Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/129

Rh contrary, in entire consistency with the strict application of the jus privatum which was characteristic of the Latin laws of war, Rome now claimed the presidency of the league as the heir-at-law of Alba. What sort of crisis preceded or followed the acknowledgment of this claim, or whether any crisis at all, we cannot tell. Upon the whole, the hegemony of Rome over Latium appears to have been speedily and generally recognized, although particular communities, such as Labici, and above all Gabii, may for a time have declined to own it. Even at that time Rome was probably a maritime power as opposed to the Latin "land," a city as opposed to the Latin villages, and a single state as opposed to the Latin confederacy; even at that time it was only in conjunction with and by means of Rome that the Latins could defend their coasts against Carthaginians, Hellenes, and Etruscans, and maintain and extend their landward frontier in opposition to their restless neighbours of the Sabellian stock. Whether the accession to her material resources which Rome obtained by the subjugation of Alba was greater than the increase of her power by the capture of Antemnæ or Collatia, cannot be ascertained: it is quite possible that it was not by the conquest of Alba that Rome was first constituted the most powerful community in Latium; she may have been so long before; but she did gain in consequence of that event the right to preside at the Latin festival, a right which was the basis of the future hegemony of the community of Rome over the whole Latin confederacy. It is important to indicate as definitely as possible the nature of a relation so influential.

The form of the Roman hegemony over Latium was, in general, that of an alliance on equal terms between the Roman community on the one hand and the Latin confederacy on the other, establishing a perpetual peace throughout the whole domain, and a perpetual league for offence and defence. "There shall be peace between the Romans and all communities of the Latins, as long as heaven and earth endure; they shall not wage war with each other, nor call enemies into the land, nor grant passage to enemies: help shall be rendered by all in concert to any community assailed, and whatever is won in joint warfare shall be equally distributed." The stipulation that there should be equality of rights in trade and exchange, in commercial credit and in the law of inheritance, tended, by the manifold rela-