Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/128

108, or, in other words, the patriciate conferred upon them. Even in the time of the empire the Alban clans were still recognized which were introduced among the burgesses of Rome after the fall of their native seat; amongst these were the Julii, Servilii, Quinctilii, Clœlii, Geganii, Curiatii, Metilii: the memory of their descent was preserved by their Alban family shrines, among which the sanctuary of the gens of the Julii at Bovillæ again rose, under the empire, into great repute.

This centralizing process, by which sever small communities became absorbed in a larger one, of course was not an idea specially Roman. Not only did the development of Latium and of the Sabellian stocks hinge upon the distinction between national centralization and cantonal independence; the case was the same with the development of the Hellenes. Rome in Latium, and Athens in Attica, arose out of such an amalgamation of many cantons into one state; and the wise Thales suggested a similar fusion to the hard-pressed league of the Ionic cities as the only means of saving their nationality. But Rome adhered to this principle of unity with more consistency, earnestness, and success than any other Italian cantons and just as the prominent position of Athens in Hellas was the effect of her early centralization, so Rome was indebted for her greatness simply to the same system far more energetically applied.

While the conquests of Rome in Latium may be mainly regarded, accordingly, as direct extensions of her territory and people presenting the same general features, a further and special significance attached to the conquest of Alba. It was not the problematical size and presumed riches of Alba that led tradition to assign a prominence so peculiar to its capture. Alba was regarded as the metropolis of the Latin confederacy, and had the right of presiding among the thirty communities that belonged to it. The destruction of Alba, of course, no more dissolved the league itself than the destruction of Thebes dissolved the Bœotian confederacy; on the