-arrabo-, -arra-); and conversely from the adoption of Italian
law-terms in Sicilian Greek,(22) as well as from the exchange of
the proportions and names of coins, weights, and measures, which
we shall notice in the sequel. The character of barbarism which
all these borrowed terms obviously present, and especially the
characteristic formation of the nominative from the accusative
(-placenta- = --plakounta--; -ampora- = --amphorea--; -statera-=
--stateira--), constitute the clearest evidence of their great
antiquity. The worship of the god of traffic (-Mercurius-) also
appears to have been from the first influenced by Greek conceptions;
and his annual festival seems even to have been fixed on the ides
of May, because the Hellenic poets celebrated him as the son of
the beautiful Maia.


Commerce, in Latium Passive, in Etruria Active


It thus appears that Italy in very ancient times derived
its articles of luxury, just as imperial Rome did, from the East,
before it attempted to manufacture for itself after the models which
it imported. In exchange it had nothing to offer except its raw
produce, consisting especially of its copper, silver, and iron,
but including also slaves and timber for shipbuilding, amber from
the Baltic, and, in the event of bad harvests occurring abroad, its
grain. From this state of things as to the commodities in demand
and the equivalents to be offered in return, we have already
explained why Italian traffic assumed in Latium a form so differing
from that which it presented in Etruria. The Latins, who were
deficient in all the chief articles of export, could carry on only