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The Latin people may thus be regarded as composed of two distinct races, both of them members of the great Indo-Teutonic family, but belonging to different branches of that family, the one more closely related to the Greek or Pelasgic stock, the other to that race which, under the various forms of Umbrian, Oscan and Sabellian, constituted the basis of the greater part of the population of Central Italy. [ITALIA.]

But whatever value may be attached to the historical traditions above cited, it is certain that the two elements of the Latin people had become indissolubly blended before the period when it first appears in history: the Latin nation, as well as the Latin language, is always regarded by Roman writers as one organic whole.

from those which surrounded them, from the Vol- | accordance with the inferences to be drawn from scians and Aequians on the one hand, as well as several of the historical traditions or statements transfrom the Sabines and Etruscans on the other. But mitted to us. Thus Cato represented the Aborigines the views and traditions recorded by the same (whom he appears to have identified with the Siculi) writers concur also in representing them as a mixed as of Hellenic or Greek extraction (Cato, ap. Dionys. people, produced by the blending of different races, i. 11, 13), by which Roman writers often mean noand not as the pure descendants of one common thing more than Pelasgic: and the Siculi, where they stock. The legend most commonly adopted, and reappear in the S. of Italy, are found indissolubly which gradually became firmly established in the connected with the Oenotrians, a race whose Pelasgic popular belief, was that which represented Latium origin is well established. [SICULI.] as inhabited by a people termed Aborigines, who received, shortly after the Trojan War, a colony or band of emigrant Trojans under their king Aeneas. At the time of the arrival of these strangers the Aborigines were governed by a king named Latinus, and it was not till after the death of Latinus and the union of the two races under the rule of Aeneas, that the combined people assumed the name of Latini. (Liv. i. 1, 2; Dionys. i. 45, 60; Strab. v. p. 229; Appian, Rom. i. 1.) But a tradition, which has much more the character of a national one, preserved to us on the authority both of Varro and Cato, represents the population of Latium, as it existed previous to the Trojan colony, as already of a mixed character, and resulting from the union of a conquering race, who descended from the Central Apennines about Reate, with a people We may safely refuse to admit the existence of a whom they found already established in the plains third element, as representing the Trojan settlers, who, of Latium, and who bore the name of Siculi. It is according to the tradition commonly adopted by the strange that Varro (according to Dionysius) gave Romans themselves, formed an integral portion of the the name of Aborigines, which must originally have Latin nation. The legend of the arrival of Aeneas been applied or adopted in the sense of Autochthones, and the Trojan colony is, in all probability, a mere as the indigenous inhabitants of the country [ABO-fiction adopted from the Greeks (Schwegler, Röm. RIGINES], to these foreign invaders from the north. | Gesch. vol. i. pp. 310-326); though it may have Cato apparently used it in the more natural signification as applied to the previously existing population, the same which were called by Dionysius and Varro, Siculi. (Varr. ap. Dionys. i. 9, 10; Cato, ap. Priscian. v. 12. § 65.) But though it is impossible to receive the statement of Varro with regard to the name of the invading population, the fact of such a migration having taken place may be fairly admitted as worthy of credit, and is in accordance with all else that we know of the progress of the population of Central Italy, and the course of the several successive waves of emigration that descended along the central line of the Apennines. [ITALIA, PP. 84, 85.]

found some adventitious support from the existence of usages and religious rites which, being of Pelasgic origin, recalled those found among the Pelasgic races on the shores of the Aegean Sea. And it is in accordance with this view that we find traces of similar legends connected with the worship of Aeneas and the Penates at different points along the coasts of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, all the way from the Troad to Latium. (Dionys. i. 46–55; Klausen, Aeneas u. die Penaten, book 3.) The worship of the Penates at Lavinium in particular would seem to have been closely connected with the Cabeiric worship so prevalent among the Pelasgians, and hence probably that city was selected as the supposed capital of the Trojans on their first settlement in Italy.

The authority of Varro is here also confirmed by the result of modern philological researches. Niebuhr But though these traditions, as well as the sacred was the first to point out that the Latin language rites which continued to be practised down to a late bore in itself the traces of a composite character, and period of the Roman power, point to Lavinium as the was made up of two distinct elements; the one nearly ancient metropolis of Latium, which retained its saresembling the Greek, and therefore probably derived cred character as such long after its political power from a Pelasgic source; the other closely connected had disappeared, all the earliest traditions represent with the Oscan and Umbrian dialects of Central Alba, and not Lavinium, as the chief city of the LaItaly. To this he adds the important observation, tins when that people first appears in connection with that the terms connected with war and arms belong Rome. It is possible that Alba was the capital of the almost exclusively to the latter class, while those of conquering Oscan race, as Lavinium had been that agriculture and domestic life have for the most part of the conquered Pelasgians, and that there was thus a strong resemblance to the corresponding Greek some historical foundation for the legend of the transterms. (Niebuhr, vol. i. pp. 82, 83; Donaldson, Var-ference of the supreme power from the one to the ronianus, p. 3.) We may hence fairly infer that the conquering people from the north was a race akin to the Oscans, Sabines and Umbrians, whom we find in historical times settled in the same or adjoining regions of the Apennines: and that the inhabitants of the plains whom they reduced to subjection, and with whom they became gradually mingled (like the Normans with the Saxons in England) were a race of Pelasgic extraction. This last circumstance is in

other: but no such supposition can claim to rank as more than a conjecture. On the other hand, we may fairly admit as historical the fact, that, at the period of the foundation or first origin of Rome, the Latin people constituted a national league, composed of numerous independent cities, at the head of which stood Alba, which exercised a certain supremacy over the rest. This vague superiority, arising probably from its greater actual power, appears to have given rise

to the notion that Alba was in another sense the metropolis of Latium, and that all, or at any rate the greater part, of the cities of Latium were merely colonies of Alba. So far was this idea carried, that we find expressly enumerated in the list of such colonies places like Ardea, Tusculum, and Praeneste, which, according to other traditions generally received, were more ancient than Alba itself. (Liv. i. 52; Dionys. iii. 34; Diod. vii. ap. Euseb. Arm. p. 185; Vict. Orig. Gent. Rom. 17.) [ALBA LONGA.]

Pliny has, however, preserved to us a statement of a very different stamp, according to which there were thirty towns or communities, which he terms the "populi Albenses," that were accustomed to share in the sacrifices on the Alban Mount. Many of these names are now obscure or unknown, several others appear to have been always inconsiderable places, while a few only subsequently figure among the well-known cities of Latium. It is therefore highly probable that we have here an authentic record, preserved from ancient times, of a league which actually subsisted at a very early period, before Alba became the head of the more important and better known confederacy of the Latins in general. Of the towns thus enumerated, those whose situation can be determined with any certainty were all (with the remarkable exception of Fidenae) situated in the immediate neighbourhood of the Alban Hills; and thus appear to have been grouped around Alba as their natural centre. Among them we find Bola, Pedum, Toleria, and Vitellia on the N. of the Alban Hills, and Corioli, Longula, and Pollusca on the S. of the same group. On the other hand, the more powerful cities of Aricia, Lanuvium, and Tusculum, though so much nearer to Alba, are not included in this list. But there is a remarkable statement of Cato (ap. Priscian. iv. p. 629), in which he speaks of the celebrated temple of Diana at Aricia, as founded in common by the people of Tusculum, Aricia, Lanuvium, Laurentum, Cora, Tibur, Pometia, Ardea, and the Rutuli, that seems to point to the existence of a separate, and, as it were, counter league, subsisting at the same time with that of which Alba was the head. All these minor unions would seem, however, to have ultimately been merged in the general confederacy of the Latins, of which, according to the tradition universally adopted by Roman writers, Alba was the acknow. ledged head.

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has been generally rejected as untenable. But it is difficult to believe that a people could ever have called themselves "the old Latins:" and yet it seems certain that the name was so used, both from its occurrence in the formula just referred to (which was in all probability borrowed from the old law books of the Fetiales), and from the circumstance that we find the name almost solely in connection with the wars of Ancus Marcius and Tarquinius Priscus (Liv. i. 32, 33, 38); and it never occurs at a later period. Hence it seems impossible to suppose that it was used as a term of distinction for the Latins properly so called, or inhabitants of Latium Antiquum, as contradistinguished from the Aequians, Volscians, and other nations subsequently included in Latium : a supposition adopted by several modern writers. On the other hand the name does not occur in the Roman history, prior to the destruction of Alba, and perhaps the most plausible conjecture is that the name was one assumed by a league or confederacy of the Latin cities, established after the fall of Alba, but who thus asserted their claim to represent the original and ancient Latin people. It must be admitted that this explanation seems wholly at variance with the statement that the Prisci Latini were the colonies of Alba, which is found both in Livy and Dionysius (Liv. i. 3; Dionys. i. 45), but this probably meant to convey nothing more than the notion already noticed, that all the cities of Latium were founded by such colonies. Livy, at least, seems certainly to regard the "Prisci Latini" as equivalent to the whole Latin nation, and not as a part contradistinguished from the rest. (Liv. i. 38.)

2. Relations of the Latins with Rome. As the first historical appearance of the Latins is that of a confederation of different cities, of which Alba was the head, so the fall and destruction of Alba may be regarded as the first event in their annals which can be termed historical. The circumstances transmitted to us in connection with this are undoubtedly poetical fictions; but the main fact of the destruction of the city and downfal of its power is well established. This event must have been followed by a complete derangement in the previously existing relations. Rome appears to have speedily put forth a claim to the supremacy which Alba had previously exercised (Dionys. iii. 34); but it is evident that this was not acknowledged by the other cities of Latium; and the Prisci Latini, whose name appears in history only during this period, probably formed a separate league of their own. It was not long, however, before the Romans succeeded in establishing their superiority: and the statement of the Roman annals, that the Latin league was renewed under Tarquinius Superbus, and the supremacy of that monarch acknow

Another people whose name appears in all the earliest historical traditions of Latium, but who had become completely merged in the general body of the Latin nation, before we arrive at the historical period, was that of the Rutuli. Their capital was Ardea, a city to which a Greek or Argive origin was ascribed [ARDEA]; if any value can be attached to such traditions, they may be regarded as pointing to a Pelasgic origin of the Rutuli; and Niebuhr ex-ledged by all the other cities that composed it, derives plains the traditionary greatness of Ardea by supposing it to have been the chief city of maritime Latium, while it was still in the hands of the Pelasgians. (Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 44, vol. ii. p. 21.)

One of the most difficult questions connected with the early history of Latium is the meaning and origin of the term "Prisci Latini," which we find applied by many Roman writers to the cities of the Latin League, and which occurs in a formula given by Livy that has every appearance of being very ancient. (Liv. i. 32.) It may safely be assumed that the term means "Old Latins," and Niebuhr's idea that Prisci was itself a national appellation

a strong confirmation from the more authentic testimony of the treaty between Rome and Carthage, preserved to us by Polybius (iii. 22). In this important document, which dates from the year immediately following the expulsion of the kings (B. C. 509), Rome appears as stipulating on behalf of the people of Ardea, Antium, Laurentum, Circeii, Tarracina, and the other subject (or dependent) cities of Latium, and even making conditions in regard to the whole Latin territory, as if it was subject to its rule. But the state of things which appears to have been at this time fully established, was broken up soon after; whether in consequence of the revolution at

Rome which led to the abolition of the kingly power, | very much weakened. The more powerful cities or from some other cause, we know not. The Latin cities became wholly independent of Rome; and though the war which was marked by the great battle at the lake Regillus has been dressed up in the legendary history with so much of fiction as to render it difficult to attach any historical value to the traditions connected with it, there is no reason to doubt the fact that the Latins had at this time shaken off the supremacy of Rome, and that a war between the two powers was the result. Not long after this, in B. C. 493, a treaty was concluded with them by Sp. Cassius, which determined their relations with Rome for a long period of time. (Liv. ii. 33; Dionys. vi. 96; Cic. pro Balb. 23.)

By the treaty thus concluded the Romans and Latins entered into an alliance as equal and independent states. both for offence and defence: all booty or conquered territory was to be shared between them; and there is much reason to believe that the supreme command of the allied armies was to be held in alternate years by the Roman and Latin generals. (Dionys. l. c.; Nieb. vol. ii. p. 40.) The Latin cities, which at this time composed the league or confederacy, were thirty in number: a list of them is given by Dionysius in another passage (v. 61), but which, in all probability, was derived from the treaty in question (Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 23). They were:-Ardea, Aricia, Bovillae, Bubentuin, Corniculum, Carventum, Circeii, Corioli, Corbio, Cora, Fortinei (?), Gabii, Laurentum, Lavinium, Lanuvium, Labicum, Nomentum, Norba, Praeneste, Pedum, Querquetulum, Satricum, Scaptia, Setia, Tellenae, Tibur, Tusculum, Toleria, Tricrinum (?), Velitrae. The number thirty appears to have been a recognised and established one, not dependent upon accidental changes and fluctuations: the cities which composed the old league under the supremacy of Alba are also represented as thirty in number (Dionys. iii. 34), and the "populi Albenses," which formed the smaller and closer union under the same head, were, according to Pliny's list, just thirty. It is therefore quite in accordance with the usages of ancient nations that the league when formed anew should consist as before of thirty cities, though these could not have been the same as previously composed it.

are found acting with a degree of independence to
which there is no parallel in earlier times: thus, in
B. C. 383, the Lanuvians formed an alliance with
the Volscians, and Praeneste declared itself hostile
to Rome, while Tusculum, Gabii, and Labicum con-
tinued on friendly terms with the republic. (Id.
vi. 21.) In B. c. 380 the Romans were at open war
with the Praenestines, and in B. c. 360 with the
Tiburtines, but in neither instance do the other cities
of Latium appear to have joined in the war. (Id.
vi. 27-29, vii. 10-12, 18, 19.) The repeated
invasions of the Gauls, whose armies traversed the
Latin territory year after year, tended to increase
the confusion and disorder: nevertheless the Latin
League, though much disorganised, was never
broken up; and the cities composing it still con-
tinued to hold their meetings at the Lucus Feren-
tinae, to deliberate on their common interests and
policy. (Id. vii. 25.) In B. c. 358 the league
with Rome appears to have been renewed upon the
same terms as before; and in that year the Latins,
for the first time after a long interval, sent their
contingent to the Roman armies. (Liv. vii. 12.)
At length, in B. C. 340, the Latins, who had
adhered faithfully to their alliance during the First
Samnite War, appear to have been roused to a
sense of the increasing power of Rome, and became
conscious that, under the shadow of an equal alliance,
they were gradually passing into a state of depen-
dence and servitude. (Id. viii. 4.) Hence, after
a vain appeal to Rome for the establishment of a
more equitable arrangement, the Latins, as well as
the Volscians, took part with the Campanians in the
war of that year, and shared in their memorable
defeat at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. Even on
this occasion, however, the councils of the Latins
were divided: the Laurentes at least, and probably
the Lavimans also, remained faithful to the Roman
cause, while Signia, Setia, Circeii, and Velitrae,
though regarded as Roman colonies, were among the
most prominent in the war. (Id. viii. 3—11.) The
contest was renewed the next year with various suc-
cess; but in B. C. 338 Furius Camillus defeated
the forces of the Latins in a great battle at Pedum,
while the other consul, C. Maenius, obtained a not
less decisive victory on the river Astura. The
struggle was now at an end; the Latin cities sub-
mitted one after the other, and the Roman senate
pronounced separately on the fate of each. The
first great object of the arrangements now made
was to deprive the Latins of all bonds of national or
social unity: for this purpose not only were they
prohibited from holding general councils or assem-
blies, but the several cities were deprived of the
mutual rights of "connubium" and "cominercium,”
so as to isolate each little community from its neigh-
bours. Tibur and Praeneste, the two most powerful
cities of the confederacy, and which had taken a
prominent part in the war, were deprived of a large
portion of their territory, but continued to exist as
nominally independent communities, retaining their

The object of this alliance between Rome and Latium was Lo doubt to oppose a barrier to the rapidly advancing power of the Aequians and Volscians. With the same view the Hernicans were soon after admitted to participate in it (B. C. 486); and from this time for more than a century the Latins continued to be the faithful allies of Rome, and shared alike in her victories and reverses during her long and arduous struggle with their warlike neighbours. (Liv. vi. 2.) A shock was given to these friendly relations by the Gaulish War and the capture of Rome in B. C. 390: the calamity which then befel the city appears to have incited some of her nearest neighbours and most faithful allies to take up arms against her. (Varr. L. L. vi. 18; Liv. vi. 2.) The Latins and Hernicans are repre-own laws, and the old treaties with them were resented as not only refusing their contingent to the Roman armies, but supporting and assisting the Volscians against them; and though they still avoided as long as possible an open breach with Rome, it seems evident that the former close alliance between them was virtually at an end. (Liv. vi. 6, 7. 10, 11, 17.) But it would appear that the bond of union of the Latin League itself was, by this time,

newed, so that as late as the time of Polybius a Roman citizen might choose Tibur or Praeneste as a place of exile. (Liv. xliii. 2; Pol. vi. 14.) Tusculum, on the contrary, received the Roman franchise; as did Lanuvium, Aricia, Pedum, and Nomentum, though these last appear to have, in the first instance, received only the imperfect citizenship without the right of suffrage. Velitrae was

more severely punished; but the people of this city also were soon after admitted to the Roman franchise, and the creation shortly after of the Maecian and Scaptian tribes was designed to include the new citizens added to the republic as the result of these arrangements. (Liv. viii. 14, 17; Niebuhr, vol. iii. pp. 140-145.)

From this time the Latins as a nation may be said to disappear from history: they became gradually more and more blended into one mass with the Roman people; and though the formula of "the allies and Latin nation" (socii et nomen Latinum) is one of perpetual occurrence from this time forth in the Roman history, it must be remembered that this phrase includes also the citizens of the so-called Latin colonies, who formed a body far superior in importance and numbers to the remains of the old Latin people. [ITALIA, p. 90.]

In the above historical review, the history of the old Latins, or the Latins properly so called, has been studiously kept separate from that of the other nations which were subsequently included under the general appellation of Latium,-the Aequians, Hernicans, Volscians, and Ausonians. The history of these several tribes, as long as they sustained a separate national existence, will be found under their respective names. It may suffice here to mention that the Hernicans were reduced to complete subjection to Rome in B. c. 306, and the Aequians in B. C. 304; the period of the final subjugation of the Volscians is more uncertain, but we meet with no mention of them in arms after the capture of Privernum in B. c. 329; and it seems certain that they, as well as the Ausonian cities which adjoined them, had fallen into the power of Rome before the commencement of the Second Samnite War, B. c. 326. [VOLSCI.] Hence, the whole of the country subsequently known as Latium had become finally subject to Rome before the year 300 B. C.

the Roman nobles, and the fertile slopes of the Alban Hills and the Apennines were studded with villas and gardens, to which the wealthier citizens of the metropolis used to retire in order to avoid the heat or bustle of Rome. But the plain immediately around the city, or the Campagna, as it is now called, seems to have lost rather than gained by its proximity to the capital. Livy, in more than one passage, speaks with astonishment of the inexhaustible resources which the infant republic appears to have possessed, as compared with the condition of the same territory in his own time. (Liv. vi. 12, vii. 25.) We learn from Cicero that Gabii, Labicum, Collatia, Fidenae, and Bovillae were in his time sunk into almost complete decay, while even those towns, such as Aricia and Lanuvium, which were in a comparatively flourishing condition, were still very inferior to the opulent municipal towns of Campania. (Cic. pro Planc. 9, de Leg. Agrar. ii. 35.) Nor did this state of things become materially improved even under the Roman Empire. The whole Laurentine tract, or the woody district adjoining the sea-coast, as well as the adjacent territory of Ardea, had already come to be regarded as unhealthy, and was therefore thinly inhabited. In other parts of the Campagna single farms or villages already occupied the sites of ancient cities, such as Antemnae, Collatia, Fidenae, &c. (Strab. v. p. 230); and Pliny gives a long list of cities of ancient Latium which in his time had altogether ceased to exist. (Plin. iii. 6. s. 9.) The great lines of highway, the Appian, Latin, Salarian, and Valerian Ways, became the means of collecting a considerable population along their immediate lines, but appear to have had rather a contrary effect in regard to all intermediate tracts. The notices that we find of the attempts made by successive emperors to recruit the decaying population of many of the towns of Latium with fresh colonies, sufficiently show how far they were from sharing in the prosperity of the capital; while, on the other hand, these colonies seem to have for the most part succeeded only in giving a delusive air of splendour to the towns in question, without laying the foundation of any real and permanent improvement.

3. Latium under the Romans.-The history of Latium, properly speaking, ends with the breaking up of the Latin League. Although some of the cities continued, as already mentioned, to retain a nominal independence down to a late period, and it was not till after the outbreak of the Social War, in B.C. For many ages its immediate proximity to the 90, that the Lex Julia at length conferred upon all capital at least secured Latium from the ravages of the Latins, without exception, the rights of Roman foreign invaders; but when, towards the decline of citizens, they had long before lost all traces of na- the Empire, this ceased to be the case, and each suctional distinction. The only events in the interven-cessive swarm of barbarians carried their arms up ing period which belong to the history of Latium are inseparably bound up with that of Rome. Such was the invasion by Pyrrhus in B.C. 280, who advanced however only as far as Praeneste, from whence he looked down upon the plain around Rome, but without venturing to descend into it. (Eutrop. ii. 12; Flor. i. 18. § 24.) In the Second Punic War, how ever, Hannibal, advancing like Pyrrhus by the line of the Via Latina, established his camp within four miles of the city, and carried his ravages up to the very gates of Rome. (Liv. xxvi. 9-11; Pol. ix. 6.) This was the last time for many centuries that Latium witnessed the presence of a foreign hostile army; but it suffered severely in the civil wars of Marius and Sulla, and the whole tract near the sea-coast especially was ravaged by the Samnite auxiliaries of the former in a manner that it seems never to have recovered (Strab. v. p. 232.)

Before the close of the Republic Latium appears to have lapsed almost completely into the condition of the mere suburban district of Rome. Tibur, Tusculum, and Praeneste became the favourite resorts of

to the very gates and walls of Rome, the district immediately round the city probably suffered more severely than any other. Before the fall of the Western Empire the Campagna seems to have been reduced almost to a desert, and the evil must have been continually augmented after that period by the long continued wars with the Gothic kings, as well as subsequently with the Lombards, who, though they never made themselves masters of Rome itself, repeatedly laid waste the surrounding territory. All the records of the middle ages represent to us the Roman Campagna as reduced to a state of complete desolation, from which it has never more than partially recovered.

In the division of Italy under Augustus, Latium, in the wider sense of the term, together with Campania, constituted the First Region. (Plin. iii. 5. s. 9.) But gradually, for what reason we know not, the name of Campania came to be generally employed to designate the whole region; while that of Latium fell completely into disuse. Hence the origin of the name of La Campagna di Roma, by

which the ancient Latium is known in modern | brating a triumph on the Alban Mount was derived times. [CAMPANIA, p. 494.]

V. POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS.

It is for the most part impossible to separate the Latin element of the Roman character and institutions from that which they derived from the Sabines: at the same time we know that the connection between the Romans and the Latins was so intimate, that we may generally regard the Roman sacred rites, as well as their political institutions, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, as of Latin origin. But it would be obviously here out of place to enter into any detail as to those parts of the Latin institutions which were common to the two nations. A few words may, however, be added, concerning the constitution of the Latin League, as it existed in its independent form. This was composed, as has been already stated, of thirty cities, all apparently, in name at least, equal and independent, though they certainly at one time admitted a kind of presiding authority or supremacy on the part of Alba, and at a later period on that of Rome. The general councils or assemblies of deputies from the several cities were held at the Lucus Ferentinae, in the immediate neighbourhood of Alba; a custom which was evidently connected in the first instance with the supremacy of that city, but which was retained after the presidency had devolved on Rome, and down to the great Latin War of B. C. 340. (Cincius, ap. Fest. v. Praetor, p. 241.) Each city had undoubtedly the sole direction of its own affairs: the chief magistrate was termed a Dictator, a title borrowed from the Latins by the Romans, and which continued to be employed as the name of a municipal magistracy by the Latin cities long after they had lost their independence. It is remarkable that, with the exception of the mythical or fictitious kings of Alba, we meet with no trace of monarchical government in Latium; and if the account given by Cato of the consecration of the temple of Diana at Aricia can be trusted, even at that early period each city had its chief magistrate, with the title of dictator. (Cato, ap. Priscian. iv. p. 629.) They must necessarily have had a chief magistrate, on whom the command of the forces of the whole League would devolve in time of war, as is represented as being the case with Mamilius Octavius at the battle of Regillus. But such a commander may probably have been specially chosen for each particular occasion. On the other hand, Livy speaks in B. C. 340 of C. Annius of Setia and L. Numisius of Circeii, as the two "practors of the Latins," as if this were a customary and regular magistracy. (Liv. viii. 3.) Of the internal government or constitution of the individual Latin cities | we have no knowledge at all, except what we may gather from the analogy of those of Rome or of their later municipal institutions.

As the Lucus Ferentinae, in the neighbourhood of Alba, was the established place of meeting for political purposes of all the Latin cities, so the temple of Jupiter, on the summit of the Alban Mount (Monte Cavo), was the central sanctuary of the whole Latin people, where sacrifices were offered on their behalf at the Feriae Latinae, in which every city was bound to participate, a custom retained down to a very late period by the Romans themselves. (Liv. xxxii. 1; Cic. pro Planc. 9; Plin. iii. 6. s. 9.) In like manner there can be no doubt that the custom sometimes adopted by Roman generals of cele

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from the times of Latin independence, when the temple of Jupiter Latiaris was the natural end of such a procession, just as that of Jupiter Capitolinus was at Rome.

Among the deities especially worshipped by the Romans, it may suffice to mention, as apparently of peculiarly Latin origin, Janus, Saturnus, Faunus, and Picus. The latter seems to have been so closely connected with Mars, that he was probably only another form of the same deity. Janus was originally a god of the sun, answering to Jana or Diana, the goddess of the moon. Saturnus was a terrestrial deity, regarded as the inventor of agriculture and of all the most essential improvements of life. Hence he came to be regarded by the pragmatical mythologers of later times as a very ancient king of Latium; and by degrees Janus, Saturnus, Picus, and Faunus became established as successive kings of the earliest Latins or Aborigines. To complete the series Latinus was made the son of Faunus. This last appears as a gloomy and mysterious being, probably originally connected with the infernal deities; but who figures in the mythology received in later times partly as a patron of agriculture, partly as a giver of oracles. (Hartung, Religion der Römer. vol. ii.; Schwegler, R. G. vol. i. pp. 212-234.)

The worship of the Penates also, though not peculiar to Latium, seems to have formed an integral and important part of the Latin religion. The Penates at Lavinium were regarded as the tutelary gods of the whole Latin people, and as such continued to be the object of the most scrupulous reverence to the Romans themselves down quite to the extinction of Paganism. Every Roman consul or praetor, upon first entering on his magistracy, was bound to repair to Lavinium, and there offer sacrifices to the Penates, as well as to Vesta, whose worship was closely connected with them. (Macrob. Sat. iii. 4; Varr. L.L. v. 144.) This custom points to Lavinium as having been at one time, probably before the rise of Alba, the sacred metropolis of Latium: and it may very probably have been, at the same early period, the political capital or head of the Latin confederacy.

VI. TOPOGRAPHY.

The principal physical features of Latium have already been described; but it remains here to notice the minor rivers and streams, as well as the names of some particular hills or mountain heights which have been transmitted to us.

Of the several small rivers which have their rise at the foot of the Alban hills, and flow from thence to the sea between the mouth of the Tiber and Antium, the only one of which the ancient name is preserved is the NUMICIUS, which may be identified with the stream now called Rio Torto, between Lavinium and Ardea. The ASTURA, rising also at the foot of the Alban hills near Velletri, and flowing from thence in a SW. direction, enters the sea a little to the S. of the promontory of Astura: it is now known in the lower part of its course as the Fiume di Conca, but the several small streams by the confluence of which it is formed have each their separate appellation. The NYMPHAEUS, mentioned by Pliny (iii. 5. s. 9), and still called La Ninfa, rises immediately at the foot of the Volscian mountains, just below the city of Norba: in Pliny's time it appears to have had an independent course to the sea, but now loses itself in the Pontine Marshes,

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