Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/755

Rh 731 K ME PART I. ROMAN HISTORY. SECTION I. ANCIENT HISTORY. I. The Beginnings of Rome and the Monarchy. e ~T)OTH the city and the state of Rome are represented l'l e |J 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 Ceelian, 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 succes- sively the Sabine followers of King Tatius, Albans trans- planted by Tullus, Latins by Ancus, and lastly the Etruscan comrades of Cables 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," 1 the u square Rome" of Ennius ; 2 and the course taken is that described by Tacitus as the "pomoerium" of the city founded by Romulus. 3 On the Esquiline, Varro mentions an " ancient city " and an " earthen rampart," 4 and the festival of the Septimontium is evidence of a union between this settlement and that on the Palatine. 5 The fusion of these " Mounts" with a settlement on the Quirinal " Hill" is also attested by trustworthy evidence; 6 and in parti- cular the line taken by the procession of the Argei repre- sents the enlarged boundaries of these united communities. 7 Lastly, the Servian agger still remains as a witness to the final enclosure of the various settlements within a single Rie a ring-wall. But is tradition right in representing this Lin fusion of distinct settlements as a fusion also of com- f 1 munities of different race 1 ? Much of what it says on this point may be at once dismissed as fabulous. The tales of ^Eneas and his Trojans, of Evander and his Arcadians, of the followers of Heracles, and of the still earlier Aborigines have no claim to a place in history; 8 we cannot accept the tradition to which the Romans clung with proud humility of the asylum opened by Romulus, or believe that the ancestors of the Romans were a mixed concourse of outlaws and refugees, 9 nor, while admitting the probability of the tradition that iu remote times the
 * i Sicels " had dwelt on the seven hills, can we allow them

any part or lot in the historic Roman people. 10 That this people were in the main homogeneous and in the main of Latin descent is unquestionable. Indications of the truth arc not wanting even in the traditions themselves : King 1 VaiTO, L. L., vi. 34. 2 Fest., 258 ; Varro ap. Solinus, i. 17. 3 Tac., Ann., xii. 24. For a full discussion of the exact limits of the Palatine city see Smith, Diet. Geog., s. v. "Roma"; Jordan, Topoy. d. Stadt Rom, i. cap. 2 ; Gilbert, Topog. u. Oesch. d. Stadt Rom, i. caps. 1, 2 ; and "Topography" below. 4 L. L., v. 43 ; cf. ibid., 50. 5 Festus, 348 ; Jordan, i. 199 ; Gilbert, i. 161. The seven "monies" are the Palatine with the Velia and Germalus, the Subura, and the three points of the Esquiline (Fagutal, Oppius, and Cispius). 6 See Mommsen, R. O. (7th ed. ), i. 51. 7 Varro, L. L., v. 45, vii. 44 ; Jordan, ii. 237. 8 For these traditions see Dionys., i. 31-71. 9 For a criticism of the myth of the asylum see Schwegler, R. G., i. 465 sq., who, however, exaggerates the mixed character of the Roman people. Hegel, Phil. d. Gesch. , 345, takes the story seriously. 10 Dionys. , i. 9 ; Time. , vi. 2 ; Dionys. , i. 16, ii. 1. Faunus who rules the Aborigines on the Palatine is Latin ; " Latini " is the name assumed by the united Aborigines and Trojans ; the immediate progenitors of Rome are the Latin Lavinium and the Latin Alba. The evidence of the language, the religion, the institutions and civilization of early Rome points to the same conclusion. The speech of the Romans is from the first Latin ; u the oldest gods of Rome Saturn, Janus, Jupiter, Juno, Diana, &c. are all Latin ; " rex," " praetor," " dictator," " curia," are Latin titles and institutions. 12 Geographically too the low hills by the Tiber form a part of the strip of coast-land from which the Latini took their name, and 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 Latium. 13 But tradition insists on the admix- ture 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 there is no satisfactory evidence that any one of the communities which combined to form Rome was Etruscan, or that there was any important Etruscan strain in the Roman blood. 14 With the Sabines it is otherwise. That The 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 Quirinal Hill itself was derived from the Sabine town of Cures. 15 The ancient worships connected with it were said to be Sabine. 1 * 5 One of the three old tribes, the Tities, was believed to represent the Sabine element ; 1T 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 allows its possibility, though he throws back the time of its occurrence to an earlier period than that of the union of the two settlements. 18 We cannot here enter into the 11 The theory that Latin was a "mongrel speech" is now discarded; see Schwegler, i. 190, and LATIN LANGUAGE, vol. xiv. p. 327. 12 The title " rex " occurs on inscriptions at Lanuvium, Tusculum, Bovillfe; Henzen, Bullettino dell. Ins(., 1868, p. 159; Orelli, 2279; Corp. I. Lat., vi., 2125. For "dictator" and "praetor," see Livy, i. 23, viii. 3 ; cf. Marquardt, Rom. Staatsverwaliung, i. 475 ; for "curia," Serv. on ^En. i. 17 ; Marquardt, i. 467. 13 Helbig, Die Italiker in d. Poebene ; Pohlrnaun, Anfdnge Roms, 40 ; Abeken, Mittel-ltalien, 61 sq. 14 The existence of a Tuscan quarter (Tuscus vicus) in early Rome probably points to nothing more than the presence in Rome of Etruscan artisans and craftsmen. The Etruscan origin ascribed to the third tribe, the "Luceres," is a mere guess; see Schwegler,. i. 504, and Lange, Rom. Alterth., i. 85. 15 Varro, L. L., v. 51. 18 Varro, L. L., v. 74; Schwegler, i. 248 sq. ; but Mommsen (R. O., i. 53) points out that most of these so-called Sabine deities are at least equally Latin. 17 Varro, L. L., v. 55; Livy, i. 13. 18 Mommsen, R. G., i. 43. Schwegler (R. G., i. 478) accepts the tradition of a Sabine settlement on the Quirinal, and considers that in the united state the Sabine element predominated. Volquardsen (Rhein. Mus., xxxiii. 559) believes in a complete Sabine conquest ; and so does Ztiller (Latium u. Rom, Leipsic, 1878), who, however, places it after the expulsion of the Tarquins. Gilbert (Topogr., i. cap. 5) accepts the Sabine settlement, but holds rightly that in the union the Latin element decisively predominated.