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ANCIENT HISTORY] the privilege of conferring certificates and degrees having been allowed only to very few private institutions.

Society.—After 1870 both the aristocracy and the middle classes were divided into hostile factions, each of which maintained a press of its own and rallied round representative individuals. So far as the middle classes were concerned, the common interest of commercial operations soon concentrated political differences. The aristocracy, however, kept rigidly aloof from all speculations for a time, and maintained its traditional attitude of contemptuous superiority, to which the middle class answered with its profound hatred. This state of things lasted about ten years, until the time of the great building speculations, in which a number of noble families were tempted, and in which they soon found themselves hopelessly involved, and brought into close contact with the middle class. The two classes thus became necessary to each other, and the result was a notable and salutary diminution of prejudice, soon leading to alliances by marriage, which would formerly have seemed impossible, but which the redistribution of wealth rendered mutually advantageous. The appearance at social gatherings of an official element, almost exclusively taken from the middle class, also tended to reduce inequalities of caste. Yet it must be admitted that the parties composing Roman society were drawn together mechanically, rather than fused into anything really homogeneous. It is worth mentioning that the Jewish element, which is very strong in business, in journalism, and in the administrations, had made no attempt to enter Roman society. Rome and Genoa are practically the only Italian cities in which Israelites are rigidly excluded from social intimacy, and are only met on official occasions.

Both the city and the state of Rome are represented in tradition as having been gradually formed by the fusion of separate communities. The original settlement of Romulus is said to have been limited to the Palatine Mount. With this were united before the end of his reign the Capitoline and the Quirinal; Tullus Hostilius added the Caelian, Ancus Martius the Aventine; and finally Servius Tullius included the Esquiline and Viminal, and enclosed the whole seven hills with a stone wall. The growth of the state closely followed that of the city. To the original Romans on the Palatine were added successively the Sabine followers of King Tatius, Albans transplanted by Tullus, Latins by Ancus, and lastly the Etruscan comrades of Caeles Vibenna. This tradition is supported by other and more positive evidence. The race of the Luperci on February 15 was in fact a purification of the boundaries of the “ancient Palatine town,” the “square Rome” of Ennius; and the course taken is that described by Tacitus as the “pomoerium” of the city founded by Romulus. On the Esquiline, Varro mentions an “ancient city” and an “earthen rampart,” and the festival of the Septimontium is evidence of a union between this settlement and that on the Palatine. The fusion of these “Mounts” with a settlement on the Quirinal “Hill” is also attested by trustworthy evidence; and in particular the line taken by the procession of the Argei represents the enlarged boundaries of these united communities. Lastly, the Servian agger still remains as a witness to the final enclosure of the various settlements within a single ring-wall. The united community thus formed was largely of Latin descent. Indications of this are not, wanting even in the traditions themselves: King Faunus, who rules the Aborigines on the Palatine, is Latin; “Latini” is the name ascribed to the united Aborigines and Trojans; the immediate progenitors of Rome are the Latin Lavinium and the Latin Alba. Much evidence in the language, the religion, the institutions and, the civilization of early Rome points to the same conclusion. The speech of the Romans is from the first Latin, though showing many traces of contact

with the neighbouring dialects of the Sabines and Volscians and also of Etruscans; the oldest gods of Rome—Saturn, Jupiter, Juno, Diana—are all Latin; “rex,” “praetor,”, “dictator,” “curia,” are Latin titles and institutions. The primitive settlements, with their earthen ramparts and wooden palisades planted upon them out of reach both of human foes and of the malaria of the swampy low grounds, are only typical of the mode of settlement which the conditions of life dictated throughout the Latian plain. But tradition insists on the admixture of at least two non-Latin elements, a Sabine and an Etruscan. The question as regards the latter will be more fully discussed hereafter; it is enough to say here that while the evidence of nomenclature (Schulze, Geschichte der Lat. Eigennamen, Leipzig, 1904, p. 579, with the modifications suggested in the Classical Review, December 1907) shows that many Etruscan gentes were settled within the bounds of the early city, there is no satisfactory evidence that there was any large Etruscan strain

in the Roman blood. With the Sabines it is otherwise. That union of the Palatine and Quirinal settlements which constituted so decisive a stage in the growth of Rome is represented as having been in reality a union of the original Latins with a band of Sabine invaders who had seized and held not only the Quirinal Hill, but the northern and nearest peak of the Capitoline Mount. The tradition was evidently deeply rooted. The name of the god Quirinus, from which that of the Quirinal Hill itself presumably sprang, was popularly connected with the Sabine town of Cures. The ancient worships connected with it were said to be Sabine. One of the three old tribes, the Tities, was believed to represent the Sabine element; the second and the fourth kings are both of Sabine descent. By the great majority of modern writers the substance of the tradition, the fusion of a body of Sabine invaders with the original Latins, is accepted as historical; and even Mommsen allowed its possibility, though he threw back the time of its occurrence to an earlier period than that of the union of the two settlements. We cannot here enter into the question at length, but some fairly certain points may be mentioned. The probability of Sabine raids and a Sabine settlement, possibly on the Quirinal Hill, in very early times may be admitted. The incursions of the highland Apennine tribes into the lowlands fill a large place in early Italian history. The Latins were said to have originally descended from the mountain glens near Reate. The invasions of Campania and of Magna Graecia by Sabine (more correctly Safine) tribes are matter of history (see ), and the Sabines themselves are represented as a restless highland people, ever seeking, new homes in richer lands. In very early days they appear on the borders of Latium, in close proximity to Rome, and Sabine forays are familiar and frequent occurrences in the old legends. But beyond these general considerations recent inquiry enables us to advance to some few definite conclusions. (1) It may now be regarded as established beyond question that the patrician class at Rome sprang from a race other than that of the plebeians.