we can say is that several traces, apparently reliable, point to the conclusion that the Etruscans may be on the whole included among the Indo-Germans. Thus mi in the beginning of many of the older inscriptions is certainly ἐμί, εἰμί, and the genitive form of consonantal stems veneruʃ rafuvuʃ, is exactly reproduced in old Latin, corresponding to the old Sanscrit termination as. In like manner the name of the Etruscan Zeus, Tina or Tinia, is probably connected with the Sanscrit dina, meaning day, as Ζάν is connected with the synonymous diwan. But, even granting those points of connection, the Etruscan people appears withal scarcely less isolated. "The Etruscans," Dionysius said long ago, "are like no other nation in language and manners," and we have nothing to add to his statement.
Home of the Etruscans. It is equally difficult to determine from what quarter the Etruscans migrated into Italy; nor is much lost through our inability to answer the question, for this migration belonged at any rate to the infancy of the people, and their historical development began and ended in Italy. No question, however, has been handled with greater zeal than this, in accordance with the principle which induces antiquaries especially to inquire into what is neither capable of being known nor worth the knowing—to inquire "who was Hecuba's mother," as the Emperor Tiberius is said to have done. As the oldest and most important Etruscan towns lay far inland (indeed we find not a single Etruscan town of any note immediately on the coast except Populonia, which we know for certain was not one of the old twelve cities), and, further, as the movement of the Etruscans in historical times was from north to south, it seems probable that they migrated into the peninsula by land. Indeed the low stage of civilization in which we find them would ill accord with the hypothesis of their having migrated by sea. Nations in the earliest times crossed a strait as they would a stream; but to land on the west coast of Italy was a very different matter. We must therefore seek for the earlier home of the Etruscans to the west or north of Italy. It is not wholly improbable that the Etruscans may have come into Italy over the Rhætian[errata 1] Alps; for the oldest traceable settlers in the Grisons and Tyrol, the Rhæti[errata 2], spoke Etruscan down to historical times, and their name sounds similar to that of the Has. They may indeed have been remains of the Etruscan settlements on the Po; but it is at least quite as likely thatPage:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/148
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THE ETRUSCANS.
[Book I.
