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Eusebius: Chronica
    Click to Expand/Collapse Option Complete text
Click to Expand/Collapse OptionIntroduction
Click to Expand/Collapse OptionChaldeans
Click to Expand/Collapse OptionChaldeans
Click to Expand/Collapse OptionLydians
Click to Expand/Collapse OptionPersians
Click to Expand/Collapse OptionHebrews
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From the first book of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, about the history of the Romans 
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"This city, mistress of the whole earth and sea, which the Romans now inhabit, is said to have had as its earliest occupants the barbarian Sicels, a native race.  As to the condition of the place before their time, whether it was occupied by others or uninhabited, none can certainly say.  (267) But some time later the Aborigines gained possession of it, having taken it from the occupants after a long war.  These people had previously lived on the mountains in unwalled villages and scattered groups.  They say that after them, the Pelasgians and some of the Greeks conquered that region.  At first they were called Aborigines; but under Latinus, their king, who reigned at the time of the Trojan war, they began to be called Latins.  Sixteen generations later, Romulus founded the city, and expanded it, and raised its affairs to greater prosperity.” 
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And then Dionysius continues his narrative, in these very words [ DionHal_1.10 ]: “There are some who affirm that the Aborigines, from whom the Romans are originally descended, were natives of Italy, a stock which came into being spontaneously (I call Italy all that peninsula which is bounded by the Ionian Gulf and the Tyrrhenian Sea and, thirdly, by the region where the Latins live).  The Aborigines were called “founders of families” or “ancestors"; but others claim that they were called “vagabonds", coming together out of many places.  Still others have a story to the effect that they were foreigners who came there from Libya.  But some of the Roman historians say that they were Greeks, part of those who once dwelt in Achaea, and that they migrated to there many generations before the Trojan war.” 
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Then he adds: “It is uncertain, therefore, what the truth of the matter is.  But in my opinion, the Aborigines can be a colony of no other people but of those who are now called Arcadians; for these were the first of all the Greeks to cross the Ionian Gulf, under the leadership of Oenotrus, the son of Lycaon, and to settle in Italy; this Oenotrus was the fifth from (?) Aezeius and Phoroneus, seventeen generations before the Trojan war.  Oenotrus settled in the mountains, and called the region Oenotria, and its inhabitants Oenotrians.  Later they were called Italians, from king Italus, who also gave the name of Italy to the whole country.  (269) Italus was succeeded by Morges, from whose name they were called Morgetes.  And at the same time as Oenotrus, his brother Peucetius came as a colonist from Arcadia, and settled by the Junian bay, and from his name the people were called Peucetii.” 
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After giving his own opinion about all of this, he then says that the Pelasgian colonists migrated from Greece, and settled in the country of the Italians among the Aborigines.  The Pelasgians were also called Tyrrheni [Etruscans] and the whole region was called Tyrrhenia, from the name of one of their leaders, who was called Tyrrhenus.  Later, Euander arrived with a fleet from Greece, from the city of Pallantium in Arcadia, and he settled in the region of Italy around the site of the future city of Rome.  [Dionysius] says that the Arcadians brought the Greek alphabet to Italy, along with the musical instruments called nablia, or lyres, and a set of laws.  After them, Heracles arrived with a Greek fleet and settled in the same region.  At first, he was called Saturnius, and from his name the whole region was called Saturnia.  Heracles had a son called Latinus, and he too ruled over the land of the Aborigines; from his name, they were called Latins.  When Latinus died without any sons, Aeneias the son of Anchises succeeded him as king. 
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He summarises all this again in the following words [ DionHal_1.60 ]: “The people who came together there, and mingled with the native population of the land, from whom the Roman race was sprung, before the present inhabitants of the city, were as follows.  Firstly, the Aborigines, who drove the Sicels out of this region; they were Greeks, originally from the Peloponnese, who came as colonists with Oenotrus, from the region which is now called Arcadia, in my opinion.  Secondly, the Thessalians migrated there, from the country which used to be called Haemonia, and is now called Thessaly.  Thirdly, the Pelasgians, who arrived with Euander from the city of Pallantium in Arcadia.  Then another group arrived, who were part of the Peloponnesian army commanded by Heracles.  Lastly, the Trojans who escaped with Aeneias from Ilium, Dardanus and the other Trojan towns.” 
 
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