Individual tribes, or in other words, races or stocks, are the
constituent elements of the earliest history. Among the stocks which
in later times we meet with in Italy, the immigration of some, of
the Hellenes for instance, and the denationalization of others,
such as the Bruttians and the inhabitants of the Sabine territory,
are historically attested. Setting aside both these classes, there
remain a number of stocks whose wanderings can no longer be traced
by means of historical testimony, but only by a priori inference,
and whose nationality cannot be shown to have undergone any radical
change from external causes. To establish the national individuality
of these is the first aim of our inquiry. In such an inquiry,
had we nothing to fall back upon but the chaotic mass of names of
tribes and the confusion of what professes to be historical tradition,
the task might well be abandoned as hopeless. The conventionally
received tradition, which assumes the name of history, is composed
of a few serviceable notices by civilized travellers, and a mass
of mostly worthless legends, which have usually been combined with
little discrimination of the true character either of legend or
of history. But there is another source of tradition to which we
may resort, and which yields information fragmentary but authentic;
we mean the indigenous languages of the stocks settled in Italy from
time immemorial. These languages, which have grown with the growth
of the peoples themselves, have had the stamp of their process
of growth impressed upon them too deeply to be wholly effaced
by subsequent civilization. One only of the Italian languages is
known to us completely; but the remains which have been preserved
of several of the others are sufficient to afford a basis for
historical inquiry regarding the existence, and the degrees, of
family relationship among the several languages and peoples.