PART
5 –
Ch.XXXIII.21
The
Pelasgians or proto – Latins (Arimii)
(The
Pelasgians from the northern parts of the
XXXIII.
21. Latinii in the regions of the
Various Latin tribes were scattered through the
northern regions of
The most
significant group of Latins from near the
The Polish
historian Dlugos (+1480), who knew
very well the ethnographic ties, not only of his country, but also of the
neighboring countries, writes about these populations: “How, when and in what
quality the nation of the Litvanii
and the Samogitii have come in these
northern lands where they dwell today, and from where they draw their origin,
it is known but little, because no author wrote anything in this regard. But
there exists a probable presumption, confirmed by the form of the language,
their mode of speaking, and the conclusions which result from other
circumstances and deeds, that: the Litvanii and Samogitii are a people of Latin origin, and if,
nevertheless, their origin does not derive straight from the Romans, they
originate from a Latin people; and
that they have left the ancestral land of Italy, and their ancient dwellings,
in the time of the civil wars, which took place firstly between Marius and Sulla, then between Julius
Caesar and Pompey the Great, and
those who followed after them. Because of these civil calamities, fearing that
the entire population of Italy will perish, they have come with their women,
with their herds and their families to these northern regions, vast, deserted,
and trampled only by wild beasts….The Litvanii and Samogitii, before receiving
Christianity, had the same religion, the same divinities, the same religious
rites, and the same ceremonies, which the pagan Romans used to have; namely,
they venerated the sacred fire, which they considered eternal, in their vain belief, like the sacred fire
was also guarded at Rome by the virgin Vestals, who were punished with death
when the fire was extinguished because of their neglect. The Litvanii and Samogitii
also had woods, called sacred, and believed that it was not only a sin if
somebody touched them with iron, but that this deed also brought a deadly peril
…. They adored the vipers and serpents, which shows that they had the cult of
the god Esculapius, under the shape of the serpent. And although in these
religious beliefs and customs they did not resembled that much the Romans and
the Italians, they imitated in a large part their cult. While the Litvanii were
still dominated by the darkness of paganism, and still kept to their ancestral
customs, they gathered each year, around the beginning of the month of October,
with their women and families, in some woods, which they believed sacred, and
in the course of three days they sacrificed to their family gods, burning for
them whole victims, oxen, calves, rams and other animals, and after they
carried out this sacrifice, they celebrated with feasts, games and dancing.
This sacrifice was considered as the most principal and solemn festivity of
theirs, from which nobody was allowed to be absent…. But on one hand, the land
on which they dwell, and the nature of the climate under which they live, and
on the other hand, their living together with the Rutenii and their mixing with
these, have changed in many ways their archaic nature, although it has not
completely extinguished it …. The Litvanii, Samogitii and Iativingii, although
having different ethnic names, and although being divided in a number of
families, have once formed a single people, which drew its origin from the
Romans and from Italy, constituting therefore a nation which has remained for a
long time unknown and obscure ….In the beginning they lived as they liked, and
because their neighbors did not hinder them, they multiplied and continuously
peopled the lower country, towards Prussia,
which, by the nature of their language, they named Samogithia, which means the
lower country; following which, they also occupied the neighboring country
of Poland, which they named Iaraczones.
Their language is Latin, and it
differs from this one only in a small measure, due to the fact that, because of
the trade which they did with the neighboring peoples, they had also adopted in
their idiom Slavonic words. Their army is composed in its larger part of slaves. These they keep in their
buildings, use for house service, and give them as dowry to their son-in-laws.
Often even free people become their slaves, some for the debts they themselves
had contracted, others for giving guaranties, which they had not been able to honor
later” (Hist. Pol. Ed. 1711, lib. X. col.113-118; Tacitus, Germ. 43).
(The ancient
Prussian language has disappeared around the end of the 17th
century, that of the Iativingii, from the voivodat Bielsk or Podlachia, even
earlier – Diefenbach, Orig. europ.
203).
According to Cromer (+1591), to the same ethnic
family of the Litvanii, Samogitii and Iativingii, also belonged the Livonii or Letii, who dwell on the eastern shores of the
“Livonii,
Samogitii, Litvanii and Prusii”, says Cromer, “use almost the same and only
folk language, completely different from the Slav language, and in which there
are not a few words of Latin origin,
but mostly corrupted, and with a character more Italic and Hispanic than Latin.
But we cannot know when the Latin language has mixed with the folk idiom of the
Prussii, Litvanii and Livonii” (De orig. et reb. Gest. Pol. Lib. III. p. 42; Ptolemy, II. 11. 16 – the Levonii appear as a tribe from
As we see, Dlugos
reckoned that the Litvanii, Samogitii and Iativingii were peoples of Latin
origin, emigrated from the
[1. The Litvanii, men and women, are a beautiful race of people. In older
times, when still not so mixed with various Slav tribes, they were of a taller stature, and there existed among
them even giant figures. The
Litvanii are almost all blond, and
in a certain measure white in their
youth, but the more they advance in age, the darker their hair becomes. Their
eyes are blue. Their nose is of an antique
shape and is in a straight line with
the forehead. The men wear mostly long hair, cut short above the forehead (Brennsohn, Zur Anthrop. d. Litauer.
Dorpat, 1883, p. 18-19; Pauly,
Descr. etnogr. des peoples de la Russie, St.Petersb. 1867, p. 123)].
In truth, it is a
well known fact that for half a century, from Marius to Octavianus, the
agricultural population of
The poet Virgil, in one of his poems, composed
around the end of the civil wars, presents a peasant from Italy saying the
following moving words: “Chased from our ancestral lands, from our beautiful
plains, we have to abandon this country … Some of us will go to the dry lands
of Africa, others to Scythia, some
to the banks of the torrential river Oaxes in Crete, others to the country of
the Britons, entirely separated from this world …. The lawless soldier will own
in future the fields worked by us, and the barbarian will reap what we sowed!
Look where the poor citizens have been brought by discord” (Bucolicon, Ecl. 1,
v. 3 seqq).
Although some
Italic groups had been forced, in those times political unrest, to look for a
new country in the vast deserted lands of Scythia, the original stratum of the
population of Litvania, and of the neighboring regions, belongs to much more
remote times [2].
[2. Litvania (Litv. Letuva;
med. Latin Litava and Lithvania) appears with the Romanian
chroniclers under the name Litva.
For the Romanian people the word litfa
is synonymous with the term Latin or
Letin and means a pagan, or a man
who is not of our law. Under the form litfa,
this word is very ancient. The wife of Hercules, as Cedrenus (
We reproduce here the
following Latin elements from the actual idiom of the Litvanii (according to Schleicher, Litanische Grammatik,
Glossar, Prag. 1856-1857.)
Various localities
in Litvania, Curlandia, Samogitia, and oriental