The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

P'S AND Q'S 149
the Falisci, who dwelt within the borders of Etruria, and to some extent by the
Sabini."
The hnguistic position of the Sabines seems uncertain. In the passage quoted
Conway enumerates them among the tribes who spoke Q dialects, but later on, when
mentioning some of those who had P speech, he adds in a footnote that perhaps Sabine
should be included among these. The position of the Sabine tongue is then uncertain.
If this were so, the same imcertainty may apply to the Fahscans, for little if anything
is known directly of their dialect, but Conway states that it is " certain that they were
akin to the Sabines across the Tiber, and that their city was subdued and governed
by the Etruscans.'"^
This leaves us with four tribes, who undoubtedly spoke Q languages, the Latini,
Marsi, ^qui, and Hernici. The area occupied by them is only roughly indicated by
Conway, but I gather that he agrees with the boundaries delineated by Kiepert.'* The
map given in Fig. 26 gives these bounds, and it will be seen that in many respects the
region they occupy agrees with the area in which all the Italian leaf-shaped swords
have been found. There are, however, certain marked differences.
Out of nine swords of Type D, four are found within the area of Q speech, and
one at Sulmona, only just outside and within the area of Sabine speech. One is a stray,
found somewhere in Apuha, and three, together with one of Type C, have been found not
far from Lake Trasimene. The soHtary sword of Type B, found at Ascoli, seems only
to indicate that the line of approach was from the east.
Thus it seems that there is a fair equation between the swords and Q speech, but
the latter must have been driven from the Trasimene region, and pushed westward in
the Sabine area. Of the former presence and subsequent disappearances of the Q
speech from the Trasimene region we have no evidence, but we have seen that the
Etruscans arrived later than the leaf-shaped sword people and with a superior culture.
We have also found reason for suspecting that the Villa-nova folk, who arrived still later,
had made themselves a military aristocracy over the Etruscans, and the conquest or
expulsion may have been due to them. We have seen that the Fahsci, a tribe with
Sabine affinities, were absorbed by the Etruscans. There is nothing inherently
" Ganway (1897) i. 287. '* Kiepert (1882) Tab. viii.
'3 Conway (1897) i. 370.