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Rh of the Tiber below the city there was a decided advance. The fortification of the Janiculum; the building of the pons sublicius, the foundation of Ostia and the acquisition of the salt-works near the sea may all be safely ascribed to this early period. Closely connected, too, with the control of the Tiber from Rome to the sea was the subjugation of the petty Latin communities lying south of the river; and the tradition of the conquest and destruction of Politorium, Tellenae and Ficana is confirmed by the absence in historical times of any Latin communities in this district.

With the reign of the fifth king Tarquinius Priscus a marked change takes place. The traditional accounts of the last three

kings not only wear a more historical air than those of the first four, but they describe something like a transformation of the Roman city and state. Under the rule of these latter kings the separate settlements are for the first time enclosed with a rampart of colossal size and extent. The low grounds are drained, and a forum and circus elaborately laid out; on the Capitoline Mount a temple, is erected, the massive foundations of which were an object of wonder even to Pliny. To the same period are assigned the redivision of the city area into four new districts and the introduction of a new military system. The kings increase in, power and surround themselves with new splendour. Abroad, too, Rome suddenly appears as at powerful state ruling far and wide over southern Etruria and Latium. These startling changes are, moreover, ascribed to kings of alien descent, who one and all ascend the throne in the teeth of established constitutional forms. Finally, with the expulsion of the last of them—the younger Tarquin—comes a sudden shrinkage of power. At the commencement of the Republic Rome is once more a comparatively small state, with hostile and independent neighbours at her very doors. It is impossible to doubt the conviction that the true explanation of this phenomenon is to be found in the supposition that Rome during this period passed under the rule of powerful Etruscan lords. In the 7th and 6th centuries, and probably earlier still, the Etruscans appear as ruling widely outside the limits of Etruria proper. They were supreme in the valley of the Po until their power there was broken by the irruption of Celtic tribes from beyond the Alps, and while still masters of the plains of Lombardy they established themselves in the rich lowlands of Campania, where they held their ground until the capture of Capua by the Samnite highlanders in 423 It is on the face of it improbable that a power which had extended its sway from the Alps to the Tiber, and from the Liris to Surrentum, should have left untouched the intervening stretch of country between the Tiber and the Liris. And there is abundant evidence of Etruscan rule in Latium. According to Dionysius there was a time when the Latins were known to the Greeks as Tyrrhenians, and Rome as a Tyrrhenian city. When Aeneas landed in Italy the Latins were at feud with Turnus (Turrhenos? Dionys. i. 64) of Ardea, whose close ally was the ruthless Mezentius, prince of Caere, to whom the Latins had been forced to pay a tribute of wine. Cato declared the Volsci to have been once subject to Etruscan rule, and Etruscan remains found at Velitrae, as well, as; the second name of the Volscian Anxur, Tarracina (the city of Tarchon), confirm his statement. Nearer still to Rome is Tusculum, with its significant name, at Praeneste we have a great number of Etruscan inscriptions and bronzes, and at Alba we hear of a prince, lawless and cruel like Mezentius, who consults the “oracle of Tethys in Tyrrhenia.” Thus we find the Etruscan power encircling Rome on all sides, and in Rome itself a tradition of the rule of princes of Etruscan

origin. The Tarquinii come, from south Etruria; their name can hardly be anything else than the Latin equivalent of the Etruscan Tarchon, and is therefore possibly a title (= “lord” or “prince”) rather than a proper name. Even Servius Tullius was identified by Tuscan chroniclers with an Etruscan “Mastarna.” Again, what we are told of Etruscan conquests does not represent them as moving, like the Sabellian tribes, in large bodies and settling down en masse in the conquered districts. We hear rather of military raids led by ambitious chiefs who carve out principalities for themselves with their own good swords, and with their followers rule oppressively over alien and subject peoples. And so at Rome the story of the Tarquins implies not, a wave of Etruscan immigration so much as a rule of Etruscan princes over conquered Latins.

The achievements ascribed to the Tarquins are not less characteristic. Their despotic rule and splendour contrast with the primitive simplicity of the native kings. Only Etruscan builders, under the direction of wealthy and powerful Etruscan lords, could have built the great cloaca, the Servian wall, or the Capitoline temple,—monuments which challenged comparison with those of the emperors themselves. Nor do the traces of Greek influence upon Rome during this period conflict with the theory of an Etruscan supremacy; on the contrary, it is at least possible that it was thanks to the extended rule and wide connexions of her Etruscan rulers that Rome was first brought into direct contact with the Greeks, who had long traded with the Etruscan ports and influenced Etruscan culture.

The Etruscan princes are represented, not only as having raised Rome for the time to a commanding position in Latium and lavished

upon the city itself the resources of Etruscan civilization, but also as the authors of important internal changes. They are represented as favouring new men at the expense of the old patrician families, and as reorganizing the Roman army on a new footing, a policy natural enough in military princes of alien birth, and rendered possible by the additions which conquest had made to the original community. From among the leading families of the conquered Latin states a hundred new members were admitted to the senate, and these gentes thenceforth ranked as patrician, and became known as gentes minores. The changes in the army begun, it is said, by the elder Tarquin and completed by Servius Tullius were more important. The basis of the primitive military system had been three tribes, each of which furnished 1000 men to the legion and 100 to the cavalry. Tarquinius Priscus, we are told, contemplated the creation of three fresh tribes and three additional centuries of horsemen with new names, though in face of the opposition offered by the old families he contented himself with simply doubling the strength without altering the names of the old divisions. But the change attributed to Servius Tullius went far beyond this. His famous distribution of all freeholders (assidui) into tribes, classes and centuries, though subsequently adopted with modifications as the basis of the