The Beginnings of Rome
Ramnes
About fourteen miles up from the mouth of the river Tiber hills of
moderate elevation rise on both banks of the stream, higher on the
right, lower on the left bank. With the latter group there has been
closely associated for at least two thousand five hundred years the
name of the Romans. We are unable, of course, to tell how or when
that name arose; this much only is certain, that in the oldest
form of it known to us the inhabitants of the canton are called not
Romans, but Ramnians (Ramnes); and this shifting of sound, which
frequently occurs in the older period of a language, but fell very
early into abeyance in Latin,(1) is an expressive testimony to the
immemorial antiquity of the name. Its derivation cannot be given with
certainty; possibly "Ramnes" may mean "the people on the stream."
Tities, Luceres
But they were not the only dwellers on the hills by the bank
of the Tiber. In the earliest division of the burgesses of Rome a
trace has been preserved of the fact that that body arose out of
the amalgamation of three cantons once probably independent, the
Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, into a single commonwealth--in other
words, out of such a --synoikismos-- as that from which Athens
arose in Attica.(2) The great antiquity of this threefold division
of the community(3) is perhaps best evinced by the fact that the
Romans, in matters especially of constitutional law, regularly
used the forms -tribuere- ("to divide into three") and -tribus-
("a third") in the general sense of "to divide" and "a part," and
the latter expression (-tribus-), like our "quarter," early lost
its original signification of number. After the union each of these
three communities--once separate, but now forming subdivisions of
a single community--still possessed its third of the common domain,
and had its proportional representation in the burgess-force and
in the council of the elders. In ritual also, the number divisible
by three of the members of almost all the oldest colleges--of the
Vestal Virgins, the Salii, the Arval Brethren, the Luperci, the
Augurs-- probably had reference to that three-fold partition. These
three elements into which the primitive body of burgesses in Rome
was divided have had theories of the most extravagant absurdity
engrafted upon them. The irrational opinion that the Roman nation
was a mongrel people finds its support in that division, and its
advocates have striven by various means to represent the three
great Italian races as elements entering into the composition of
the primitive Rome, and to transform a people which has exhibited
in language, polity, and religion, a pure and national development
such as few have equalled, into a confused aggregate of Etruscan
and Sabine, Hellenic and, forsooth! even Pelasgian fragments.
Setting aside self-contradictory and unfounded hypotheses, we may
sum up in a few words all that can be said respecting the nationality
of the component elements of the primitive Roman commonwealth.
That the Ramnians were a Latin stock cannot be doubted, for they
gave their name to the new Roman commonwealth and therefore must have
substantially determined the nationality of the united community.
Respecting the origin of the Luceres nothing can be affirmed, except
that there is no difficulty in the way of our assigning them, like
the Ramnians, to the Latin stock. The second of these communities,
on the other hand, is with one consent derived from Sabina; and
this view can at least be traced to a tradition preserved in the
Titian brotherhood, which represented that priestly college as
having been instituted, on occasion of the Tities being admitted
into the collective community, for the preservation of their
distinctive Sabine ritual. It may be, therefore, that at a period
very remote, when the Latin and Sabellian stocks were beyond question
far less sharply contrasted in language, manners, and customs than
were the Roman and the Samnite of a later age, a Sabellian community
entered into a Latin canton-union; and, as in the older and more
credible traditions without exception the Tities take precedence
of the Ramnians, it is probable that the intruding Tities compelled
the older Ramnians to accept the --synoikismos--. A mixture
of different nationalities certainly therefore took place; but
it hardly exercised an influence greater than the migration, for
example, which occurred some centuries afterwards of the Sabine
Attus Clauzus or Appius Claudius and his clansmen and clients to
Rome. The earlier admission of the Tities among the Ramnians does
not entitle us to class the community among mongrel peoples any
more than does that subsequent reception of the Claudii among the
Romans. With the exception, perhaps, of isolated national institutions
handed down in connection with ritual, the existence of Sabellian
elements can nowhere be pointed out in Rome; and the Latin
language in particular furnishes absolutely no support to any such
hypothesis.(4) It would in fact be more than surprising, if the
Latin nation should have had its nationality in any sensible degree
affected by the insertion of a single community from a stock so
very closely related to it; and, besides, it must not be forgotten
that at the time when the Tides settled beside the Ramnians, Latin
nationality rested on Latium as its basis, and not on Rome. The new
tripartite Roman commonwealth was, notwithstanding some incidental
elements which were originally Sabellian, just what the community
of the Ramnians had previously been--a portion of the Latin nation.
Rome the Emporium of Latium
Long, in all probability, before an urban settlement arose on the
Tiber, these Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, at first separate,
afterwards united, had their stronghold on the Roman hills, and
tilled their fields from the surrounding villages. The "wolf-festival"
(Lupercalia) which the gens of the Quinctii celebrated on the
Palatine hill, was probably a tradition from these primitive times--a
festival of husbandmen and shepherds, which more than any other
preserved the homely pastimes of patriarchal simplicity, and,
singularly enough, maintained itself longer than all the other
heathen festivals in Christian Rome,
Character of Its Site
From these settlements the later Rome arose. The founding of a city
in the strict sense, such as the legend assumes, is of course to
be reckoned altogether out of the question: Rome was not built in
a day. But the serious consideration of the historian may well be
directed to the inquiry, in what way Rome can have so early attained
the prominent political position which it held in Latium--so
different from what the physical character of the locality would
have led us to anticipate. The site of Rome is less healthy and
less fertile than that of most of the old Latin towns. Neither the
vine nor the fig succeed well in the immediate environs, and there
is a want of springs yielding a good supply of water; for neither
the otherwise excellent fountain of the Camenae before the Porta
Capena, nor the Capitoline well, afterwards enclosed within the
Tullianum, furnish it in any abundance. Another disadvantage arises
from the frequency with which the river overflows its banks. Its
very slight fall renders it unable to carry off the water, which
during the rainy season descends in large quantities from the
mountains, with sufficient rapidity to the sea, and in consequence
it floods the low-lying lands and the valleys that open between the
hills, and converts them into swamps. For a settler the locality
was anything but attractive. In antiquity itself an opinion was
expressed that the first body of immigrant cultivators could scarce
have spontaneously resorted in search of a suitable settlement to
that unhealthy and unfruitful spot in a region otherwise so highly
favoured, and that it must have been necessity, or rather some
special motive, which led to the establishment of a city there.
Even the legend betrays its sense of the strangeness of the fact:
the story of the foundation of Rome by refugees from Alba under
the leadership of the sons of an Alban prince, Romulus and Remus,
is nothing but a naive attempt of primitive quasi-history to explain
the singular circumstance of the place having arisen on a site so
unfavourable, and to connect at the same time the origin of Rome
with the general metropolis of Latium. Such tales, which profess
to be historical but are merely improvised explanations of no very
ingenious character, it is the first duty of history to dismiss; but
it may perhaps be allowed to go a step further, and after weighing
the special relations of the locality to propose a positive conjecture
not regarding the way in which the place originated, but regarding
the circumstances which occasioned its rapid and surprising prosperity
and led to its occupying its peculiar position in Latium.
Earliest Limits of the Roman Territory
Let us notice first of all the earliest boundaries of the Roman
territory. Towards the east the towns of Antemnae, Fidenae, Caenina,
and Gabii lie in the immediate neighbourhood, some of them not five
miles distant from the Servian ring-wall; and the boundary of the
canton must have been in the close vicinity of the city gates.
On the south we find at a distance of fourteen miles the powerful
communities of Tusculum and Alba; and the Roman territory appears
not to have extended in this direction beyond the -Fossa Cluilia-,
five miles from Rome. In like manner, towards the south-west, the
boundary betwixt Rome and Lavinium was at the sixth milestone.
While in a landward direction the Roman canton was thus everywhere
confined within the narrowest possible limits, from the earliest
times, on the other hand, it extended without hindrance on both
banks of the Tiber towards the sea. Between Rome and the coast there
occurs no locality that is mentioned as an ancient canton-centre,
and no trace of any ancient canton-boundary. The legend indeed,
which has its definite explanation of the origin of everything,
professes to tell us that the Roman possessions on the right bank of
the Tiber, the "seven hamlets" (-septem pagi-), and the important
salt-works at its mouth, were taken by king Romulus from the Veientes,
and that king Ancus fortified on the right bank the -tete de pont-,
the "mount of Janus" (-Janiculum-), and founded on the left the
Roman Peiraeus, the seaport at the river's "mouth" (-Ostia-). But
in fact we have evidence more trustworthy than that of legend, that
the possessions on the Etruscan bank of the Tiber must have belonged
to the original territory of Rome; for in this very quarter, at
the fourth milestone on the later road to the port, lay the grove
of the creative goddess (-Dea Dia-), the primitive chief seat of
the Arval festival and Arval brotherhood of Rome. Indeed from time
immemorial the clan of the Romilii, once the chief probably of all
the Roman clans, was settled in this very quarter; the Janiculum
formed a part of the city itself, and Ostia was a burgess colony
or, in other words, a suburb.
The Tiber and Its Traffic
This cannot have been the result of mere accident. The Tiber was
the natural highway for the traffic of Latium; and its mouth, on
a coast scantily provided with harbours, became necessarily the
anchorage of seafarers. Moreover, the Tiber formed from very ancient
times the frontier defence of the Latin stock against their northern
neighbours. There was no place better fitted for an emporium of the
Latin river and sea traffic, and for a maritime frontier fortress
of Latium, than Rome. It combined the advantages of a strong position
and of immediate vicinity to the river; it commanded both banks of
the stream down to its mouth; it was so situated as to be equally
convenient for the river navigator descending the Tiber or the
Anio, and for the seafarer with vessels of so moderate a size as
those which were then used; and it afforded greater protection from
pirates than places situated immediately on the coast. That Rome
was indebted, if not for its origin, at any rate for its importance,
to these commercial and strategical advantages of its position,
there are accordingly numerous further indications, which are
of very different weight from the statements of quasi-historical
romances. Thence arose its very ancient relations with Caere, which
was to Etruria what Rome was to Latium, and accordingly became Rome's
most intimate neighbour and commercial ally. Thence arose the unusual
importance of the bridge over the Tiber, and of bridge-building
generally in the Roman commonwealth. Thence came the galley in the
city arms; thence, too, the very ancient Roman port-duties on the
exports and imports of Ostia, which were from the first levied only
on what was to be exposed for sale (-promercale-), not on what was
for the shipper's own use (-usuarium-), and which were therefore
in reality a tax upon commerce. Thence, to anticipate, the
comparatively early occurrence in Rome of coined money, and of
commercial treaties with transmarine states. In this sense, then,
certainly Rome may have been, as the legend assumes, a creation
rather than a growth, and the youngest rather than the oldest among
the Latin cities. Beyond doubt the country was already in some
degree cultivated, and the Alban range as well as various other
heights of the Campagna were occupied by strongholds, when the Latin
frontier emporium arose on the Tiber. Whether it was a resolution
of the Latin confederacy, or the clear-sighted genius of some
unknown founder, or the natural development of traffic, that called
the city of Rome into being, it is vain even to surmise.
Early Urban Character of Rome
But in connection with this view of the position of Rome as the
emporium of Latium another observation suggests itself. At the time
when history begins to dawn on us, Rome appears, in contradistinction
to the league of the Latin communities, as a compact urban unity.
The Latin habit of dwelling in open villages, and of using the
common stronghold only for festivals and assemblies or in case of
special need, was subjected to restriction at a far earlier period,
probably, in the canton of Rome than anywhere else in Latium. The
Roman did not cease to manage his farm in person, or to regard it
as his proper home; but the unwholesome atmosphere of the Campagna
could not but induce him to take up his abode as much as possible
on the more airy and salubrious city hills; and by the side of the
cultivators of the soil there must have been a numerous non-agricultural
population, partly foreigners, partly native, settled there from
very early times. This to some extent accounts for the dense
population of the old Roman territory, which may be estimated at
the utmost at 115 square miles, partly of marshy or sandy soil, and
which, even under the earliest constitution of the city, furnished
a force of 3300 freemen; so that it must have numbered at least
10,000 free inhabitants. But further, every one acquainted with
the Romans and their history is aware that it is their urban and
mercantile character which forms the basis of whatever is peculiar
in their public and private life, and that the distinction between
them and the other Latins and Italians in general is pre-eminently
the distinction between citizen and rustic. Rome, indeed, was
not a mercantile city like Corinth or Carthage; for Latium was an
essentially agricultural region, and Rome was in the first instance,
and continued to be, pre-eminently a Latin city. But the distinction
between Rome and the mass of the other Latin towns must certainly
be traced back to its commercial position, and to the type of
character produced by that position in its citizens. If Rome was
the emporium of the Latin districts, we can readily understand
how, along with and in addition to Latin husbandry, an urban life
should have attained vigorous and rapid development there and thus
have laid the foundation for its distinctive career.
It is far more important and more practicable to follow out the
course of this mercantile and strategical growth of the city of
Rome, than to attempt the useless task of chemically analysing the
insignificant and but little diversified communities of primitive
times. This urban development may still be so far recognized
in the traditions regarding the successive circumvallations and
fortifications of Rome, the formation of which necessarily kept
pace with the growth of the Roman commonwealth in importance as a
city.
The Palatine City
The town, which in the course of centuries grew up as Rome, in its
original form embraced according to trustworthy testimony only the
Palatine, or "square Rome" (-Roma quadrata-), as it was called in
later times from the irregularly quadrangular form of the Palatine
hill. The gates and walls that enclosed this original city remained
visible down to the period of the empire: the sites of two of the
former, the Porta Romana near S. Giorgio in Velabro, and the Porta
Mugionis at the Arch of Titus, are still known to us, and the
Palatine ring-wall is described by Tacitus from his own observation
at least on the sides looking towards the Aventine and Caelian.
Many traces indicate that this was the centre and original seat of
the urban settlement. On the Palatine was to be found the sacred
symbol of that settlement, the "outfit-vault" (-mundus-) as it
was called, in which the first settlers deposited a sufficiency
of everything necessary for a household and added a clod of their
dear native earth. There, too, was situated the building in which
all the curies assembled for religious and other purposes, each at
its own hearth (-curiae veteres-). There stood the meetinghouse of
the "Leapers" (-curia Saliorum-) in which also the sacred shields
of Mars were preserved, the sanctuary of the "Wolves" (-Lupercal-),
and the dwelling of the priest of Jupiter. On and near this hill
the legend of the founding of the city placed the scenes of its
leading incidents, and the straw-covered house of Romulus, the
shepherd's hut of his foster-father Faustulus, the sacred fig-tree
towards which the cradle with the twins had floated, the cornelian
cherry-tree that sprang from the shaft of the spear which the
founder of the city had hurled from the Aventine over the valley of
the Circus into this enclosure, and other such sacred relics were
pointed out to the believer. Temples in the proper sense of the
term were still at this time unknown, and accordingly the Palatine
has nothing of that sort to show belonging to the primitive age.
The public assemblies of the community were early transferred to
another locality, so that their original site is unknown; only it
may be conjectured that the free space round the -mundus-, afterwards
called the -area Apollinis-, was the primitive place of assembly
for the burgesses and the senate, and the stage erected over the
-mundus- itself the primitive seat of justice of the Roman community.
The Seven Mounts
The "festival of the Seven Mounts" (-septimontium-), again, has
preserved the memory of the more extended settlement which gradually
formed round the Palatine. Suburbs grew up one after another, each
protected by its own separate though weaker circumvallation and
joined to the original ring-wall of the Palatine, as in fen districts
the outer dikes are joined on to the main dike. The "Seven Rings"
were, the Palatine itself; the Cermalus, the slope of the Palatine
in the direction of the morass that extended between it and the
Capitol towards the river (-velabrum-); the Velia, the ridge which
connected the Palatine with the Esquiline, but in subsequent times
was almost wholly obliterated by the buildings of the empire; the
Fagutal, the Oppius, and the Cispius, the three summits of the
Esquiline; lastly, the Sucusa, or Subura, a fortress constructed
outside of the earthen rampart which protected the new town on the
Carinae, in the depression between the Esquiline and the Quirinal
beneath S. Pietro in Vincoli. These additions, manifestly the
results of a gradual growth, clearly reveal to a certain extent the
earliest history of the Palatine Rome, especially when we compare
with them the Servian arrangement of districts which was afterwards
formed on the basis of this earliest division.
Oldest Settlements in the Palatine and Suburan Regions
The Palatine was the original seat of the Roman community, the oldest
and originally the only ring-wall. The urban settlement, however,
began at Rome as well as elsewhere not within, but under the
protection of, the stronghold; and the oldest settlements with
which we are acquainted, and which afterwards formed the first and
second regions in the Servian division of the city, lay in a circle
round the Palatine. These included the settlement on the declivity
of the Cermalus with the "street of the Tuscans"--a name in which
there may have been preserved a reminiscence of the commercial
intercourse between the Caerites and Romans already perhaps carried
on with vigour in the Palatine city--and the settlement on the
Velia; both of which subsequently along with the stronghold-hill
itself constituted one region in the Servian city. Further, there
were the component elements of the subsequent second region--the
suburb on the Caelian, which probably embraced only its extreme point
above the Colosseum; that on the Carinae, the spur which projects
from the Esquiline towards the Palatine; and, lastly, the valley
and outwork of the Subura, from which the whole region received
its name. These two regions jointly constituted the incipient city;
and the Suburan district of it, which extended at the base of the
stronghold, nearly from the Arch of Constantine to S. Pietro in
Vincoli, and over the valley beneath, appears to have been more
considerable and perhaps older than the settlements incorporated
by the Servian arrangement in the Palatine district, because in the
order of the regions the former takes precedence of the latter. A
remarkable memorial of the distinction between these two portions
of the city was preserved in one of the oldest sacred customs of
the later Rome, the sacrifice of the October horse yearly offered
in the -Campus Martius-: down to a late period a struggle took
place at this festival for the horse's head between the men of the
Subura and those of the Via Sacra, and according as victory lay
with the former or with the latter, the head was nailed either to
the Mamilian Tower (site unknown) in the Subura, or to the king's
palace under the Palatine. It was the two halves of the old city
that thus competed with each other on equal terms. At that time,
accordingly, the Esquiliae (which name strictly used is exclusive
of the Carinae) were in reality what they were called, the "outer
buildings" (-exquiliae-, like -inquilinus-, from -colere-) or
suburb: this became the third region in the later city division,
and it was always held in inferior consideration as compared with
the Suburan and Palatine regions. Other neighbouring heights also,
such as the Capitol and the Aventine, may probably have been occupied
by the community of the Seven Mounts; the "bridge of piles" in
particular (-pons sublicius-), thrown over the natural pier of the
island in the Tiber, must have existed even then--the pontifical
college alone is sufficient evidence of this--and the -tete de
pont- on the Etruscan bank, the height of the Janiculum, would not
be left unoccupied; but the community had not as yet brought either
within the circuit of its fortifications. The regulation which
was adhered to as a ritual rule down to the latest times, that the
bridge should be composed simply of wood without iron, manifestly
shows that in its original practical use it was to be merely a
flying bridge, which must be capable of being easily at any time
broken off or burnt. We recognize in this circumstance how insecure
for a long time and liable to interruption was the command of the
passage of the river on the part of the Roman community.
No relation is discoverable between the urban settlements thus
gradually formed and the three communities into which from an
immemorially early period the Roman commonwealth was in political
law divided. As the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres appear to have
been communities originally independent, they must have had their
settlements originally apart; but they certainly did not dwell
in separate circumvallations on the Seven Hills, and all fictions
to this effect in ancient or modern times must be consigned by
the intelligent inquirer to the same fate with the charming tale
of Tarpeia and the battle of the Palatine. On the contrary each
of the three tribes of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres must have been
distributed throughout the two regions of the oldest city, the
Subura and Palatine, and the suburban region as well: with this
may be connected the fact, that afterwards not only in the Suburan
and Palatine, but in each of the regions subsequently added to the
city, there were three pairs of Argean chapels. The Palatine city
of the Seven Mounts may have had a history of its own; no other
tradition of it has survived than simply that of its having once
existed. But as the leaves of the forest make room for the new
growth of spring, although they fall unseen by human eyes, so has
this unknown city of the Seven Mounts made room for the Rome of
history.
The Hill-Romans on the Quirinal
But the Palatine city was not the only one that in ancient times
existed within the circle afterwards enclosed by the Servian walls;
opposite to it, in its immediate vicinity, there lay a second city
on the Quirinal. The "old stronghold" (-Capitolium vetus-) with a
sanctuary of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and a temple of the goddess
of Fidelity in which state treaties were publicly deposited, forms
the evident counterpart of the later Capitol with its temple to
Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and with its shrine of Fides Romana
likewise destined as it were for a repository of international
law, and furnishes a sure proof that the Quirinal also was once
the centre of an independent commonwealth. The same fact may be
inferred from the double worship of Mars on the Palatine and the
Quirinal; for Mars was the type of the warrior and the oldest chief
divinity of the burgess communities of Italy. With this is connected
the further circumstance that his ministers, the two primitive
colleges of the "Leapers" (-Salii-) and of the "Wolves" (-Luperci-)
existed in the later Rome in duplicate: by the side of the Salii
of the Palatine there were also Salii of the Quirinal; by the side
of the Quinctian Luperci of the Palatine there was a Fabian guild
of Luperci, which in all probability had their sanctuary on the
Quirinal.(5)
All these indications, which even in themselves are of great weight,
become more significant when we recollect that the accurately
known circuit of the Palatine city of the Seven Mounts excluded the
Quirinal, and that afterwards in the Servian Rome, while the first
three regions corresponded to the former Palatine city, a fourth
region was formed out of the Quirinal along with the neighbouring
Viminal. Thus, too, we discover an explanation of the reason why
the strong outwork of the Subura was constructed beyond the city
wall in the valley between the Esquiline and Quirinal; it was at
that point, in fact, that the two territories came into contact,
and the Palatine Romans, after having taken possession of the low
ground, were under the necessity of constructing a stronghold for
protection against those of the Quirinal.
Lastly, even the name has not been lost by which the men of the
Quirinal distinguished themselves from their Palatine neighbours.
As the Palatine city took the name of "the Seven Mounts," its
citizens called themselves the "mount-men" (-montani-), and the
term "mount," while applied to the other heights belonging to the
city, was above all associated with the Palatine; so the Quirinal
height--although not lower, but on the contrary somewhat higher,
than the former--as well as the adjacent Viminal never in the strict
use of the language received any other name than "hill" (collis).
In the ritual records, indeed, the Quirinal was not unfrequently
designated as the "hill" without further addition. In like manner
the gate leading out from this height was usually called the
"hill-gate" (-porta collina-); the priests of Mars settled there
were called those "of the hill" (-Salii collini-) in contrast to
those of the Palatium (-Salii Palatini-) and the fourth Servian
region formed out of this district was termed the hill-region
(-tribus collina-)(6) The name of Romans primarily associated with
the locality was probably appropriated by these "Hill-men" as well
as by those of the "Mounts;" and the former perhaps designated
themselves as "Romans of the Hill" (-Romani collini-). That a
diversity of race may have lain at the foundation of this distinction
between the two neighbouring cities is possible; but evidence
sufficient to warrant our pronouncing a community established on
Latin soil to be of alien lineage is, in the case of the Quirinal
community, totally wanting.(7)
Relations between the Palatine and Quirinal Communities
Thus the site of the Roman commonwealth was still at this period
occupied by the Mount-Romans of the Palatine and the Hill-Romans
of the Quirinal as two separate communities confronting each other
and doubtless in many respects at feud, in some degree resembling
the Montigiani and the Trasteverini in modern Rome. That the
community of the Seven Mounts early attained a great preponderance
over that of the Quirinal may with certainty be inferred both from
the greater extent of its newer portions and suburbs, and from
the position of inferiority in which the former Hill-Romans were
obliged to acquiesce under the later Servian arrangement. But
even within the Palatine city there was hardly a true and complete
amalgamation of the different constituent elements of the settlement.
We have already mentioned how the Subura and the Palatine annually
contended for the horse's head; the several Mounts also, and even
the several curies (there was as yet no common hearth for the
city, but the various hearths of the curies subsisted side by side,
although in the same locality) probably felt themselves to be as
yet more separated than united; and Rome as a whole was probably
rather an aggregate of urban settlements than a single city. It
appears from many indications that the houses of the old and powerful
families were constructed somewhat after the manner of fortresses
and were rendered capable of defence--a precaution, it may be
presumed, not unnecessary. It was the magnificent structure ascribed
to king Servius Tullius that first surrounded not merely those two
cities of the Palatine and Quirinal, but also the heights of the
Capitol and the Aventine which were not comprehended within their
enclosure, with a single great ring-wall, and thereby created
the new Rome--the Rome of history. But ere this mighty work was
undertaken, the relations of Rome to the surrounding country had
beyond doubt undergone a complete revolution. As the period, during
which the husbandman guided his plough on the seven hills of Rome
just as on the other hills of Latium, and the usually unoccupied
places of refuge on particular summits alone presented the germs
of a more permanent settlement, corresponds to the earliest epoch
of the Latin stock without trace of traffic or achievement; as
thereafter the flourishing settlement on the Palatine and in the
"Seven Rings" was coincident with the occupation of the mouths of
the Tiber by the Roman community, and with the progress of the Latins
to a more stirring and freer intercourse, to an urban civilization
in Rome more especially, and perhaps also to a more consolidated
political union in the individual states as well as in the confederacy;
so the Servian wall, which was the foundation of a single great
city, was connected with the epoch at which the city of Rome was
able to contend for, and at length to achieve, the sovereignty of
the Latin league.
Notes for Book I Chapter IV
1. A similar change of sound is exhibited in the case of the following
formations, all of them of a very ancient kind: -pars--portio-,
-Mars- -Mors-, -farreum- ancient form for -horreum-, -Fabii- -Fovii-,
-Valerius- -Volesus-, -vacuus- -vacivus-.
2. The --synoikismos-- did not necessarily involve an actual
settlement together at one spot; but while each resided as formerly
on his own land, there was thenceforth only one council-hall and
court-house for the whole (Thucyd. ii. 15; Herodot. i. 170).
3. We might even, looking to the Attic --trittus-- and the Umbrian
-trifo-, raise the question whether a triple division of the
community was not a fundamental principle of the Graeco-ltalians:
in that case the triple division of the Roman community would not be
referable to the amalgamation of several once independent tribes.
But, in order to the establishment of a hypothesis so much at
variance with tradition, such a threefold division would require to
present itself more generally throughout the Graeco-Italian field
than seems to be the case, and to appear uniformly everywhere as
the ground-scheme. The Umbrians may possibly have adopted the word
-tribus- only when they came under the influence of Roman rule; it
cannot with certainty be traced in Oscan.
4. Although the older opinion, that Latin is to be viewed as
a mixed language made up of Greek and non-Greek elements, has been
now abandoned on all sides, judicious inquirers even (e. g. Schwegler,
R. G. i. 184, 193) still seek to discover in Latin a mixture of
two nearly related Italian dialects. But we ask in vain for the
linguistic or historical facts which render such an hypothesis
necessary. When a language presents the appearance of being an
intermediate link between two others, every philologist knows that
the phenomenon may quite as probably depend, and more frequently
does depend, on organic development than on external intermixture.
5. That the Quinctian Luperci had precedence in rank over the Fabian
is evident from the circumstance that the fabulists attribute the
Quinctii to Romulus, the Fabii to Remus (Ovid, Fast. ii. 373 seq.;
Vict. De Orig. 22). That the Fabii belonged to the Hill-Romans is
shown by the sacrifice of their -gens- on the Quirinal (Liv. v.
46, 52), whether that sacrifice may or may not have been connected
with the Lupercalia.
Moreover, the Lupercus of the former college is called in
inscriptions (Orelli, 2253) -Lupercus Quinctialis vetus-; and the
-praenomen-Kaeso, which was most probably connected with the Lupercal
worship (see Rom. Forschungen, i. 17), is found exclusively among
the Quinctii and Fabii: the form commonly occurring in authors,
-Lupercus Quinctilius- and -Quinctilianus-, is therefore a misnomer,
and the college belonged not to the comparatively recent Quinctilii,
but to the far older Quinctii. When, again, the Quinctii (Liv. i.
30), or Quinctilii (Dion. iii. 29), are named among the Alban clans,
the latter reading is here to be preferred, and the Quinctii are
to be regarded rather as an old Roman -gens-.
6. Although the name "Hill of Quirinus" was afterwards ordinarily
used to designate the height where the Hill-Romans had their abode,
we need not at all on that account regard the name "Quirites" as
having been originally reserved for the burgesses on the Quirinal.
For, as has been shown, all the earliest indications point,
as regards these, to the name -Collini-; while it is indisputably
certain that the name Quirites denoted from the first, as well as
subsequently, simply the full burgess, and had no connection with
the distinction between montani and collini (comp. chap. v. infra).
The later designation of the Quirinal rests on the circumstance
that, while the -Mars quirinus-, the spear-bearing god of Death, was
originally worshipped as well on the Palatine as on the Quirinal--as
indeed the oldest inscriptions found at what was afterwards called
the Temple of Quirinus designate this divinity simply as Mars,--at
a later period for the sake of distinction the god of the Mount-Romans
more especially was called Mars, the god of the Hill Romans more
especially Quirinus.
When the Quirinal is called -collis agonalis-, "hill of sacrifice,"
it is so designated merely as the centre of the religious rites of
the Hill-Romans.
7. The evidence alleged for this (comp. e. g. Schwegler, S. G. i.
480) mainly rests on an etymologico-historical hypothesis started
by Varro and as usual unanimously echoed by later writers, that the
Latin -quiris- and -quirinus- are akin to the name of the Sabine
town -Cures-, and that the Quirinal hill accordingly had been peopled
from -Cures-. Even if the linguistic affinity of these words were
more assured, there would be little warrant for deducing from it such
a historical inference. That the old sanctuaries on this eminence
(where, besides, there was also a "Collis Latiaris") were Sabine,
has been asserted, but has not been proved. Mars quirinus, Sol,
Salus, Flora, Semo Sancus or Deus fidius were doubtless Sabine,
but they were also Latin, divinities, formed evidently during the
epoch when Latins and Sabines still lived undivided. If a name like
that of Semo Sancus (which moreover occurs in connection with the
Tiber-island) is especially associated with the sacred places of
the Quirinal which afterwards diminished in its importance (comp.
the Porta Sanqualis deriving its name therefrom), every unbiassed
inquirer will recognize in such a circumstance only a proof of the
high antiquity of that worship, not a proof of its derivation from
a neighbouring land. In so speaking we do not mean to deny that
it is possible that old distinctions of race may have co-operated
in producing this state of things; but if such was the case, they
have, so far as we are concerned, totally disappeared, and the views
current among our contemporaries as to the Sabine element in the
constitution of Rome are only fitted seriously to warn us against
such baseless speculations leading to no result.