Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/488

 482 MUNICIPAL EEGIME DISAPPEAKS. BOOK V^ spirit was much weakened ; conquest then became easy, and was accomplished rapidly. 1. The Orirjin and Population of Home. The origin of Rome and the composition of its peo- plo are worthy of remark. They explain the particu- lar character of its policy, and the exceptional part that fell to it from the beginning in the midst of other cities. The Roman race was strangely mixed. The princi- pal element was Latin, and originally from Alba; but these Albans themselves, according to traditions which no criticism authorizes us to reject, were composed of two associated, but not confounded, populations. One- was the aboriginal race, real Latins. Tiie other was of foreiijn orijjin, and was said to have come from Trov with -^neas, the priest-founder; it was, to all appear- ance, not numerous, but was influential from the wor- ship and the institutions which it had brought with it.' These Albans, a mixture of two races, founded Rome on a spot Avhero another city had already been built — Pallanlium, founded by the Greeks. Now, the popu- lation of Pallantium lemained in the new city, and th& rites of the Greek worship were preserved there.* There was also, where the Capitol afterwards stood, a city which was said to have been founded by Hercules, the families of which remained distinct from the rest of the Rome was in regular communication with tlic East. A sooth- sayer, in a prediction which rehitcd to the second Punic war, applied to the Romans the epithet Trojugena. Livy, XXV, 12. » Livy, I. 5. Virgil, VIII. Ovid, Fasii, I. C70. riutarch» Bom. Quest., 5G. Strabo, V. p. 2S0.
 * The Trojan origin of Rome was a received opinion even bcfore^