Umbrians

“ A meadow near the Tiber, of grass and daisies, tufted with yellow-hearted jonquils. Larks and sun and wind overhead; in the distance the pale mountains, patched with snow. All round, the pale green embosomings of the soft earth hills. If the Umbrians got their love of circular hill lines at home, they learned in Rome the real existence of the green grass valleys and hills unbroken by cultivation, like those behind Perugino's Crucifixion and Spagna's Muses. ”

“ Ancient authors describe the Umbrians as leading effeminate lives, and as closely resembling their Etruscan enemies in their habits (Theopompus, Fragm. 142; Pseudo-Scymnus, 366‐368) . It is almost certain that each race influenced and modified the other to a large extent. There is conclusive proof of strong Etruscan influences in Umbria. For instance, they undoubtedly borrowed their alphabet and the art of writing from the Etruscans. ”

“ It was probably in consequence of this pressure exerted upon them from the north, that the Umbrians advanced towards the south, keeping in general upon the heights, because they found the plains already occupied by Latin stocks, but beyond doubt frequently making inroads and encroachments on the territory of the kindred race, and intermingling with them the more readily, that the distinction in language and habits could not have been at all so marked then as we find it afterwards. ”

“ It is especially necessary to make clear that the language known as Umbrian is that of a certain limited area, which cannot yet be shown to have extended very far beyond the eastern half of the Tiber valley (from Interamna Nahartium to Urvinum Mataurense) , because the term is often used by archaeologists with a far wider connotation to include all the Italic, pre-Etruscan inhabitants of upper Italy; Professor Ridgeway, for instance, in his Early Age of Greece, frequently speaks of the “Umbrians” as the race to which belonged the Villanova culture of the Early Iron age. ”

“ The process by which the Umbrians were deprived of their predominance in upper and central Italy and restricted to their confines of historic times cannot be traced in any detail. A tradition declares that their easternmost territory in the region of Ancona was wrested from them by the Picentes, a branch of the Sabine stock. It may also be conjectured that they were partly displaced in the valley of the Po by the Gaulish tribes which began to pour across the Alps from about 500 B.C. But their chief enemies were undoubtedly the Etruscans. ”

“ In the course of this struggle the Etruscans are said to have captured 200 Umbrian towns. Nevertheless the Umbrian element of population does not seem to have been eradicated in the conquered districts. Strabo records a tradition that the Umbrians recovered their ground in the plain of the Po at the expense of the Etruscans, and states that the colonies subsequently founded in this region by the Romans contained large Umbrian contingents. ”

“ Greek and Roman writers never wearied of celebrating the excellence of its harbors, the beauty of its landscape, the exuberant richness of its soil, and the enchanting softness of its air. The coast is varied by the isolated cone of Vesu ́vius and a range of volcanic hills, including the now extinct crater of Solfata ́ra. Umbria was a mountainous country east of Etruria. Before the coming of the Gauls, it extended northward to the Ru ́bicon and eastward to the Adriatic; but its coast was wholly conquered by that people, who drove the Umbrians beyond the mountains. ”

“ While the Umbrians succumbed in the unequal struggle, and the western offshoots of the same stock became amalgamated with the Latin or Hellenic population, the Sabellian tribes prospered in the seclusion of their distant mountain land, equally remote from collision with the Etruscans, the Latins, and the Greeks. ”

“ The fact that it is only in towns on the side next Etruria that a coinage is found indicates that it was from the Etruscans they borrowed the art. The Umbrians counted their day from noon to noon. But whether they borrowed this likewise from the Etruscans we do not know (Pliny, ii. 77) . In their measuring of land they employed the vorsus, a measure common to them and the Oscans (Frontinus, De Limit., p. 30) , 3 J of which went to the Roman jugerum. When the Romans undertook the conquest of Italy, the most feeble resistance of all was offered to them by the Umbrians. ”

“ At sea they were assailed by the Syracusans and Carthaginians; the Umbrians retook several of their ancient possessions; they were forced to yield the plains which lie between the Alps and Apennines to the valour of the Gauls; and the Samnites expelled them from the yet more desirable and delicious regions of Campania. ”

“ The eastern and central parts of Italy formed the home of the highlanders, grouped in various tribes. Among them were the Umbrians in the northeast, the Sabines in the upper valley of the Tiber, and the Samnites in the south. Still other Italian peoples occupied the peninsula as far as Magna Graecia. ”

“ Against the Romans the Umbrians never fought any wars of importance, a fact which may be explained partly by the remoteness of their position, but chiefly by the common hostility of the two nations to the Etruscans. ”

“ It seems fairly certain that both in Umbria and in Etruria this civilization is the work of the Umbrians, who at one time occupied the territory on both sides of the Apennines. Regarding the migration of the Umbrians into Italy we know nothing, but it seems probable that their civilization had its rise in central Europe. The later Iron Age civilization both in Etruria and northward of the Apennines has been identified as that of the Etruscans.
Latium. In Latium the Iron Age civilization is a development un [pg 12] der Villanovan influences. ”

“ At length the hostile armies met near Sentinum in Umbria—the Romans mustering in considerable force, and the Samnites, in spite of much pruning, which seemed only to have the effect of increasing their growth, forming a highly respectable remnant. The latter had also a considerable accession in the shape of Gauls, Umbrians, and Etrurians; for tradition, when it desires to give interest to a battle, is always prepared to scrape together from all quarters a sufficient number of soldiers, on both sides, to equalise the chances of victory. ”

“ Umbria, a country of Italy, separated from Etruria by the Tiber, bounded on the north by the Adriatic sea, east by Picenum and the country of the Sabines, and south by the river Nar. Some derive the word Umbria ab imbribus, the frequent showers that were supposed to fall there, or from the shadow (umbra) of the Apennines which hung over it. Umbria had many cities of note. The Umbrians opposed the Romans in the infancy of their empire, but afterwards they became their allies, about the year ♦A.U.C. 434. Catullus, bk. 40, li. 11.—Strabo, bk. 5.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 12.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus. ”

“ Then war parties of Umbrians from the north came pushing their way into the country, and the peaceable farming folk were obliged to retreat still farther up the rivers into the mountain, and clear new land and settle it. This happened all a long time ago. It was not easy to live there, and they were poorer than they used to be, for so much of the land was rock and forest that they had to spend a great deal of their time getting it into a fit condition for either grain or cattle or anything else. But they learned to do most things for themselves, as mountain people do ”

“ The local worship also presents traces of a Sabellian character; and a similar inference is suggested by the primitive relations subsisting in sacred as well as other matters between Caere and Rome. It is probable that the Etruscans wrested those southern districts from the Umbrians at a period considerably subsequent to their occupation of the country on the north of the Ciminian Forest, and that an Umbrian population maintained itself there even after the Tuscan conquest. ”

“ The early inhabitants of Italy may be divided into three great classes—the Italians proper, the Iapygians, and the Etruscans, who are clearly distinguished from each other by their respective languages.
(1.) The Italians proper inhabited the centre of the peninsula. They were divided into two branches, the Latins and the Umbro-Sabellians, including the Umbrians, Sabines, Samnites, and their numerous colonies. The dialects of the Latins and Umbro-Sabellians, though marked by striking differences, still show clearest evidence of a common origin, and both are closely related to the Greek. ”

“ The Samnites found new allies in the Umbrians of northern, and in the Marsi and Paeligni of central, Italy, and numerous volunteers even from the Hernici joined their ranks; but movements which might have decidedly turned the scale against Rome, had the Etruscans still remained under arms, now simply augmented the results of the Roman victory without seriously adding to its difficulties. The Umbrians, who gave signs of marching on Rome, were intercepted by Rullianus with the army of Samnium on the upper Tiber—a step which the enfeebled Samnites were unable to prevent ”

“ It is evident that at some remote period a race migrated from the East, embracing the ancestors of both the Greeks and Italians—that from it the Italians branched off—and that they again were divided into the Latins on the west and the Umbrians and Sabellians on the east. ”

“ The inscriptions with which the tablets are covered are partly based upon the Umbrian and partly on the Latin language. Where the latter is employed as the language of the text Latin letters are used, but otherwise the letters of a peculiar alphabet. These inscriptions are the oldest of all ancient Italian monuments of language, and with their help it has become possible to reproduce a good part of the old Umbrian language. Their contents furnish important disclosures as to the forms of worship and the sacrificial customs of the heathen Umbrians. ”

“ The cattle, sheep, goats and poultry were killed in sacrifice, when they were grown. But the children born that spring were not killed. They were taught that when they were old enough they were to go out and build homes for themselves in another land, trusting in the great and wise god Mars to show them where to go. If this was done, even though the Umbrians attacked the country again and again, and killed off the people or made them slaves, there would still be Sabine men and women living in the old ways, somewhere in the world. ”

“ And in comparison with the other cities of Umbria she contains nothing of the Middle Ages, certainly nothing Gothic, if we except the exquisite illuminated missals and psalters by Bindo Fiorentino and Girolamo da Cremona, which are kept in the sacristy of the cathedral, and which came originally from the monastery of Monte Oliveto. To the antiquary she is of the highest interest, for she marks the site of Clusium, one of the five Etruscan towns which combined against the first of the Tarquins, and of the earlier Camars, which may have been a city of the more ancient Umbrians. ”

“ The Romans: "There were in early times three chief races in Italy—the Italians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks. The Italians, a branch of the Aryan family, embraced many tribes (Latin, Umbrians, Sabines, Samnites, etc.) , that occupied nearly all Central, and a considerable part of Southern Italy. Their life was for the most part that of shepherds and farmers.
"The Etruscans, a wealthy, cultured, and seafaring people of uncertain race and origin, dwelt in Etruria, now called Tuscany after them. Before the rise of the Roman people they were the leading race in the peninsula. ”

“ In northern Italy only the coast of Liguria is occupied by the Mediterranean race. In the valley of the Po the Mediterraneans predominated during the early Neolithic but with the introduction of bronze the Alpines appear and round skulls to this day prevail north of the Apennines. About 1100 B. C. the Nordic Umbrians and Oscans swept over the Alps from the northeast, conquered northern Italy and introduced their Aryan speech, which gradually spread southward. ”

“ The first group of immigrants is said to have crossed the Pennine Alps (Great St Bernard) into the valley of the Po. Finding the district already occupied, they proceeded over the river, drove out the Etruscans and Umbrians, and established themselves as far as the Apennines in the modern Romagna. ”

“ Clusium had been no more spoken of since the time of [Pg 372] Porsena; that its people seek assistance with Rome, is a proof how little this northern town of Etruria shared in the fate of the southern ones; even an alliance with Rome may be conjectured. The danger was, however, so great, that every jealousy must have been hushed by it. The natural road for the Gauls would have been down by the shores of the Adriatic; then through the country of the Umbrians, who were tributary to them, and already completely broken down; and through the Romagna, across the Apennines. ”

“ By what route the progenitors of the Oscans, Sabines, Itali, and Umbrians came from the original cradle of the human race, is not clearly known. They were evidently kindred to the Pelasgi of the Morea, and used the Phœnician alphabet. Their dress and national symbol, the eagle, were Lydian, and their theology, like the more refined system of the Greeks, was derived from the remotest East. The Romans were composite from the first, and in every thing. The septi-montium upon which their primitive city stood, was occupied by different tribes. ”

“ No folk are more secretive or more loyal than the herders and foresters of Bruttium. Not only your former slaves on your uncle's estate there, but all their neighbors will do as much to keep secret your presence among them, and shield you and to make you comfortable and happy as the Umbrians hereabouts have been doing to help and protect Bulla and his band and to shield them from the constabulary and authorities. In Bruttium you can lurk in safety as long as Commodus lives and it will even be safe for us two to exchange letters. ”