THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

WHO WERE THE MAKERS ? 233
the Aborigines, who being hard pressed by the Siculi accepted
the alliance. The combined force straightway captured the
Umbrian town of Cortona, which they henceforward used as a
base for their operations against the Umbrians. The Pelasgians
aided the Aborigines against the Siculi, from whom they took
many towns, which the Pelasgians and Aborigines jointly
occupied ; of this number were Agylla, Pisa, Saturnia, Alsion,
and many others, of which they were afterwards deprived by
the Etruscans. The Siculi and Umbri were settled in cities
and thus cannot be regarded as mere barbarians. We know
from Herodotus' that the land of the Umbrians at the dawn
of history included all north-east Italy as far as the Alps.
On the other hand we know that the Siculi were continually
being driven down south before kindred tribes advancing from
the north, and that they passed into Sicily,
where they settled
and to which they gave their own name after conquering or
driving into the western parts of the island the Sicani, an
Iberic tribe, who according to Thucydides were the earliest
occupants of that island-.
We may therefore infer with some probability that the
Umbrians were the people who were in the act of driving
south the Siculi, when the Thessalian Pelasgi came on the
scene. The latter had had to seek for new homes owing to the
advance of the Acheans into Epirus, and Thessaly, part of
which is still known as ' Pela.sgian Argus' in the Iliads
But the Umbri and Siculi were not the oldest occupants of
Italy, foi- we read that the invading Pelasgians were joined by
the Aborigines who dwelt in the mountains, into which thev
had doubtless been driven by the Siculi and Umbrians. 'J'hese
Aborigines stood in the same rehition to the Siculi and l^ml)ri
as did the Sicani to the Siculi and (Ji-eeks in Sicily
at a
later date. Their ])osition
in the mountains indicates tiiat
they were the ancient ))ossessors of the land, driven from the
ri(;h soil of the plains into the barren fastnesses of the hill
country, just as the Sicani held their independence
in the
western )>ai'ts of Sicily, and as at the present day the liasipies
>
IV.
V.K
-
VI. 2. II. (isi.
234^ WHO WERE THE MAKERS ?
maintain themselves in the mountainous regions of north-west
Spain. The small dark dolichocephalic race, who probably are
the descendants of the people who dwelt in our own islands in
the neolithic and bronze ages, have survived in Wales, and still
hold out in the mountainous parts of Scotland and Ireland, and
especially in the western districts.
Such races are ever ready to welcome any invader who may
aid them against their hereditary enemies. Thus the Sicani
assisted the Greeks against the Siculi, the Siculi in turn
supported the Athenians against the Syracusans, the Tlascalans
of Mexico helped Cortes and his Spaniards to conquer the
Aztecs, and the natives of the west of Ireland were only too
ready to join the French against the English when the former
landed at Killala in 1798. The story of the Aborigines can
thus be easily paralleled from the whole range of history,
and there is no reason to doubt its substantial truth.
But it is worth while to see whether the traditional statements
accord with the facts revealed by modern investigations.
The researches of the Italian antiquaries during the last
forty years have collected a vast body of information respecting
the earliest stages of human culture in northern and central
Italy,
and we are now conversant with its essential characteristics.
The earliest stage
is that revealed in the Lake-dwellings of
the plains of the Po, usually termed the Terramare period.
Terrainara is the term applied to a substance looking like a
mi.xture of clay, sand and ashes arranged in differently coloured
strata, yellowish-brown, green, or black, found in large Hattish
mounds. These artificial deposits occur over the provinces of
Parma, Reggio, and Modena. Shortly
after the middle of the
last ceiitvn-y agi-icnlturists observed the great fertilizing properties
of this earthy substance, and ever since it has been
largely used as manure. From the cnitsct many
relics had
been observed in these heaps, such as potsherds, inn)lements
of stone, hoi'n and bone, but it was oidy when Prof Strobel
of Parma in LSIil announced that the remains of a ])iledwelling
analogous to those found in lakes and marshes had
been f )und below the true Tei-ramara de})osits at Castione dei