be discovered between the Etruscan and the Ligurian language. The ancients were far less concerned about the Etruscans than the moderns; they took indeed an interest in them, but did not enter deeply into the inquiry about them; and it may be that they were prevented by their utter ignorance of the Etruscan language. Herodotus relates that the Etruscans were a Lydian colony, a statement which has been correctly refuted even by Dionysius, who says that Xanthus the Lydian did not say anything about it; that the Lydians did not bear the slightest resemblance to the Etruscans in language, customs, manners, or religion; and that there existed no traditions about such a colony either among the Lydians or among the Etruscans. Herodotus had heard, that Tyrrhenians existed in Italy as well as in Lydia (where, however, the Meonians, and not the entirely foreign Lydians, were Tyrrhenians); his idea of a colony was a mere inference from his knowledge that the Tyrrhenians and Meonians were nations of the same race. But Tyrrheni and Tusci are the same words, and so are Tyrrheni, Turini, Turni; Tusculum is nothing but the town of the Tyrrheni; Etrusci and Tusci, however, are different, and the name Tusci was afterwards transferred to the Etrusci. The native name of the Etruscans was Rasena. Previously to the Gallic conquest, the same Etruscan nation was also established in the plains of Lombardy; and, according to Livy, all the tribes about the river Padus, such as the Raeti and others belonged to it. It is, moreover, quite in accordance with all analogy to suppose that the nation had come down from the Alps in consequence of commotions in the north. Here we must also bear in mind the other tradition which states that, before the time of the Etruscans, the Umbrians dwelt in Etruria, and that 300 Umbrian towns were destroyed by the invading Etruscans. No importance can be attached to the number 300, which is only a multiple of 3; 3, 30, 300, and 600, all signify only “very many,” and in other circumstances the same might be expressed by 4, 16, 64, etc. I am persuaded that the time is not far distant (it may have arrived already), when no man will think of quoting the statement of Herodotus about the Lydian origin of the Tyrrhenians as an authority against other opinions. Everything which, after the lapse of hundreds or thousands of years, has to be made out by reason and argument meets with opposition, and this is in accordance with nature; nay, it is good that it is so, as it imposes upon us the duty to give to our doctrines the greatest possible distinctness, and to expound them so clearly as to make them intelligible to all.