Being a part of larger nations, the Latins bore the names of these nations; hence they were called Tyrrhenians by Greek authors; but even their own names had different forms, for they are called _Lavini_ and no doubt also _Lacini_. The ancient national name Lavini gave rise to the story that Latinus had a brother Lavinus, and that the latter gave the name to the town of Lavinium—a statement which was adopted by those who would not derive the name of the town from Lavinia. This view of the matter at once explains that which puzzled the grammarians, and which our wretched epitomes of the commentaries on the Aeneid cannot solve. Namely, Virgil often speaks of _litora Lavina_ and _arva Lavinia_ before the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, because he entertained the notion that the name _Latini_ arose afterwards from the union of the Trojans and Aborigines; hence he took the poetical form _Lavinus_. In like manner, Virgil, in his catalogue, at the end of the seventh book, when speaking of the tribes of Latium, says _picti scuta Lavici_, which has always been referred to the town of Lavici in Latium, which was called after its inhabitants; but we cannot take this as the name of a town, as both before and after tribes only are mentioned, and _Lavici_ there is nothing else than Latini. There can be no doubt that they were also called _Lacini_. King Latinus is in some traditions called Lacinus, and under this name he was transferred to southern Italy. This is one of the points which are not sufficiently attended to in the grammatical study of the Latin language. It is indeed very difficult to speak of these matters, as we have so few authentic remains of the ancient Latin dialects, and even the very name “Latin dialects” sounds strange to us, for they are mentioned only by the most ancient among the Latin grammarians. We find it stated, for example, that the Praenestines had a peculiar pronunciation. There can be no doubt that the Latins had their different dialects, though the differences were not so strongly marked as in Greek. The Oscan and several dialects to which the Oscan approached more or less, were kindred languages of the Latin. I hope that more light may be thrown upon this subject, especially by means of inscriptions; several have already been discovered, which I have succeeded in explaining; some exist at Pompeii and Herculaneum, and still more will no doubt be discovered. The Oscan is a language which stands to the Latin in nearly the same relation as that in which the Cretan (which we know, e.g., from inscriptions of Hierapytna) stands to the Ionic dialect.