Nux, fagus, fraxinus, Multum certant inter se. “Nux,” dicit fraxinus “Quisquis venit, nuces legit, “Colligendo ramos frangit: “Vae itaque pelli tuae! “At tu fage, mi vicine, “Quae exponam mente tene? “Multas feras saturasti, “At haud bene ambulasti; “Quum gelu appropinquat “Ad pavimentum de deculcant “Ad focum averruncant, ... The prevalence of Latin in an eastern land, and in a form which is stated to present closer analogies with the language of the Roman period than with any of its western derivatives, had its origin in the Roman conquest of southeastern Europe in the early part of the first Christian millennium. Occupation of the land by important bodies of legionaries and a host of civil administrators, their intermarriage with the natives, the advantages conferred by Roman citizenship, all combined to force Latin into current use. And when in 275 Aurelian recalled Roman troops from the eastern provinces of the empire, the vernacular of Rome had taken too solid a footing on Dacian soil to be extirpated. Abandonment of the region by the Romans is cited for political reasons by the Magyar rulers of Transylvania to refute Rumanian claims to this Hungarian province. Rumanian historians, however, have been able to demonstrate the untenability of this assumption.[166] They have shown that many of the customs of their country are distinctly reminiscent of Latin Italy. It is still customary in many Rumanian villages to attach a small coin to the finger of the dead after an ancient Roman custom of providing the soul with its fare across the Styx. Bands of traveling musicians in Balkan or Hungarian cities are known to be composed of Rumanians whenever their members carry an instrument which is a faithful imitation of the pipes of Pan as sculptured upon Roman and Gallo-Roman monuments. Rumania’s national dance, the Calusaré, commemorates the rape of the Sabines to this day. Neither does the list of these analogies end with the examples given here. Furthermore the evidence afforded by geography tends also to validate Rumanian claims.