The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

THE WANDERINGS OF THE WIROS 163
who appear to have been of mixed Iranian and Mongol origin ;
then they overran Asia
Minor as far as Sardis/^ But many of these Kimri left the steppe almost immediately
after they had developed their iron swords and settled in Thrace ;
later they moved up
the Danube valley as far, at least, as its junction with the Save. It was not long
before the bulk of them moved southwards, probably down the Vardar valley, and about
1000 B.C. began the Dorian invasion of Greece. These introduced into that country
iron swords and a P tongue, which, owing to their having mingled with Iranian
neighbours in the steppe, retained marked affinities with that group of languages,
especially in connection with weapons and other warhke materials.
The remainder divided, the larger group pushing up the Danube vaUey towards
Ulm and Sigmaringen where they adopted the Celtic speech of their subjects, but
labiaUsing the Qs. The smaller group made themselves masters of North Serbia, Bosnia,
and Croatia, and like their fellows adopted the language of the country, which was allied
to Latin, but with the usual changes.
It was the latter group which was the first to move, either across the Adriatic or
to the north-west and then over the Predil pass into the FriuU. Though they
introduced their culture among the Veneti they did not supplant their language, but
they pushed on across the Po vaUey, destrojdng the Terramara settlements and
dispersing their inhabitants to Etruria, Latium and the region around Tarentum. They
settled in the plain to the north of the Apennines, with their headquarters at Felsina
or Bononia, and gradually conquered aU the peninsula except Etruria, the Greek colonies
and the lands occupied by the Latin tribes. It is doubtful whether these Kimri who
invaded Italy were ever known to themselves by one name, but to others they were
summed up as Ombri or Umbri. Later, as we have seen, one of their tribes, the Sabines,
issuing by night from Amiternum, displaced some of the Latin tribes from the
region around Reatse, whence the dispossessed Latins departed towards the mouth
of the Tiber. Here some of them coalesced with Terramara refugees, who had
erected a dry terramara on a hiH-top beside the river, and to this hiU they gave the
name of one of their abandoned cities, Palatium, so that it became mons palatinus.
Later, when it had been freshly laid out and surrounded by a wall, it was called
Rome.
»3 Herodotus i. 6, 15, 16.