Robert Seymour Conway

“ The assumption that Latin was properly the language of the Latian plain and of the Plebs at Rome, which the conquering patrician nobles learnt from their subjects, and substituted for their own kindred but different Safine idiom, renders easier to understand the borrowing of a number of words into Latin from some dialect (presumably Sabine) where the velars had been labialized; for example, the very common word bos, which in pure Latin should have been *vos. ”

“ MARRUCINI, an ancient tribe which occupied a small strip of territory round about Teate (mod. Chieti) , on the east coast of Italy. It is first mentioned in history as a member of a confederacy with which the Romans came into conflict in the second Samnite War, 325 B.C., and it entered the Roman Alliance as a separate unit at the end of that war (see further Paeligni) . ”

“ The earliest begin, according to the generally accepted dating, from the nth century B.C. The remains at Este begin a very little later, but no inscriptions appear upon them until we reach the pottery of the 6th century B.C. It remains therefore to be determined whether this Venetic language was the proper speech of the people who, as it is generally supposed, brought with them the early Iron culture into Italy from north of the Alps in the nth century B.C., or whether it was the language of the people of the soil whom they conquered. ”

“ VOLSCI, an ancient Italian people, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. They then inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the S. of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the S., the Hernici on the E., and stretching roughly from Norba and Cora in the N. to Antium in the S. They were among the most dangerous enemies of Rome, and frequently allied with the Aequi, whereas the Hernici from 486 B.C. onwards were the allies of Rome. ”

“ Syntax.—It may be said generally that there are very few if any peculiarities in the syntax of the Oscan and Umbrian inscriptions as compared with Latin usage, though a large number of familiar Latin idioms appear, such as the abl. absolute; the abl. of circumstance, the genitive in judicial phrases, the use of the neut. adj. as an abstract substantive, e.g. Oscan ualaemom touticom, “optimum publicum,” i.e. “optima rei publicae ratio.” In verbal forms the same use of the gerundive combined with the noun to represent the total verbal action, e.g. Umb. ocrer pehaner paca, “arcis piandae causa” ”

“ PRAETUTTII (also called Πραιτεττιοί) , a tribe of ancient Italy inhabiting the south of Picenum. Their territory lay between the rivers Vomanum and Tessinnus (Pliny iii. § 110) , and therefore included Castrum Novum, Interamnia and the Truentus, as well as probably the original of Hadria. ”

“ The Samnites are thus shown to be intimately related to the patrician class at Rome (see Rome: history, ad init.) , so that it was against their own stock that the Romans had to fight their hardest struggle for the lordship of Italy, a struggle which might never have arisen but for the geographical accident by which the Etruscan and Greek settlements of Campania divided into two halves the Safine settlements in central Italy. ”

“ The language of the inscription of Velitrae offers at first sight a difficulty from this point of view, in the conversion which it shows of q to p; but it is to be observed that the Ethnicon of Velitrae is Veliternus, and that the people are called on the inscription itself Velestrom (genitive plural) ; so that there is nothing to prevent our assuming that we have here a settlement of Sabines among the Volscian hills, with their language to some extent (e.g. in the matter of the diphthongs and palatals) corrupted by that of the people round about them ”

“ None of the groups of sounds occurring in the rest of the inscription, nor any of the endings of words so far as they may be guessed, present any reason for doubting this hypothesis; and the glosses already mentioned can one and all be easily connected with Greek or Latin words (e.g. μοῖτον, mutuum) ; in fact it would be difficult to rebut the contention that they should all be regarded as mere borrowings. (R. S. C.)
The towns of the Siculi, like those of the Sicani, formed no political union, but were under independent rulers. ”

“ In seeking for an explanation we may perhaps trust, at least in part, the evidence of the Ethnicon itself. The name Volsci belongs to what may be called the -CO- group of tribal names in the centre, and mainly on the west coast, of Italy, all of whom were subdued by the Romani before the end of the 4th century B.C.; and many of whom were conquered by the Samnites about a century or more earlier. They are, from south to north, Osci, Aurunci, Hernici, Marruci, Falisci ”

“ The full Venetic alphabet at its best period is preserved for us on several curious and interesting dedicatory objects found at Este, which were offered to the goddess of the place called Rehtia, a name obviously equivalent to Latin Rectia, some of whose prerogatives, to judge from the long nails which aire offered to heir, frequently, accompanied by small Wedges, would seem to have been -those of the goddess whom Horace calls Necessitas (Odes, i. 35, 17) . ”

“ The Latin colonies of Alba Fucens (304 B.C.) and Carsioli (298 B.C.) must have spread the use of Latin (or what passed as such) all over the district; through it by the chief (and for some time the only) route (Via Valeria) to Luceria and the south.
Of the language spoken by the Aequi before the Roman conquest we have no record; but since the Marsi (q.v.) , who lived farther east, spoke in the 3rd century B.C. a dialect closely akin to Latin, and since the Hernici (q.v.) ”

“ Precisely analogous changes happened with Italic ō and ŭ; the resulting vowel being denoted in Oscan alphabet both by u and by uͦ (Vͦ) , in Umbrian alphabet by u, in Latin alphabet by o.
It is well to add here one or two other characteristics in which Oscan alone is more primitive, not merely than Latin, but even than Umbrian.
(a) Oscan retains s between vowels, whereas in both Latin and Umbrian it became r. In Oscan it seems to have become voiced, as it is represented by z in Latin alphabet, e.g. gen. pl. fem. egmazum, “rerum”; ezum, in Oscan alphabet esom, pres. infin. “esse.” ”

“ The progress of study has, however, grouped them under more specific names, such as the “ North Oscan” group (see Paeligni) and the “ Latinian ” group (see Latin Language) , and the only content now left for the term Sabellic consists of a group of 8 or 9 inscriptions to which it certainly cannot be applied with truth. They are probably, if not certainly, the most ancient inscriptions in existence on Italian soil. ”

“ Now the historical fortune of these tribes is reflected in several of their names (see Sabini) . The Samnite and Roman conquerors tended to impose the form of their own Ethnicon, namely the suffix -NO-, upon the tribes they conquered; hence the Marruci became the Marrucini, the *Arici became Aricini, and it seems at least probable that the forms Sidicini, Carecini, and others of this shape are the results of this same process. The conclusion suggested is that these -CO- tribes occupied the centre and west coast of Italy at the time of the Etruscan invasion (see Etruria: Language) ”

“ The name of the Hernici, like that of the Volsci, is missing from the list of Italian peoples whom Polybius (ii. 24) describes as able to furnish troops in 225 B.C.; by that date, therefore, their territory cannot have been distinguished from Latium generally, and it seems probable (Beloch, Ital. Bund, p. 123) that they had then received the full Roman citizenship. The oldest Latin inscriptions of the district (from Ferentinum, C.I.L. x. 5837–5840) are earlier than the Social War, and present no local characteristic. ”

“ But though we find the symbols in positions where they correspond to the mediae in kindred languages, it is uncertain what the precise variety of sound which they denoted was; thus, for example, Venetic -e-xo, is certainly equivalent, to the Latin ego, but we cannot be certain that the sound of the two words was precisely the same. The symbol for 6 is not used to denote d (since that is represented by 2) . In the inscriptions of Padua and Verona the sign is O and seems there to denote some variety of sound closely akin to t ”

“ Not even the transcription of their alphabet has reached the stage of certainty, for even in this small number of inscriptions the alphabet seems to vary. The chief doubt is about the value of ⩛ and ⟇ (or ⟑ and ⩚) which appear beside the symbol Ά on the same inscriptions; and of the dots in the middle of the line which are certainly not interpuncts. They may conceivably have some connexion with the dots in Venetic inscriptions, which R. S. Conway has endeavoured to explain (see Veneti) . ”

“ The abundance of the ethnica ending in the suffix -no- in all the Samnite districts classes them unmistakably with the great Safine stock, so that linguistic evidence confirms tradition (see further Sabini) . ”

“ The Roman policy of separation cut them off from these allies by the foundation of Beneventum in 268 B.C., and henceforward they are a separate unit; they joined Hannibal in 216 B.C., and retained their independence until, after joining in the Social war, which in their part of Italy can hardly be said to have ceased till the final defeat of the Samnites by Sulla in 83 B.C., they received the Roman franchise. ”

“ The Osci proper were not Samnites, but the Italic, Pre-Tuscan and Pre-Greek inhabitants of Campania. This is the sense in which Strabo regularly uses the name Ὄσκοι (cf. v. 247) , so that it is quite possible that we should connect them with the other tribes whose Ethnica were formed with the -co- suffix and with the plebs of Rome (see Volsci and Rome) . ”

“ There remain, therefore, the three suffixes -co-, -no-, and -ti-, and it will be seen from the table that the relative frequency of these suffixes in different dialect-areas varies very greatly. The suffix -no-, for example, has almost driven out any other in the district of the Hirpini, and it is greatly preponderant among the Campani, in the district of the Lucani, and among the Latini and Sabini themselves. ”

“ Each young man chose a bride, for whom he had to pay a sum of money in proportion to her beauty. The sums thus obtained were used by the public officials to dower the less beautiful and thus afford them the chance of obtaining a husband. ”

“ Not less clear is the well attested tradition (e.g. Paul ex Fest. 327 M.) that the Sabines were the parent stock of the Samnites, and this is directly confirmed by the name which the Samnites apparently used for themselves, which, with a Latinized ending, would be Safini (see Samnites and the other articles there cited, dealing with the minor Samnite tribes) . ”

“ Under the Empire Venetia and Istria were included in the tenth region of Italy, with capital Aquileia. Down to the time of the Antonines the country enjoyed great prosperity, which was interrupted by the invasion of the Qtiadi and Marcomanni and a destructive plague. ”

“ The alphabet of the inscriptions, in all its varieties, is probably (in spite of Pauli, Die Veneter, p. 226, whose judgment seems somewhat arbitrary) either derived from or at least influenced by some form of the Etruscan alphabet, since it not merely coincides with that alphabet in several characteristic signs, such as the use of the compound symbol vh (3 ^) with the value of/, but lacks the symbols for the mediae B D G. These, or the sounds which had descended from them in Venetic, were represented by using symbols which in the Western Greek alphabets denoted kindred sounds; ) fc. ”

“ The stone from Castrignano gives us certain forms which seem to be recognizable as Indo-European, namely paterefo, materefo, though it is far from certain that the symbol ⨝, which is here represented by f, really has that value. ”

“ Hybla (or Hyblaea) , after whom three towns were named, whose sanctuary was at Hybla Gereatis. The connexion of Demeter and Kore with Henna (the rape of Proserpine) and of Arethusa with Syracuse is due to Greek influence. ”

“ Oscan opsā-, Umbrian osā-, from an Italic stem *opesā-, “to work, build,” cf. Lat. opera, “work,” and operāri (although this verb appears in Latin to have been invented only at a late period) ; Osc. actud, Umb. ”

“ If this interpretation be correct—and the use of *iroiijGreek artists commends it strongly— the form illustrates in rather a striking way the character of the language as intermediate between Greek and Latin. [1]
In the archaeological aspect the Venetic remains are particularly interesting as representing very fully the culture of what is known as the early Iron Age, the monuments of which were discovered in the excavations at Villanova, and are now admirably exhibited in the Museum at Bologna. ”

“ Umb. ferest, “feret”; fut. perf. Osc. fefacust, “fecerit”; Osc. and Umb. fust, “fuerit”; Umb. fakust, “fecerit,” fakurent, “fecerint”; furent, “fuerint.” (c) Several new methods of forming the perfect from vowel stems, e.g. the Oscan and Umbrian -f- perfects. Osc. 1st sing. perf. manafum, “mandaui”; 3rd sing. aamanaffed, “mandauit, imperauit”; 3rd pl. Osc. fufens, “fuerunt” (cf. Umb. perf. subj. passive impersonal pihafei, “piatum sit”) . One other formation occurs frequently in Oscan (from ā- verbs) , whose origin is obscure, in this the perfect characteristic is -tt-, e.g. ”

“ Unfortunately the inscriptions of Este; although numerous, belong to only_ two classes, dedications and epitaphs; hence the forms with which they supply us, though "attested by welcome repetition, are somewhat limited in number. The typical beginning for a dedication is mexo . ”