WHO WERE THE ROMANS P ' THE problem of the origin
of the Romans, old as it is, has not yet lost its interest, and Mr. Lloyd may be sure of finding
many readers, even though his theory is at every point con- troversial and heretical. Mr. Lloyd's argument, which we can only summarize briefly, but which is forcibly presented in his study, falls naturally into two aspects—the ethnological and the philological. At the root of both of these lines of approach lie what are now generally recognized facts—on the one hand, the intimate connexion between the Italic and Celtic groups of Indo-European speech, and, on the other, the existence of a racial distinction between the Plebeians and Patricians of early Rome. It has almost universally been held that these two races were both of Indo-European origin. According to Mr. Lloyd, however, the Plebeian Romans were the direct descendants of the Brown long-headed race which inhabited Italy in Neolithic times. The Patricians, he maintains, were descended from Gaulish invaders who came from beyond the Alps in a remote age, and whose subsequent history we may give in his own words :—
"The Gaulish conquerors of the Roman territory were ecm- paratively small in numbers. They found the territory inhabited by the Brown race, and, no doubt, they found, likewise, Etruscan nobles and landowners in considerable numbers in it. For reasons that cannot now be discovered the Roman Gauls came to be separated completely from the Cis-Alpine Gauls. As a result, the Roman Gauls, who were subsequently known as Patricians, who had the whole power of government as well, indeed, as of the rights of citizenship in their own hands, courted the support of the subject populations, and in process of time the Roman people were evolved. The Latin language emerged partly through the natural development all languages are continually going through ; but very largely, also, through its adoption by the subject peoples and by their bringing into common use vast multitudes of words from their own ancient tongue."
He adds that "whoever brought the language into the Roman territory, which in the shape we know it is called Latin, must have spoken a tongue practically identical with Gaelic." Wo cannot here do justice to the many ingenious arguments with which Mr. Lloyd supports his theory, nor can we point out the obvious difficulties by which it can be met; but we can at least promise that plenty of material for argument will Le found by the inquisitive in his pages.
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