The Umbro-Sabellian Stocks--Beginnings of the Samnites
Umbro-Sabellian Migration
The migration of the Umbrian stocks appears to have begun at
a period later than that of the Latins. Like the Latin, it moved
in a southerly direction, but it kept more in the centre of the
peninsula and towards the east coast. It is painful to speak of
it; for our information regarding it comes to us like the sound
of bells from a town that has been sunk in the sea. The Umbrian
people extended according to Herodotus as far as the Alps, and
it is not improbable that in very ancient times they occupied the
whole of Northern Italy, to the point where the settlements of the
Illyrian stocks began on the east, and those of the Ligurians on
the west. As to the latter, there are traditions of their conflicts
with the Umbrians, and we may perhaps draw an inference regarding
their extension in very early times towards the south from isolated
names, such as that of the island of Ilva (Elba) compared with the
Ligurian Ilvates. To this period of Umbrian greatness the evidently
Italian names of the most ancient settlements in the valley of the
Po, Atria (black-town), and Spina (thorn-town), probably owe their
origin, as well as the numerous traces of Umbrians in southern
Etruria (such as the river Umbro, Camars the old name of Clusium,
Castrum Amerinum). Such indications of an Italian population
having preceded the Etruscan especially occur in the most southern
portion of Etruria, the district between the Ciminian Forest (below
Viterbo) and the Tiber. In Falerii, the town of Etruria nearest
to the frontier of Umbria and the Sabine country, according to
the testimony of Strabo a language was spoken different from the
Etruscan, and inscriptions bearing out that statement have recently
been brought to light there, the alphabet and language of which,
while presenting points of contact with the Etruscan, exhibit
a general resemblance to the Latin.(1) The local worship also
presents traces of a Sabellian character; and a similar inference
is suggested by the primitive relations subsisting in sacred as
well as other matters between Caere and Rome. It is probable that
the Etruscans wrested those southern districts from the Umbrians
at a period considerably subsequent to their occupation of the
country on the north of the Ciminian Forest, and that an Umbrian
population maintained itself there even after the Tuscan conquest.
In this fact we may presumably find the ultimate explanation of
the surprising rapidity with which the southern portion of Etruria
became Latinized, as compared with the tenacious retention of the
Etruscan language and manners in northern Etruria, after the Roman
conquest. That the Umbrians were after obstinate struggles driven
back from the north and west into the narrow mountainous country
between the two arms of the Apennines which they subsequently
held, is clearly indicated by the very fact of their geographical
position, just as the position of the inhabitants of the Grisons
and that of the Basques at the present day indicates the similar
fate that has befallen them. Tradition also has to report that the
Tuscans wrested from the Umbrians three hundred towns; and, what
is of more importance as evidence, in the national prayers of the
Umbrian Iguvini, which we still possess, along with other stocks
the Tuscans especially are cursed as public foes.
In consequence, as may be presumed, of this pressure exerted upon
them from the north, the Umbrians advanced towards the south,
keeping in general upon the heights, because they found the plains
already occupied by Latin stocks, but beyond doubt frequently
making inroads and encroachments on the territory of the kindred
race, and intermingling with them the more readily, that the
distinction in language and habits could not have been at all so
marked then as we find it afterwards. To the class of such inroads
belongs the tradition of the irruption of the Reatini and Sabines
into Latium and their conflicts with the Romans; similar phenomena
were probably repeated all along the west coast. Upon the whole
the Sabines maintained their footing in the mountains, as in the
district bordering on Latium which has since been called by their
name, and so too in the Volscian land, presumably because the Latin
population did not extend thither or was there less dense; while
on the other hand the well-peopled plains were better able to offer
resistance to the invaders, although they were not in all cases
able or desirous to prevent isolated bands from gaining a footing,
such as the Tities and afterwards the Claudii in Rome.(2) In this
way the stocks here became variously mingled, a state of things
which serves to explain the numerous relations that subsisted
between the Volscians and Latins, and how it happened that their
district, as well as Sabina, afterwards became so early and speedily
Latinized.
Samnites
The chief branch, however, of the Umbrian stock threw itself eastward
from Sabina into the mountains of the Abruzzi, and the adjacent
hill-country to the south of them. Here, as on the west coast,
they occupied the mountainous districts, whose thinly scattered
population gave way before the immigrants or submitted to their
yoke; while in the plain along the Apulian coast the ancient native
population, the Iapygians, upon the whole maintained their ground,
although involved in constant feuds, especially on the northern
frontier about Luceria and Arpi. When these migrations took place,
cannot of course be determined; but it was presumably about the
time when kings ruled in Rome. Tradition reports that the Sabines,
pressed by the Umbrians, vowed a -ver sacrum-, that is, swore
that they would give up and send beyond their bounds the sons and
daughters born in the year of war, so soon as these should reach
maturity, that the gods might at their pleasure destroy them
or bestow upon them new abodes in other lands. One band was led
by the ox of Mars; these were the Safini or Samnites, who in the
first instance established themselves on the mountains adjoining
the river Sagrus, and at a later period proceeded to occupy the
beautiful plain on the east of the Matese chain, near the sources
of the Tifernus. Both in their old and in their new territory
they named their place of public assembly--which in the one case
was situated near Agnone, in the other near Bojano--from the ox
which led them Bovianum. A second band was led by the woodpecker
of Mars; these were the Picentes, "the woodpecker-people," who
took possession of what is now the March of Ancona. A third band
was led by the wolf (-hirpus-) into the region of Beneventum;
these were the Hirpini. In a similar manner the other small tribes
branched off from the common stock--the Praetuttii near Teramo; the
Vestini on the Gran Sasso; the Marrucini near Chieti; the Frentani
on the frontier of Apulia; the Paeligni on the Majella mountains;
and lastly the Marsi on the Fucine lake, coming in contact with
the Volscians and Latins. All of these tribes retained, as these
legends clearly show, a vivid sense of their relationship and of
their having come forth from the Sabine land. While the Umbrians
succumbed in the unequal struggle and the western offshoots of the
same stock became amalgamated with the Latin or Hellenic population,
the Sabellian tribes prospered in the seclusion of their distant
mountain land, equally remote from collision with the Etruscans,
the Latins, and the Greeks. There was little or no development
of an urban life amongst them; their geographical position almost
wholly precluded them from engaging in commercial intercourse, and
the mountain-tops and strongholds sufficed for the necessities of
defence, while the husbandmen continued to dwell in open hamlets
or wherever each found the well-spring and the forest or pasture
that he desired. In such circumstances their constitution remained
stationary; like the similarly situated Arcadians in Greece, their
communities never became incorporated into a single state; at the
utmost they only formed confederacies more or less loosely connected.
In the Abruzzi especially, the strict seclusion of the mountain
valleys seems to have debarred the several cantons from intercourse
either with each other or with the outer world. They maintained but
little connection with each other and continued to live in complete
isolation from the rest of Italy; and in consequence, notwithstanding
the bravery of their inhabitants, they exercised less influence
than any other portion of the Italian nation on the development of
the history of the peninsula.
Their Political Development
On the other hand the Samnite people decidedly exhibited the highest
political development among the eastern Italian stock, as the Latin
nation did among the western. From an early period, perhaps from
its first immigration, a comparatively strong political bond held
together the Samnite nation, and gave to it the strength which
subsequently enabled it to contend with Rome on equal terms for the
first place in Italy. We are as ignorant of the time and manner of
the formation of the bond, as we are of its federal constitution;
but it is clear that in Samnium no single community was preponderant,
and still less was there any town to serve as a central rallying
point and bond of union for the Samnite stock, such as Rome was
for the Latins. The strength of the land lay in its -communes-
of husbandmen, and authority was vested in the assembly formed of
their representatives; it was this assembly which in case of need
nominated a federal commander-in-chief. In consequence of its
constitution the policy of this confederacy was not aggressive like
the Roman, but was limited to the defence of its own bounds; only
where the state forms a unity is power so concentrated and passion
so strong, that the extension of territory can be systematically
pursued. Accordingly the whole history of the two nations is
prefigured in their diametrically opposite systems of colonization.
Whatever the Romans gained, was a gain to the state: the conquests
of the Samnites were achieved by bands of volunteers who went
forth in search of plunder and, whether they prospered or were
unfortunate, were left to their own resources by their native home.
The conquests, however, which the Samnites made on the coasts of
the Tyrrhenian and Ionic seas, belong to a later age; during the
regal period in Rome they seem to have been only gaining possession
of the settlements in which we afterwards find them. As a single
incident in the series of movements among the neighbouring peoples
caused by this Samnite settlement may be mentioned the surprise of
Cumae by Tyrrhenians from the Upper Sea, Umbrians, and Daunians in
the year 230. If we may give credit to the accounts of the matter
which present certainly a considerable colouring of romance, it
would appear that in this instance, as was often the case in such
expeditions, the intruders and those whom they supplanted combined
to form one army, the Etruscans joining with their Umbrian enemies,
and these again joined by the Iapygians whom the Umbrian settlers
had driven towards the south. Nevertheless the undertaking proved
a failure: on this occasion at least the Hellenic superiority in
the art of war, and the bravery of the tyrant Aristodemus, succeeded
in repelling the barbarian assault on the beautiful seaport.
Notes for Book I Chapter VIII
1. In the alphabet the -"id:r" especially deserves notice, being
of the Latin (-"id:R") and not of the Etruscan form (-"id:D"),
and also the -"id:z" (--"id:XI"); it can only be derived from
the primitive Latin, and must very faithfully represent it. The
language likewise has close affinity with the oldest Latin; -Marci
Acarcelini he cupa-, that is, -Marcius Acarcelinius heic cubat-:
-Menerva A. Cotena La. f...zenatuo sentem..dedet cuando..cuncaptum-,
that is, -Minervae A(ulus?) Cotena La(rtis) f(ilius) de senatus
sententia dedit quando (perhaps=olim) conceptum-. At the same
time with these and similar inscriptions there have been found some
others in a different character and language, undoubtedly Etruscan.
2. I. IV. Tities, Luceres