These Itali comprised a number of tribes of Pelasgian origin, which dwelt there under different names, as Oenotrians, Peucetians, Daunians, Tyrrhenians, Latins, Liburnians, and Siculians, extending on both coasts of the peninsula as far as the Eridanus, though it is uncertain whether in early times they occupied the whole peninsula as far as the frontier of Liguria and the Po, or whether in the south they possessed all the country, while in the north they dwelt only on the coasts. If we go back to the earliest accounts, we may assert, that the country south of a line from the coast of Etruria and Latium, from the Liris and Vulturnus up to the ridge which extends beyond mount Vulturnus as far as the heights of mount Garganus, was wholly inhabited by the Italian nation. The nation, however, was not confined within those limits, but also inhabited Latium and Etruria, and extended on the north of mount Garganus as far as the river Po, under the names of Liburnians, Pelasgians, and Siculians. This is the light in which we must view the population of Italy in the earliest times to which we can go back, before those nations were pressed on by a double immigration. For as in other parts, so here also nations were pushing onward from the north, some in a body, and of others only particular branches. Some of the Italian nations were expelled, and others remained in their native places, because the conquerors were not so savage as to be unable to live among them, and preferred having quiet settlements to a wandering life. The nation which gave this great impulse, and unseated (ἀνέστησαν) others, was in all probability that of the Etruscans. Farther east, the Illyrians spread themselves from the north, and the Etruscans in Italy proceeded in the same direction. The people, which, in the first instance, penetrated into the country of the Italians, partly expelling and partly subduing them, were the OPICANS. They must be conceived as pressing onward in a broad line, commencing from the banks of the Tiber, so that they took possession of the country of the Aequians, Marsians, Pelignians, northern Samnium, the district of the Frentanians, and western Apulia. At that time they had not yet established themselves either in Campania or in any part of Samnium. Being pressed by the Sabines, they penetrated into the country of the Italians, and overpowered them in all Daunia, so that Daunia became Apulia; and then they advanced into southern Samnium, Campania, and even into Latium. Italy thus became reduced and confined within those very boundaries mentioned in the earliest Greek traditions, namely, a line from Posidonia to Metapontum. But the Oscan invaders did not long retain these conquests; they maintained one part of them, but lost another. The Sabines were not satisfied with driving them back beyond the ancient frontiers, but pursued them farther, and thus there arose the SABELLIAN nations, that is, the _Samnites_ in the widest