time of Polybius (ii. 6), and a somewhat vague reference in Lycophron (line 1351) to the Ligurians as enemies of the founders of Agylla (i.e. Caere) suggests that they once occupied even a larger tract to the south. Seneca (Cons. ad Helv. vii. 9), states that the population of Corsica was partly Ligurian. By combining traditions recorded by Dionysius (i. 22; xiv. 37) and others (e.g. Serv. ad. Aen. xi. 317) as having been held by Cato the Censor and by Philistus of Syracuse (385 B.C.) respectively, Professor Ridgeway (Who were the Romans? London, 1908, p. 3) decides in favour of identifying the Ligurians with a tribe called the Aborigines who occupy a large place in the early traditions of Italy (see Dionysius i. cc. 10 ff.); and who may at all events be regarded with reasonable certainty as constituting an early pre-Roman and pre-Tuscan stratum in the population of Central Italy (see Latium). For a discussion of this question see Volsci. Ridgeway holds that the language of the Ligurians, as well as their antiquities, was identical with that of the early Latins, and with that of the Plebeians of Rome (as contrasted with that of the Patrician or Sabine element), see Rome: History (ad. init.). The archaeological side of this important question is difficult. Although great progress has been made with the study of the different strata of remains in prehistoric Italy and of those of Liguria itself (see for instance the excellent Introduction à l’histoire romaine by Basile Modestov (Paris, 1907, p. 122 ff.) and W. Ridgeway’s Early Age of Greece, p. 240 ff.) no general agreement has been reached among archaeologists as to the particular races who are to be identified as the authors of the early strata, earlier, that is, than that stratum which represents the Etruscans.
On the linguistic side some fairly certain conclusions have been reached. D’Arbois de Jubainville (Les Premiers habitants de l’Europe, ed. 2, Paris, 1880–1894) pointed out the great frequency of the suffix -asco- (and -usco-) both in ancient and in modern Ligurian districts, and as far north as Caranusca near Metz, and also in the eastern Alps and in Spain. He pointed out also, what can scarcely be doubted, that the great mass of the Ligurian proper names (e.g. the streams Vinelasca, Porcobera, Comberanea; mons Tuledo; Venascum), have a definite Indo-European character. Farther Karl Müllenhof in vol. iii. of his Deutsche Alterthumskunde (Berlin, 1898) made a careful collection of the proper names reserved in Latin inscriptions of the Ligurian districts, such as the Tabula Genuatium (C.I.L. i. 99) of 117 B.C. A complete collection of all Ligurian place and personal names known has been made by S. Elizabeth Jackson, B.A., and the collection is to be combined with the inscriptional remains of the district in The Pre-Italic Dialects, edited by R. S. Conway (see The Proceedings of the British Academy). Following Kretschmer Kuhn’s Zeitschrift (xxxviii. 97), who discussed several inscriptions found near Ornavasso (Lago Maggiore) and concluded that they showed an Indo-European language, Conway, though holding that the inscriptions are more Celtic than Ligurian, pointed out strong evidence in the ancient place names of Liguria that the language spoken there in the period which preceded the Roman conquest was Indo-European, and belonged to a definite group, namely, languages which preserved the original q as Latin did, and did not convert it into p as did the Umbro-Safine tribes. The same is probably true of Venetia (see Veneti), and of an Indo-European language preserved on inscriptions found at Coligny and commonly referred to the Sequani (see Comptes Rendus de l’Ac. d’Insc., Paris, 1897, 703; E. B. Nicholson, Sequanian, London, 1898; Thurneysen, Zeitschr. f. Kelt. Phil., 1899, 523). Typically Ligurian names are Quiamelius, which contains the characteristic Ligurian word melo- “stone” as in mons Blustiemelus (C.I.L. v. 7749), Intimelium and the modern Vintimiglia. The tribal names Soliceli, Stoniceli, clearly contain the same element as Lat. aequi-coli (dwellers on the plain), sati-cola, &c., namely quel-, cf. Lat. in-quil-inus, colo, Gr. πολεῖν, τέλλεσθαι. And it should be added that the Ligurian ethnica show the prevailing use of the two suffixes -co- and -ati-, which there is reason to refer to the pre-Roman stratum of population in Italy (see Volsci).
Besides the authorities already cited the student may be referred to C. Pauli, Altitalische Studien, vol. i., especially for the alphabet of the insc.; W. Ridgeway, Who were the Romans? (followed by the abstract of a paper by the present writer) in The Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. iii. p. 42; and to W. H. Hall’s, The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhône (London, 1898); Issel’s La Liguria geologica e preistorica (Genoa, 1892). A further batch of Celto-Ligurian inscriptions from Giubiasco near Bellinzona (Canton Ticino) is published by G. Herbig, in the Anzeiger f. Schweizer. Altertumskunde, vii. (1905–1906), p. 187; and one of the same class by Elia Lattes, Di un’ Iscriz. ante-Romana trovata a Carcegna sul Lago d’ Orta (Atti d. r. Accad. d. Scienze di Torino, xxxix., Feb. 1904). (R. S. C.)
LI HUNG CHANG (1823–1901), Chinese statesman, was born
on the 16th of February 1823 at Hofei, in Ngan-hui. From his
earliest youth he showed marked ability, and when quite young
he took his bachelor degree. In 1847 he became a Tsin-shi, or
graduate of the highest order, and two years later was admitted
into the imperial Hanlin college. Shortly after this the central
provinces of the empire were invaded by the Taiping rebels, and
in defence of his native district he raised a regiment of militia,
with which he did such good service to the imperial cause that he
attracted the attention of Tsêng Kuo-fan, the generalissimo in
command. In 1859 he was transferred to the province of Fu-kien,
where he was given the rank of taotai, or intendant of circuit.
But Tsêng had not forgotten him, and at his request Li was
recalled to take part against the rebels. He found his cause
supported by the “Ever Victorious Army,” which, after having
been raised by an American named Ward, was finally placed
under the command of Charles George Gordon. With this
support Li gained numerous victories leading to the surrender of
Suchow and the capture of Nanking. For these exploits he was
made governor of Kiangsu, was decorated with a yellow jacket,
and was created an earl. An incident connected with the surrender
of Suchow, however, left a lasting stain upon his character.
By an arrangement with Gordon the rebel wangs, or princes,
yielded Nanking on condition that their lives should be spared.
In spite of the assurance given them by Gordon, Li ordered their
instant execution. This breach of faith so aroused Gordon’s
indignation that he seized a rifle, intending to shoot the falsifier
of his word, and would have done so had not Li saved himself by
flight. On the suppression of the rebellion (1864) Li took up his
duties as governor, but was not long allowed to remain in civil
life. On the outbreak of the rebellion of the Nienfei, a remnant
of the Taipings, in Ho-nan and Shan-tung (1866) he was ordered
again to take the field, and after some misadventures he succeeded
in suppressing the movement. A year later he was appointed
viceroy of Hukwang, where he remained until 1870, when the
Tientsin massacre necessitated his transfer to the scene of the
outrage. He was, as a natural consequence, appointed to the
viceroyalty of the metropolitan province of Chihli, and justified
his appointment by the energy with which he suppressed all
attempts to keep alive the anti-foreign sentiment among the
people. For his services he was made imperial tutor and member
of the grand council of the empire, and was decorated with
many-eyed peacocks’ feathers.
To his duties as viceroy were added those of the superintendent of trade, and from that time until his death, with a few intervals of retirement, he practically conducted the foreign policy of China. He concluded the Chifu convention with Sir Thomas Wade (1876), and thus ended the difficulty caused by the murder of Mr Margary in Yunnan; he arranged treaties with Peru and Japan, and he actively directed the Chinese policy in Korea. On the death of the emperor T’ungchi in 1875 he, by suddenly introducing a large armed force into the capital, effected a coup d’état by which the emperor Kwang Sü was put on the throne under the tutelage of the two dowager empresses; and in 1886, on the conclusion of the Franco-Chinese war, he arranged a treaty with France. Li was always strongly impressed with the necessity of strengthening the empire, and when viceroy of Chihli he raised a large well-drilled and well-armed force, and spent vast sums both in fortifying Port Arthur and the Taku forts and in increasing the navy. For years he had watched the successful reforms effected in Japan and had a well-founded dread of coming into conflict with that empire. But
