speech, understood what they heard.* And i t has been well
observed by -M. Schober, that when the Roman grammarians’
eite a word as Oscan they always refer to the testimony of
such writers as Ennius or Pacuvius, and never cite the Atellanc
fables, which were extant in great numbers in their times, and
well known at Rome, and if in the Oscan language: might
obviously have served them for an authority which every
one would appreciate. We cannot escape the inference
which the writer just-mehtioned has drawn, that the Atellane
fables celebrated in Rome in the time of Strabo, and to which
that geographer refers, were not in the Oscan but in the Latin
language, aud that the Oscan had long ceased to be understood,
if ever it was to them intelligible, by the Roman people.
But the' original Atellane drama was an Oscan -invention;
and it was introduced into Rome from Atella, a town, of the
Oscan or Qpic people, whence its name.-f It is therefoije.probable
that these representations were exhibited at Rome from
an earlier time than that of Pomponius bPNoyius, b u t perhaps
in a rude manner and without written dramatical eoriA
positions, and that the earliest of the written. fables?were
composed ; _by the poets who thenceforward obtained! ^the
credit of having been founders of the Atellane drama. l»hc
scenery and decorations and the artifice of the dramatic
presentation, may have been borrowed from the OsCans.; and
the manner of acting, which was chiefly pantomime, may have
been taken from them; and thus the designation o f Atellane
plays may be explained and sufficiently accounted for without
supposing that the Oscan-language was ever intelligible to4he
Romans. This may have been really the fact in very early
times, but we have no positive evidence of i t ; and from the
history of the Atellane fables we should not be able to deduce
any safe conclusion as to the relation of the Roman and Oscan
-languages.
- * Liv. lib. x.- c. SO. “ Aliquanto ante lucem ad castra accfessit, gnavosque Oscse
lingua exploratum, quid agant mittit.” is
t Livy terms the Atellane drama “ genus ludorum ah Oscis acceptum.” Valerius
Maximus says : “ Atellani ludi ab Oscis aucti sunt.” J)iomedes the Grammarian,
j A d rita te . Atella, unde primam ccepta.” Donatus, “ Ajtellana a civitate Cam-
paniae ubi acta sunt plurima.” (See Schober, lib. cit. p. 16.)
It is fortunate that so many remains of ancient writing have
been preserved in inscriptions found in differentparts of Southern
Italy, or on co|wi& oolfebt|diin places where the Oscan language
;IjS known tqbave;prevailed, as to. affbrd^when connected with
,the information.Mfhbyifhe grammatical writers and antiqua-
ria-ns /'O'f .Rome, a- sufficient.grihjpdwork for a satisfactory
elucidation5of this.fsubjeVt, atde$sh^reestablishing some important
and interesting, G r e g a r d . t o i t . The Oscan
la nguagerp%dv<ailte"(i t h r o u g h 1 taly,^,until’ it'was at
a late period supplanted, by - the sepips in a-great
, pleasure .-to. have, overdome the-'Oreekj in the: eppuntrji,es. whic h
had beefijcplpnised by Hellenic,settlers imMagna Gr-sepia, , It
maintained*.’ itself,'in Herculaneum abd Poin^iiv till the era
•of the-destruction -of those aeitiess, < It written lanjgm
age. No books have been pf^qiyp&ipatpbut a g ^ ^ t numb
e r o f coins and n^aoyrimscriptiqnsjhave regarded the research
of^Bhpd'ern, investigators. Th^y have beepf d iligeiltlyy|^llected
;and puM.jskpdiby Italian ig|1|iquarians, and .deciphered by.
tOerman, philologei;s.. The, most, bppprtant, .of <thqs6| dpca- -
ments*!are,|tli©.stwptiDs criptionS’,o’f;Abella.and.i©£^Banti^*^Th^;
„former was found. engrayed|»e0<sep.n|(diaracfers‘'|n a stone not
«far,, from"NqJa, in the ^uihsuof the&a%iem-fe city of Abell ayin,
|p%m§a®ia^ the ptherpwhich is on a brazen tablet,, was. disk*
Covered; among the ruins of Bantia* a .town '|f|Lucania, and is
.-now in the Museum of „Herculaneum.* I tins' bili.nguaili^cpn-
taining^cln.; the reverse a Latin Inscription,■ supposed, to be a
‘^translation of the .Oscan. * Besides these, many inscriptions; of
various extent havn^bjemfo^ndi-at Herculaneuinfand Pompeii,
{ai;‘Gapua,and in other.places in thejgonth.pf^Italy^and^ohe
at Messaqa in Sicily, a relic,, as-it, appears, of the old Ma-
/,mertihes;f
The Oscan inscriptions a’r-e in three kinds of writmg|j|( The
legends on coins found in-the country^f^tlie Samnites and in
Lucania,. Apulia, Calabria, and on many of thp||p|discpyered
* The Bantine inscription wa? publishes by Rorihi^and lately by Dr. Grote&nd
: of Hanover, in his work entitled Rudimenta Linguae Oscse -ex Iriscr. Antiq. euo-
d a t a a n d it has been elucidated in a learned work by Professor Klenze of Berlin.
The Abellanian inscription was published, though imperfectly, by Lanzi.: (Sdggio
di Lingua Ltrusca.)
*j* These are published, or at least described, in the work of Grotefend above cited.