_The Etruscans of Tuscany were an intrusive and foreign population_ (if this be not admitted the reasoning on it falls to the ground), and the _earlier tribes that they dispersed were the Italians of the Latin type_; for assuredly, if such Italians, other than those of Latium, ever existed it is in the parts north of the Tiber that they are to be sought in the first instance; since it is there that the evidence of displacement is strongest. Something earlier than the Etruscans of Etruria must have existed in the Patrimonio di San Pietro and the southern part of Tuscany, and these, I imagine to have been Latins--just as Devonshire was once Cornish, and would have been so again, had the Cornishmen been to England, what the Romans were to Italy. At the same time _some_ extension southwards and eastwards must be allowed; since tradition, perhaps history, makes both the Sabines and the Volscians more or less intrusive. The main extension, however, of the populations of the Latin type was Etruria. And now, before we go to Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, we must revert to the parts on the Lower Po, the parts which, at the beginning of the historical period, were occupied by Etruscans, more or less displaced by Gauls--partially, at first, wholly, afterwards; the Gauls themselves being about to be superseded by the Romans. A statement has already been made to the effect that in Ferrara and the country northwards, the Etruscans were necessarily _intruders_ rather than aboriginal inhabitants. The reasons for this statement were reserved. They will now be given. The earliest populations of the Lower Po must have come under conditions which, _unless we suppose them to have been intermediate to the Umbrians and Liburnians_, the ancient Etruscans (unless _they_ were themselves similarly intermediate) did not meet. They must have connected the languages allied to the ancient tongues of Central Italy, with those of ancient Noricum--the former being (as is admitted and generally known) allied to the Latin, the latter (as is assumed for the present, but as will be supported by reasons in the sequel) being Slavonic and allied to the Servian, _i.e._, just what they are now, only in an older stage.