OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 25 of Gaul must yield, in their turn, to the multitude of Saxons and Angles who almost eradicated the idioms of Britain. The modern Italian has been insensibly formed by the mixture of nations ; the awkwardness of the barbarians in the nice manage- ment of declensions and conjugations reduced them to the use of articles and auxiliary verbs ; and many new ideas have been expressed by Teutonic appellations. Yet the principal stock of technical and familiar words is found to be of Latin derivation ; ^" and, if we were sufficiently conversant with the obsolete, the rustic, and the municipal dialects of ancient Italy, we should trace the origin of many terms which might, perhaps, be re- jected by the classic purity of Rome. A numerous army con- stitutes but a small nation, and the powers of the Lombards were soon diminished by the retreat of twenty thousand Saxons, who scorned a dependent situation, and returned, after many bold and perilous adventures, to their native country.^*' The camp of Alboin was of formidable extent, but the extent of a camp would be easily circumscribed within the limits of a city ; and its martial inhabitants must be thinly scattered over the face of a large country. When Alboin descended from the Alps, he invested his nephew, the first duke of Friuli, with the [roivunjuiu] command of the province and the people ; but the prudent Gisulf would have declined the dangerous office, unless he had been permitted to choose, among the nobles of the Lombards, a sufficient number of families "'^ to form a perpetual colony of soldiers and subjects. In the progress of conquest, the same option could not be granted to the dukes of Brescia or Bergamo, of Pavia or Turin, of Spoleto or Beneventum ; but each of these, and each of their colleagues, settled in his appointed district with a band of followers who resorted to hs standard in war and his tribunal in peace. Their attachment was free and honourable : resigning the gifts and benefits which they had accepted, they might emigrate with their families into the juris- diction of another duke ; but their absence from the kingdom was punished with death, as a crime of military desertion. ^"^
- ' Maft'ei (Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 310-321) and Muratori (Antichit; Italiane,
torn. ii. Dissertazione xx.xii. xxxiii. p. 71-365) have asserted the native claims of the Italian idiom : the former with enthusiasm, the latter with discretion: both with learning, ingenuity, and truth. •♦^Paul, de Gest. Langobard. 1. iii. c. 5, 6, 7. •"' Paul, 1. ii. c. 9. He calls these families or generations by the Teutonic name of Faras, which is likewise used in the Lombard laws. The humble deacon was not insensible of the nobility of his own race. See 1. iv. c. 39, ^^ Compare No. 3 and 177 of the laws of Rotharis,
