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These pastimes obtained a fixed local background in the Latin "asylum of fools," for which they selected the formerly Oscan town of Atella, which was destroyed in the Hannibalic war and was thereby handed over to comic use; thenceforth the name of "Oscan plays" or "plays of Atella" was commonly used for these exhibitions.
The Etruscan tongue being a compound of Pelasgian and Umbrian, the language of Latium may be considered as the result of those two elements combined with the Oscan, and brought together by the mingling of those different tribes. These elements, which entered into the formation of the Latin, may be classified under two heads: the one which has, the other which has not a resemblance to the Greek.
The latter also brought into the treasury thirty-four thousand eight hundred pounds' weight of silver, seventy-eight thousand denarii, and of Oscan denarii two hundred and seventy-eight thousand. Meanwhile, in Spain, the consul lay encamped at a small distance from Emporiae.
It was owing to anything but devotion towards the revolutionary Roman government, that numerous contingents from the Oscan districts reinforced their armies; but it was well understood there that an oligarchy restored by Sulla would not acquiesce, like the lax Cinnan government, in the independence of these lands as now de facto subsisting; and therefore the primitive rivalry between the Sabellians and the Latins was roused afresh in the struggle against Sulla.
The utter mistake of Greek reporters, that these farces were played at Rome in the Oscan language, is now with justice universally rejected; but it is, on a closer consideration, little short of impossible to bring these pieces, which are laid in the midst of Latin town and country life, into relation with the national Oscan character at all.
The utter mistake of Greek reporters, that these farces were played at Rome in the Oscan language, is now with justice universally rejected; but it is, on a closer consideration, little short of impossible to bring these pieces, which are laid in the midst of Latin town and country life, into relation with the national Oscan character at all.
An explanation quite similar may be given of the "lays of Fescennium," which likewise belong to the burlesque poetry of the Romans and were localized in the South Etruscan village of Fescennium; it is not necessary on that account to class them with Etruscan poetry any more than the Atellanae with Oscan.
It thus appears that, while the Italian language holds an independent position by the side of the Greek, the Latin dialect within it bears a relation to the Umbro-Samnite somewhat similar to that of the Ionic to the Doric; and the differences of the Oscan and Umbrian and kindred dialects may be compared with the differences between the Dorism of Sicily and the Dorism of Sparta.
He carried in the procession twenty-five thousand pounds' weight of unwrought silver, one hundred and three thousand silver denarii, five hundred and forty of Oscan silver, and one thousand four hundred pounds' weight of gold. Out of the booty, he distributed to each of his soldiers two hundred and seventy asses; and three times that amount to each horseman.
He carried into the treasury, of silver bullion, fourteen thousand pounds' weight; of coined, seventeen thousand and twenty-three denarii; and Oscan denarii, one hundred and twenty thousand four hundred and thirty-eight. The reason for which the senate refused him a triumph was, because he fought under the auspices, and in the province, of another.
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