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Who this captain or king may have been, it is very uncertain. For Virgil speaks no more of him, and the opinions of others are many and repugnant. But like enough it is, that the name which hath continued so long upon the whole country, and worn out all other denominations, was not at the first accepted without good cause. Therefore, to find out the original of this name, and the first planters of this noble country, Reineccius hath made a very painful search, and not improbable conjecture. And, first of all, he grounds upon that of Halicarnassæus, who speaks of a colony which the Eleans did lead into Italy, before the name of Italy was given to it. Secondly, upon that of Justin, who saith, that Brundusium was a colony of the Etolians. Thirdly, upon that of Strabo, who affirms the same of Temesa, or Tempsa, a city of the Brutii, in Italy. Lastly, upon the authority of Plinys, who shews that the Italians did inhabit only one region of the land, whence afterwards the name was derived over all. Concerning that which is said of the Eleans and Etolians, who (as he shews) had one original; from them he brings the name of Italy: for the word Italia differs in nothing from Aitolia, save that the first letter is cast away, which in the Greek words is common, and the letter o is changed into a ; which change is found in the name of Ethalia, an island near Italy, peopled by the Ætolians and the like changes are very familiar in the Æolic dialect; of which dialect, (being almost proper to the Etolians), the accent and pronunciation, together with many words little altered, were retained by the Latins, as Dionysius Halicarnassæus, Quintilian, and Priscian, the grammarian, teach.

Hereunto appertains that of Julian the apostate, who called the Greeks cousins of the Latins. Also the common original of the Greeks and Latins from Javan; and the fable of Janus, whose image had two faces, looking east and west, as Greece and 2 Halicar. 1. 1. Justin. 1. 12.

4 Strabo, 1. 6.

5 Plin. 1. 3. c. 5.

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Italy, and was stamped on coins, with a ship on the other side; all which is, by interpretation, referred to Javan, father of the Greeks and Latins; who, sailing over the Ionian sea that lies between Etolia and the western parts of Greece and Italy, planted colonies in both. Now, whereas Reineccius thinks, that the names of Atlas and Italus belonged both to one man, and thereto applies that of Berosus, who called Cethim, Italus; though it may seem strengthened by the marriage of Dardanus, whilst he abode in Italy with Electra, the daughter of Atlas, yet it is by arguments, in my valuation greater and stronger, easily disproved. For they who make mention of Atlas, place him before the time of Moses; and if Atlas were Cethim, or Kittim, then was he the son of Javan, and nephew of Japheth, the eldest son of Noah; which antiquity far exceeds the name of Italy, that began after the departure of Hercules out of the country, not long before the war of Troy. Likewise Virgil, who speaks of Atlas, and of Dardanus's marriage with Electra, hath nothing of his meeting with her in Italy; but calleth Electra and her sister Maia (poetically) daughters of the mountain Atlas in Africa, naming Italus among the kings of the Aborigines; which he would not have done, had Atlas and Italus been one person. As for the authority of Berosus in this case, we need the less to regard it, for that Reineccius himself, whose conjectures are more to be valued than the dreams wherewith Annius hath filled Berosus, holds it but a figment.

That the name of Italy began long after Atlas, it appears by the verses of Virgil last rehearsed, wherein he would not have said, nunc fama mino

res Italiam dixisse, Ducis de nomine, gentem,' had that name been heard of ere Dardanus left the country. But seeing that, when Hercules, who died a few years before the war of Troy, had left in Italy a colony of the Eleans, (who, in a manner, were one and the same with the Etolians, as Strabo, Herodo

tus, and Pausanias teach,) then the name of Italy began; and seeing Virgil makes mention of Italus among the Italian kings, it were no great boldness to say, that Italus was commander of these Eleans. For, though I remember not that I have read of any such Greek as was named Italus, yet the name of Ætolus, written in Greek Aitolos, was very famous both among the Etolians and among the Eleans, he being a son of the king of Elis, and founder of the Ætolian kingdom. Neither is it more hard to derive the name Italus from Ætolus, than Italia from Ætolia. So may Virgil's authority stand well with the collections of Reineccius; the name of Italy being taken both from a captain and from the nation of which he and his people were.

SECT. II.

Of the Aborigines and other Inhabitants of Latium, and of the reason of the names of Latini and Latium.

IN Italy the Latins and Etrurians were most famous; the Etrurians having held the greatest part of it under their subjection; and the Latins, by the virtue and felicity of the Romans, who were a branch of them, subduing all Italy, and in few ages whatsoever nation was known in Europe, together with all the western parts of Asia and north of Africa.

The region called Latium was first inhabited by the Aborigines, whom Halicarnassæus, and Varro, also Reineccius following them, think to have been Arcadians; and this name of Aborigines (to omit other significations that are strained) imports as much as original, or native of the place, which they possessed: which title the Arcadians are known, in vaunting manner, to have always usurped, fetching their antiquity from beyond the moon; because, indeed, neither were the inhabitants of Peloponnesus enforced to forsake their seats so oft as other Greeks were, who dwelt without that half island, neither

had the Arcadians so unsure a dwelling as the rest of the Peloponnesians; because their country was less fruitful in land, mountainous, and hard of access, and they themselves, (as in such places commonly are found,) very warlike men. Some of these, therefore, having occupied a great part of Latium, and held it long, did, according to the Arcadian manner, style themselves Aborigines, in that language, which either their new seat, or their neighbours thereby, had taught them. How it might be that the Arcadians, who dwelt somewhat far from sea, and are always noted as unapt men to prove good mariners, should have been authors of new discoveries, were a question not easy to be answered, were it not so, that both fruitfulness of children, in which those ages abounded, enforceth a superfluous company to seek another seat, and that some expeditions of the Arcadians, as especially that of Evander, into the same parts of Italy, are generally ac knowledged.

After the Aborigines were the Pelasgi, an ancient nation, who sometime gave name to all Greece; but their antiquities are long since dead for lack of good records. Neither was their glory such in Italy as could long sustain the name of their own tribe; for they were in short space accounted one people with the former inhabitants. The Sicani, Ausones, Aurunci, Rutili, and other people, did in ages following disturb the peace of Latium, which by Saturn was brought to some civility, and he therefore ca nonized as a god.

This Saturn, St. Augustine calleth Sterces or Sterculius, others term him Stercutius, and say, that_he taught the people to dung their grounds. That Latium took his name of Saturn, because he did latere, that is, lie hidden there, when he fled from Jupiter, it is questionless a fable. For, as in heathenish superstition it was great vanity to think that any thing could be hidden from God, or that there were many

gods, of whom one fled from another; so, in the truth of history, it is well known, that no king reigning in those parts was so mighty, that it should be hard to find one country or another wherein a man might be safe from his pursuit: And yet, as most fables * and poetical fictions were occasioned by some ancient truth, which, either by ambiguity of speech or some allusion, they did maimedly and darkly express, (for so they feigned a passage over a river in hell, because death is a passage to another life; and because this passage is hateful, lamentable, and painful, therefore they named the river Styx of hate, Cocytus of lamentation, and Acheron of pain; so also, because men are stony-hearted, and because the Greek al people, and xats stones, are near in sound, therefore they feigned, in the time of Deucalion, stones converted into men, as at other times men into stones ;) -in like manner it may be, that the original of Saturn's hiding himself, was some allusion to that old opinion of the wisest of the heathen, that the true God was ignotus Deus, as it is noted in Acts xvii. 23; whence also Isaiah,3 of the true God, says, Tu Deus abdens te. For it cannot be vain, that the word Saturnus should also have this very signification, if it be derived, (as some think,) from the Hebrew Satar, which is, to hide. Howbeit I deny not but that the original of this word Latium ought rather to be sought elsewhere.

Reineccius doth conjecture that the Ceteans, who descended from Cethim, the son of Javan, were the men who gave the name to Latium. For these Ceteans are remembered by Homer as aiders of the Trojans in their war. Strabo interpreting the place of Homer, calls them subjects to the crown of Troy. Hereupon Reineccius gathers that their abode was in Asia; viz. in agro Elaitico, in the Elaitian territory, which agreeth with Strabo. Of a city which the Eolians held in Asia, called Elæo, or Elaia, Pau

2 See lib. 1. cap. 6. sect. 1. et seq.

3 Isaiah xlv. 15.

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