# Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Umbria

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Of the Umbrians political and municipal organization little is known. In addition to the city (tola) they seem to have had a larger territorial division in the tribus (trifu, ace.) as we gather from Livy (xxxi. 2, per Umbriam quam tribum Sapiniam vocant; ef. xxxiii. 37) and from the Eugubine Tables (trifor Tarsinates, vi. B. 54). From the fertility of their land their communities were very prosperous. The olive and vine flourished in their valleys; they grew spelt abundantly; and the boars of Umbria were famous. Ancient authors describe the Umbrians as leading effeminate lives, and as closely resembling their Etruscan enemies in their habits (Theopompus, fragm. 142; Pseudo-Scymnus, 366-8). It is almost certain that each race influenced and modified the other to a large extent. Mommsen has pointed out that the names of many towns in Etruria are Umbrian, a fact which shows how persistent even after conquest was their influence in that region. On the other hand, we have conclusive proof of strong Etruscan influences in Umbria. For instance, they undoubtedly borrowed their alphabet and the art of writing from the Etruscans. Their writing runs from right to left. The alphabet consists of nineteen letters. It has no separate symbols for 0, G, Q; the aspirates &lt;t&gt; and x are wanting; on the other hand, it possesses forms for Z and V, and has likewise the Etruscan /( 8 ). It also has a symbol d peculiar to itself for expressing the sound of palatal k when followed by either e or i. It is also very probable that they borrowed the art of coining money from Etruria. Two towns are known to have issued coins, which consist entirely of bronze, and belong almost entirely to the series of ees grave. The most important is that of Tuder (Todi), which must have been a place of some note. It was a strong fortress on the left bank of the Tiber on the confines of Etruria. Iguvium (Gubbio), which struck coins after the standard of Tuder, was a strong place likewise on the western or Etruscan side of the Apennines. The fact that it is only in towns on the side next Etruria that a coinage is found indicates that it was from the Etruscans they borrowed the art. The Umbrians counted their day from noon to noon. But whether they borrowed this likewise from the Etruscans we do not know (Pliny, ii. 77). In their measuring of land they employed the vorsus, a measure common to them and the Oscans (Frontinus, De Limit., p. 30), 3 J of which went to the Roman jugerum. When the Romans undertook the conquest of Italy, the most feeble resistance of all was offered to them by the Umbrians. In the great struggle between the Samnite confederacy and Rome Umbria played an insignificant part. It is probable that all through the Second Samnite "War their sympathies were altogether on the side of their Samnite kinsmen, and that some assistance was afforded by individual communities. It is not unlikely therefore that it was with a view to keep the Umbrians in check that the Romans planted a colony at Nequinum on the Nar, whose inhabitants were known as Nartes Interamnates, and who are included with the Etruscans, lapydes, and Tadinates in the list of persons who were forbidden to be e-esent at the sacred rites of Iguvium. At length in 308 B.C. the mbrians made a vigorous effort to aid the Samnites, which, had it taken place earlier in the war, might have had the most import ant influence on the issue of the struggle. As it was, it came too late; the Etruscans had already laid down their arms. The Umbrians, who threatened to march on Rome, were intercepted by Rullianus with the Roman army from Samnium on the upper Tiber, a step which the Samnites now broken could not prevent; and this was sufficient to disperse the Umbrian levies. When the Third Samnite War broke out, the Umbrians took no active part in its operations; but how their sympathies lay is evident from their affording a ready passage to the Samnite army under Gellius Egnatius on its march to Etruria, 296 B.C. When the battle of Sentinum (295) finally crushed the Samnites and Etruscans, Umbria remained in the hands of the Romans. Henceforward the process of Latinizing went on steadily, for by the 1st century B.C. we find them employing the Latin alphabet in copies of the ancient sacerdotal ritual of Iguvium (see {{EB9 article link|Eugubine Tables). We know that the Oscan language only finally expired in the 1st century of our era, and there is no reason for believing that the Umbrian had disappeared much earlier. When the Romans conquered tho k Senones, 280 B.C., the Ager Gallicus was restored to Umbria, and both together formed under the empire the sixth region of Italy.
Strabo (v. 227) regards Ravenna as the boundary of Umbria. The Via Flaminia passed up through it from Ocriculum to Ariminum, along which lay the important towns of Narnia (Narni) Carsulse (Carsigliano), Mevania (Bevagna), Forum Flaminii, Nuceria, and Forum Sempronii. To the east lay Interamna (Terni), the probable birthplace of Tacitus, Spoletium (Spoleto), and the most important town of Camerinum on the side of the Apennines towards Picenum. On the side towards Etruria lay Tuder (Todi), Iguvium, which occupied a very advantageous position close to the main pass through the Apennines, Ameria (Amelia), and Hispellum (Spello); on the Clitumnus (Clitunno) was Assisium (Assisi), the birthplace of Propertius, whilst far to the north lay Sarsina, the birthplace of Plautus. For the position of the country in the time of Augustus, see vol. xiii. Plate V.
See Bréal, Les Tables Eugubines, 1875; Bücheler, Umbrica, 1883; Kirchhoff, Griech. Alphabet, 4th ed., 1887; Head, Historia Numorum, 1887.(w. ri.)