ABSTRACT
IN the preceding chapter there was not a complete agreement between the frontiers of the Augustan regio and the cultural limit of Atestine civilization or the linguistic limits of the Venetic dialect. But the association of dialect and culture (in its later stages at least) was sufficiently close, and the extent of both sufficiently in harmony with the geographical boundary (as falling chiefly within it at any rate), that the political frontier of a much later date served as a convenient setting for the discussion of both the archreological and the linguistic evidence. But in the present chapter, devoted to an area corresponding to two Augustan regiones, there is no such rough correspondence of boundaries. The Umbria of Augustus must be bisected by a line running almost due north and south in the longitude of Gubbio (the ancient Iguvium)-which is not far from the longitude of Perugia and of Rome. This line marks a most important cultural distinction of funerary rite in the early iron age, with cremation to the west, inhumation to the east. And, as we shall see, the difference in funerary rite is accompanied by other marked differences in material remains irt:lplying differences in " national" character, that point very clearly to distinct" races". It would seem, therefore, that von Duhn's terminology, which speaks of cremating " Italici " and inhuming " Italici " to the west and east respectively of this line is misleading in its suggestion of a single race, divided into two groups merely but significantly by the prevailing method of disposing of the dead, as well as unfortunate in its use of the unsatisfactory label" Italic" (see p. 109 above). It would be even less justifiable to use the later ethnic label" Umbrian," unless that be restricted to the eastern part of
the region, and also unless the common assumption that these " Umbrians " were invaders from the north with Hallstatt affinities be abandoned-for nothing could be more misleading. This eastern part, as a glance at the map will show, is by far the larger subdivision of the Augustan Umbria made by our north-andsouth line, even if we subtract from it the eastern angle which the Romans came to describe as the " Ager Gallicus ". The associations, in fact, of eastern Umbria are with Picenum still further east. On the other hand, the north-western corner, between the north-and-south line, the Ru bicon, and the Apennines, goes with the" Villanovans," both northern and southern, who were early astride the by no means difficult barrier of the mountains. What the Apennines failed to do, the warlike Picenes of Picenum proper and the kindred tribes of eastern Umbria, as was seen by RandallMacIvcr (from whom this convenient and judicious label is taken), were able very easily and quite decisively to do, that is to hold back the northern invaders. Finally the Etruscans spill over the boundary of Etruria proper into southern Umbria where the mountain chain is no longer the political frontier.
