Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/67

Rh lated to it; besides which, it must not be forgotten that at the time when the Tities settled beside the Ramnians, Latin nationality rested on Latium as its basis, and not on Rome. The new tripartite Roman commonwealth was, notwithstanding some elements which, it is possible, were originally Sabellian, just what the community of the Ramnians had previously been, a portion of the Latin nation.

Long, in all probability, ere an urban settlement arose on the Tiber, these Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, at first separate, afterwards united, had their stronghold on the Roman hills, and tilled their fields from the surrounding villages. The "wolf-festival" (Lupercalia) which the gens of the Quinctii celebrated on the Palatine hill, was probably a tradition from these primitive ages—a festival of countrymen and shepherds which preserved, more than any other, the homely pastimes of patriarchal simplicity, and, singularly enough, maintained itself longer than other heathen festivals in Christian Rome.

From these settlements the later Rome arose. The founding of a city, in the strict sense, such as the legend assumes, is of course to be reckoned altogether out of the question: Rome was not built in a day. But the serious I consideration of the historian may well be directed to the inquiry in what way Rome could so early attain that prominent political position which it held in Latium, so different from what the physical character of the locality would have led us to anticipate. The site of Rome is less healthy and less fertile than that of most of the old Latin towns. Neither the vine nor the fig succeed well in the immediate environs, and there is a want of springs that yield copious supplies of water; for neither the otherwise excellent fountain of the Camenæ before the Porta Capena, nor the Capitoline well, afterwards enclosed within the Tullianum, furnish it in any abundance. Another disadvantage arose from the frequency with which the river overflowed its banks. Its very slight fall rendered it unable to carry off the water, which during the rainy season descends in largo quantities from the mountains, with sufficient rapidity to the sea, and in consequence it flooded the low-lying lands and the valleys that open between the hills, and converted them into swamps. For a settler the locality was anything but attractive. Even in antiquity the opinion was expressed that the first body of immigrant cultivators could scarcely have resorted in search