mœsia Superior.
The valley of the Margus is the famous _Plain of the Triballi_
(Τριβαλλἱκον πἑδιον); the mountains, those of the Macedonian, Illyrian,
and Bulgarian frontiers.
There is the special evidence of Strabo that the Triballi and Mœsi
were Thracians, and that the Thracians and Dacians spoke the same
language. On the other hand, we learn from the same writer, that
immediately to the west of the Triballi, the Thracian type ended and the
Illyrian began. Without at present asking what this class may be, it is
important to know that three such large groups are reducible to any
single class at all. Neither is internal evidence wholly wanting for
Upper Mœsia, the only portion of the Lower Danube now under notice.
There is but a short list of geographical names: it contains, however, a
Thermi-_dava_ and a Pic-_ensii_.
We know almost as much of the wars of the Macedonians against the
Triballi, as of those of the Romans against the Mœsi. Philip and
Alexander each imperfectly reduced them. The reign of Augustus is
signalized by the Dalmatian and Pannonian triumphs. Upper Mœsia was
reduced at the same time.
_Montenegro._--In the small Republic of Montenegro, of which the
southern side is bounded by Albania, the population is Slavonic,
differing from that of Bosnia and Hertzegovna only in being independent
of the Porte, and Christian instead of Mahometan. The impracticable
character of the country, and the martial spirit of its occupants, have
preserved this single spot free from Turkish conquest. How far the blood
is pure is doubtful: since the influence of the Roman conquest of
Dalmatia, as well as that of the Greek settlements about Epidaurus is
undetermined, neither is there any clear line of demarcation between the
earliest ancestors of the Skipetar and the early ancestors of Slavonians
in regard to their respective frontiers, north and south. It is
probable, indeed, that the very earliest occupants of the Montenegro
(_Czernogora_, or, _Black Mountain_) may have belonged to the former
population; at present, however, the antipathy between the two nations
is extreme; and in no part of the whole Slavonic area are the Slavonic
characteristics more marked than in Montenegro.