Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/787

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 771

sources. While the mountains form temporary obstacles, the rivers are the natural roads of communication. Then military colonies are established, one after the other, in order to maintain the newly conquered countries. Some are Roman, others Latin ; but all serve to constitute a military frontier. This is the true frontier, but military, and independent of the social frontiers. And while this frontier is extended to the Alps and beyond, a corresponding co-ordination has been accomplished in the interior. Rome is the political center. All the places at the frontier are connected with the city, the seat of government, by large military routes : the Via Appia from Rome to Capua, the Via Venusia, the road of Tarent and Brindisi in the southwest, the Via Flaminia, and those of Narnia, Spoletum, and Ariminum at the northwest shore of the Adriatic. Of ten large highways, seven started from Rome.

Even the evolution of the signification of the word " Latium " shows the continuous transformations which have been accom- plished. Originally Latium is only the place of refuge of adven- turers and, without doubt, of armed robbers (latere, latro). Gradually this region comes into contact with the neighboring cities. A confederation is formed political Latium, or the dominion of the Latins, with Alba as its capital. Rome assumes the leading position and bestows upon the ancient confederation its military and authoritative character. The Roman-Latin con- federation is dissolved. Henceforth the word " Latium " has lost its exclusively geographic meaning, and a political and juridic signification is attached to it. The jus Latii is detached from the primitive territory; it is conferred upon Italians and inhabitants of the provinces, who thus obtain the enjoyment of all civil rights to which the civitas romana entitles, as for instance, the ability of acquiring the full right of a city through the establishment of municipal magistrates. Finally Augustus includes within the so-called Latium all the towns of the ancient Latin confederation, those of the Hernici, Volsci, and Aurunci; and, besides, Cam- pania. Thenceforward " Latium " becomes a term which signifies one of the eleven administrative divisions of Italy.

In 146, after the destruction of Carthage, the Roman sway