o arms of the Apennines which they subsequently
held, is clearly indicated by the very fact of their geographical
position, just as the position of the inhabitants of the Grisons
and that of the Basques at the present day indicates the similar
fate that has befallen them. Tradition also has to report that the
Tuscans wrested from the Umbrians three hundred towns; and, what
is of more importance as evidence, in the national prayers of the
Umbrian Iguvini, which we still possess, along with other stocks
the Tuscans especially are cursed as public foes.

In consequence, as may be presumed, of this pressure exerted upon
them from the north, 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. To the class of such inroads
belongs the tradition of the irruption of the Reatini and Sabines
into Latium and their conflicts with the Romans; similar phenomena
were probably repeated all along the west coast. Upon the whole
the Sabines maintained their footing in the mountains, as in the
district bordering on Latium which has since been called by their
name, and so too in the Volscian land, presumably because the Latin
population did not extend thither or was there less dense; while
on the other hand the well-peopled plains were better able to offer
resistance to the invaders, although they were not in all cases
able or desirous to prevent isolated bands from gaining a footing,
such as the Tities and afterwards the Claudii in Rome.(2) In this
way the stocks here became variously mingled, a state of things
which serves to explain the numerous relations that subsisted
between the Volscians and Latins, and how it happened that their
district, as well as Sabina, afterwards became so early and speedily
Latinized.

Samnites

The chief branch, however, of the Umbrian stock threw itself eastward
from Sabina into the mountains of the Abruzzi, and the adjacent
hill-country to the south of them. Here, as on the west coast,
they occupied the mountainous districts, whose thinly scattered
population gave way before the immigrants or submitted to their
yoke; while in the plain along the Apulian