PART 5 – Ch.XXXIII.23

The Pelasgians or proto – Latins (Arimii)

(The Pelasgians from the northern parts of the Danube and the Black Sea)

PART 5

PREVIOUS

XXXIII. 23. Latinii, a branch of the family of the White Arimii.

The ancient Latinii, called in Romanian folk traditions Latani of the old ones (TN – Latani de cei betrani), and in Italy Prisci Latini, formed from an ethnographic point of view only a branch of the great and extended family of the Arimii. By their dwellings and migrations, by their physical type and their mostly pastoral life, the ancient Latinii belonged to the most northern Arimic group, or the White Arimii.

Apart from Italy, two more significant groups of Latini existed in primitive times in Europe.

One of these groups was formed by the Letic populations from near the Baltic and the North Seas: the Biarmii, Olbrimii and the “white tribes of the German Arimanii”; and we find the second group, the most important, in the northern parts of the Balkan peninsula, near the lower Danube, over which had reigned in Trojan times Telephus, also named Latinus.

These Latinii from the lower Danube, exactly like the Letic populations from near the Baltic and the North Seas, belonged to the numerous family of the Abii, whom Homer mentions in the neighborhood of the Mysii, and the horse raising Scythii (Iliad, XIII, v. 6). The Abii, writes Stephanos Byzanthinos, had extended in ancient times also over Thrace (see ‘Abioi).

By their physical type, the Latinii from the northern parts of Europe generally appear as a race of men of a tall stature, vigorous and almost gigantic. The woman who, as Suetonius said, had appeared in front of Drusus near the river Elba (Albis), and had spoken to him in the Latin language, was of a superhuman size; in the same way appear the ancient Litvanii, tall figures, sometimes huge, with white skin, blond hair, mostly white when young.

The ancient Letinii from the Balkan peninsula also appear as a people of giants, in the traditions of the Serbs and the Bulgarians.

The Latinii of Italy had the same physical and moral characters.

Virgil presents the Latin heroes of the times of Aeneas as men of a tall and awesome stature, and the Latin youths with blond hair and beards (Aen. VIII. 330; X. v. 312, 318, 324; XII. 605).

Some tribes from Latium have the names Albani, Albenses, Bolani, Abolani (Pliny, lib.III.9.16). The ancient authors often understood the entire Latin people under the terms Albani and Albanenses. Virgil calls all the cities of Latium urbes Albanae (Aen. VII. 601-2).

In the oldest inscriptions of Latium we often find the family name Albus and Albius (C. I. L. vol. I. nr. 122. 129. 468. 830; Tacitus, Ann. VI. c. 34; Strabo, lib. XI. 4. 4; Isidorus, Orig. XIX. 23. 7). Alba was an ancient king of Latium, son of king Latinus Silvius (Livy, lib. I. 3; Dionys. Hal. I. 71).

Finally, we note here that the national religion of the Latinii of Italy was called lex Albana (C. I. L. vol. I. nr. 807), certainly in antithesis with lex Romana and with mos Romanus.

NEXT