Miscellaneous Observations, 693 though it might have been built after the introduction of the Latin language into Etruria. Micali however (Vol. ii. p. 215. n. 84) appears to object incorrectly to Niebuhr's sub- stitution of Volnius for Vohimnius in Varro de L. L. iv. Q. Ut Volumnius dicebat qui tragoedias Tuscas scripsit (Vol. i. n. 375)5 on the ground that the Volumnian family often occurs in inscriptions of Perugia; for Niebuhr distinctly states that Volnius is the reading of the Florentine MS. and that Volumnius is an unauthorized correction of the editors. Mr Micali thinks that the dualism^ or the existence of a good and evil principle, as in the Egyptian and Persian religions, was the basis of the Etruscan mythology (Vol. 11. p. 125), and he derives from Egypt the ancient architecture and sculpture of the Etruscans (ibid. p. 250—7). On the great uncertainty of arguments which infer connexion from mere similarity of style, I refer Mr Micali to his own remarks on the relation between the ancient buildings of Greece and Italy. " Un- doubtedly (he says) there is no foundation for the opinion that every building with polygonal stones is of vast antiquity ; still less, for the strange hypothesis, that all the Italian build- ings of that kind were left by the Pelasgians : chiefly, it is said, on account of the manifest resemblance which the build- ings in Italy have to the walls of some cities in ancient Greece, called by a fancy of poets Cyclopian, and also to those of Tiryus and Mycenae : as if so rude a style of building had not been common to other nations, neither of Italy nor Greece, or had its workmanship alone any thing wonderful.**' (Vol. i, p. 211.) Against the introduction of foreign legends in the early Italian story, and the confusion of the Hellenic and Italian religions, Mr Micali has argued with much force, and he illus- trates by many examples the spirit of servile imitation which transferred the names and attributes of Grecian to Roman deities, and engrafted the Hellenic on the Italian mythology (Vol. II. p. 175) : but the argument which he would derive from the non-occurrence of Apollo in the Etruscan and early Roman mythology, against the presence of Pelasgians in Italy cannot avail any thing, if Miiller's theory of the origin of the worship of Apollo among the Dorians is to be allowed (ibid, p. 148.)
