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Latin law was not of necessity identical with Roman, the league naturally brought the two into more complete harmony with one another. The difference between the position occupied by Rome and that formerly held by Alba, was that the honorary presidency of the latter was replaced by the real supremacy of the former. Rome was not, as Alba, a mere member of the league, and included within it, but rather existed alongside it; this is shown by the composition of the federal army, the Roman and Latin force being of equal strength, and the supreme command being held by Rome and Latium alternately. In accordance with this principle, all land and other property acquired in war by the league was divided equally between Rome and Latium. Each Latin community retained its own independent constitution and administration, so far as its obligations to the league were not concerned; and the league of the thirty Latin communities retained its independence, and had its own federal council, in contradistinction to the self-government and council of Rome. As to the treatment of those Latin communities which, like Alba, were actually subjugated by Rome, the circumstances of each particular case doubtless decided the question, as to whether the inhabitants of a conquered town were forced to migrate to Rome, or allowed to remain in the open villages of their old district. Strongholds in all cases were razed, and the conquered country was included in the Roman territory, and the vanquished farmers were taught to regard Rome as their market-center and seat of justice. Legally they occupied the position of clients, though in some cases of individuals and clans full burgess-rights were granted; this was especially the case with Alban clans. The jealousy with which the Latin cantons, and especially the Roman, guarded against the rise of colonies as rival political centers is well shown in Rome's treatment of Ostia; the latter city had no political independence, and its citizens were only allowed to retain, if they already possessed, the general burgess-rights of Rome. Thus this centralizing process, which caused the absorption of a number of smaller states in a larger one, though not essentially a Roman nor even Italian idea, was carried out more consistently and perseveringly by the Roman than by any other Italian canton; and the success of Rome, as of Athens, is doubtless due to the thorough application of this system of centralization.

Thirdly, although Rome failed to master Fidenae, it kept its hold upon Janiculum, and upon both banks at the mouth of the

Hist. Nat. III

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Tiber. In the direction of the Sabines and Aequi, Rome advanced her position, and, by the help of an alliance with the Hernici, held in check her eastern neighbors. On the south, constant wars, not without success, were waged against the Volscians and Rutulians; and in this quarter we first meet with Latin colonies, i. e., communities founded by Rome and Latium on the enemy's soil, which shows that the earliest extension of Latin territory took place in this direction.

Fourthly, in addition to this enlargement of the Latin borders towards the east and south, the city of Rome, owing to its increase of inhabitants, and commercial and political prominence, needed new defenses. In consequence the Servian wall was constructed. enlarging the old Palatine city so as to include the Aventine, Coelian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal and Capitoline hills, and the intervening spaces.1 The citadel or acropolis of the city was removed from the Palatine to the Capitoline hill, which was easier to defend, and Janiculum, the hill on the opposite bank of the Tiber, was also fortified and united by a bridge with the southern bank.

Finally the relations of Rome during the regal period with the two foreign races with which her early history is interwoven must be considered. These races are the Etruscans and the Italian Greeks. A mystery shrouds the first people as to their origin, language, race-classification, and original home. Their heavy bodily structure, gloomy and fantastic religion, strange manners and customs, and harsh language, point to their original distinctness from all Italian and Greek races. No one has been able either to decipher the numerous remains of their language or to classify with precision the language itself. Whatever was their original home, the fact of the Etruscan dialect being still spoken in Livy's time by the inhabitants of the Raetian Alps, and of Mantua remaining Tuscan to a late period, proves that Etruscans dwelt in the district north of the Po, bounded on the east by the Veneti, and on the west by the Ligurians. To the south of the Po, and at its mouths, the Umbrians, who were the older settlers, were mingled with and under the supremacy of the Etruscan immigrants; and the towns of Hatria and Spina, founded by the Umbrians, and Felsina (Bologna) and Ra

1 It is necessary to remark that this enlarged Rome was never looked upon as the "city of seven hills," which title was exclusively reserved for the narrower old Rome of the Palatine. The modern list of the seven hills, as comprising those embraced by the Servian wall, viz., Palatine, Aventine, Coelian, Esquiline, Viminal, Quirinal, Capitoline, is unknown to any ancient author.

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venna, founded by the Etruscans, point to this joint settlement; but the irruptions of the Celts forced the Etruscans early to abandon their position on the left bank of the Po, and later that on the right bank of that river.

The great settlement of the Tuscans in the land that still bears their name completely effaced all traces of Ligurian or Umbrian predecessors in that country, and maintained its position with great tenacity down to the time of the empire. Etruria proper was bounded on the east by the Apennines, on the north by the Arnus, on the south at first by the Ciminian forest, and later by the Tiber. The land north of the Arnus, as far as the mouth of the Macra and the Apennines, was debatable border territory, held now by Ligurians, now by Etruscans. The land between the Ciminian range and the Tiber, with the towns of Sutrium, Nepete, Falerii, Veii, and Caere, was occupied at a later date, possibly in the second century of Rome, and the Italian population there held its ground, though in a state of dependence. When the Tiber became the boundary, the relations between Rome and the Etruscan invader were on the whole peaceful and friendly, especially with the town of Caere. But where an Etruscan town threatened Rome's commercial position on the Tiber, as was the case with Veii, constant war naturally resulted. Any trace of Etruscans to the south of the Tiber must be ascribed to plundering expeditions by sea, never to regular land invasions; nor is there any reliable evidence of any Etruscan settlement south of the Tiber being planted by settlers who came by land.2 Traditions indicate that Tuscan settlements took place in Rome; but the undoubted fact that a house of Etruscan origin-the Tarquins-held the royal scepter does not warrant the conclusion that the Etruscans ever were dominant in Rome. There is no evidence that Etruria exercised any essential influence on the language or customs or political development of Rome. The passive attitude of Etruria towards Rome was probably due to two causes, their struggles with the Celtic hordes from the North and their seafaring tendency, which is especially shown in their Campanian settlements.

The commercial instincts of the Etruscans caused them to form cities earlier than any other Italian race. Hence Caere is the first Italian town mentioned in Greek records.

This same instinct dis

posed them less to war, and led them to employ mercenaries at a

2 Others—e.g., O. Müller and Pelham ("Encyclopædia Britannica ")—holā the contrary view.

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very early period. They were governed by kings with powers probably similar to those of Roman kings. They seem to have had a system of clans not dissimilar from that of the Romans, the nobles being marked off strictly from the common people. They were formed into loose confederacies, each consisting of twelve communities, with a metropolis and federal head, or high priest of the league. The whole nation was not embraced in one confederation, as the Etruscans in the north and those in Campania had leagues of their own, though these were so lax that they allowed, or rather preferred, that separate communities should carry on ordinary wars; nor did all the towns join, when, in exceptional cases, a war was resolved on by the confederacy. The Etruscan confederations appear to have been from the first deficient in a firm and paramount central authority.

When the tide of Greek invasion swept over Italy, it met a firm but not bitter resistance from the Latins and the inhabitants of the southern part of Etruria. Caere, in fact, attained its early prosperity by its tolerance of, and benefit from, commercial intercourse with the Greeks. But the "wild Tyrrhenians," alike on the banks of the Po and on the west coast, proved a deadly foe to the Greek intruders; they dislodged them from Aethalia (Elba) and Populonia. The depredations of Etruscan privateers were the dread of all Greek merchants, and caused the Greeks to call the western sea of Italy by their name (Tyrrhenum mare). Although the Etruscans failed to effect a settlement in Latium, or to dislodge the Greeks at Vesuvius, they held sway in Antium and Surrentum. The Volscians became their clients, and they founded a league of twelve cities in Campania. Their very piracy helped them to develop their commercial instincts; and, though at war with Italian Greeks, they were often on peaceful and intimate relations with Greece proper and Asia Minor. Their position as inhabitants of northern Italy from sea to sea, and thus commanding the mouths of the Po on the Adriatic and the great free ports on the western sea, as holding the land route from Pisae on the western coast to Spina on the eastern, and as masters in the south of the rich plains of Capua and Nola, gave them exceptional advantages, and the luxury thus speedily introduced was doubtless no small factor in their rapid decline. The part they played, as allies of the Phoenicians, and especially of the Carthaginians, in opposing Hellenic influence, belongs to another chapter; but the main result at first was to increase their trade and

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establish their naval power. Corsica, with the towns of Alalia and Nicaea, became subject to them, while Carthage seized the sister island of Sardinia.

In regard to art and religion, Livy's statement that Etruscan culture was in early times the basis of Roman education, as Greek was in later days, cannot be accepted. The chief characteristic of the Etruscan religion was a gloomy mysticism, and Etruscan art exercised very little influence on that of the Italians. Their close commercial connection with Greece in early times accounts for certain resemblances in the art of the two countries, and Tuscan skill reached its height only in those districts towards the south where Greek influence was strongest. Far from being the most cultured people in the peninsula, the Etruscans must be assigned the lowest place in the history of Italian art.

The second foreign race which deeply affected the development of Rome was the Greek, which early established itself in southern Italy. All civilizing influences reached Italy by sea, and not by land; but it is remarkable that the Phoenicians, who established. trading stations on almost every coast of the Mediterranean, have left only one trace in Italy. Their factory at Caere, however, was probably no older than the stations established by the Greeks on the same coast; and the name Poeni, which the Latins gave to the Phoenicians, was borrowed from the Greeks, and points to the probability that the Greeks introduced the Phoenicians to Italian. knowledge. The name of the Ionian sea applied to the waters between Epirus and Sicily, and that of Ionian gulf, applied by early Greeks to the Adriatic, prove that seafarers from Ionia first discovered the southern and eastern coasts of Italy. Kyme (Cumae), the oldest Greek settlement in Italy, was founded by the town of the same name on the Anatolian coast. The Phocaeans are said to have been the first to explore the western sea, and doubtless they were soon followed by other Greeks, not only from Asia Minor, but from Greece itself and the larger islands of the Aegean. These, in their new homes in southern Italy or Magna Graecia, as it was called, and in Sicily, recognizing their community of character and interests, became blended together, as in our own time different settlers from the old world have combined in their new homes in North America. These Greek colonies may be grouped in three divisions. The original Ionian group included in Italy Cumae with the other Greek settlements at Vesuvius and Rhegium, and in Sicily Zankle (later