A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

PRELIMINARY DISSEHTATION. XI
riaus,* the character and manners of the Etruscan people seem to sup-
port the opinion of tlie ancient writers, that tliey were originally a mari-
time colony from tlio shores of the Tyrrlienian sea. Their high degree of
social improvement, their great advancement in the arts, their commer-
cial industry, and, in short, every circumstance in their history distin-
guish them from the native inhabitants of Europe, and particularly from
those who, in these early ages, inl)abited mountainous countries. Besides
practising the art of writing, which was unknown in their time to the
northern and western nations of Europe, their religious doctrines and
customs were evidently so connected with the supersitions of the east,
as almost to demonstrate their oriental origin.f
When the Rasenna entered Urabria, part of that country was already
in possession of some Pelasgian tribes from Thessaly and Epirus, who
are supposed to have imported into Etruria the first elements of civili-
zation. These tribes having, as is reported, crossed the Adriatic at
a period long before the Trojan war, seized part of Umbria, where they
settled and built towns, all which, with the exception of Cortona, were
afterwards taken by the Etruscans.f The latter established themselves
at first in the plains on both banks of the Po, even to its embouchure,
whence they gradually extended themselves over the greater part of
the low country intervening between the Alps and the Apennines.
They afterwards pushed their conquests to the mouth of the Tiber, and
entered into an alliance with the Latins, but were baffled in their etforta
to obtain possession of that corner on the Adriatic, which was occupied
by the Veneti. The last settlement of the Etruscans was in Campania,
in the plains round Capua and Nola, whence they expelled the former
inhabitants, the Osci, who were of the Ausonian or Opic race. The
first inhabitants of the south of Italj' are supposed to have been the
CEnotrii and the_ Opici or Ausones ; at least when the Greek colonies
arrived on the coast of Magna Graecia, they found these two races al-
ready in possession of southern Italy. The CEnotrii, who were of Arca-
dian origin, possessed the country between the Scyllacean and Laraetine
gulfs. From the Arcadian Italus§ they are said by Aristotle and Thu-
cydides to have given the name of Italy to that district. Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, on the authority of Antiochus of Syracuse, says, that the
CEnotrii were afterwards divided into three branches, and respectively
called Siceli, Morgetes, and Italietes or Italians, after the names of dit-
ferent leaders.]] From the CEnotrii were descended the Latins, the
Peucetii, Chaones, and lapygians of the eastern coast of Italy.
• Lir. lib. v. rap. 35. Plin;,-, Hist. Nat. lib. iii. cap. 20. Justin, lib. xx. cap. 5.
t In common with several nations of Asia, the Etruscans held the dogmas of pycleR
and apocatastases, or fated renovations of tiie world. Vide Suidas voce Xannacos and Plu-
tarch, in vita C. Marii. Pricliard's Analysis of Ef/yptian Mythohyy, book ii. chap. 2.
and Supplement.
\ Pliny, ubi mpra. Dionys. Halicarn. lib
\ .\ristot. Pulilic. lib. iv. cap. 10. Thucyd. lib. vi. cap. 2.
U Uionjs. chap, i of book i. of Spellmaii's Tian^laiion.