Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/69

Rh lus from the Veientes, and that King Ancus fortified on the right bank the tête du pont, the "mount of Janus" (Janiculum), and founded on the left the Roman Piræeus, the seaport at the river's "mouth" (Ostia). But we have evidence more trustworthy than that of legend, that the possessions on the right bank of the Tiber must have belonged to the original territory of Rome; for in this very quarter, at the fourth milestone on the later road to the port, lay the grove of the creative goddess (Dea Dia), the primitive chief seat of the Arval festival and Arval brotherhood of Rome. In fact, from time immemorial the clan of the Romilii, the chief probably of all the Roman clans, was settled in this very quarter: the Janiculum formed a part of the city itself, and Ostia was a burgess colony, or, in other words, a suburb.

This cannot have been the result of mere accident. The Tiber was the natural highway for the traffic of Latium; and its mouth, on a coast scantily provided with harbours, became necessarily the anchorage of seafarers. Moreover, the Tiber formed from very ancient times the frontier defence of the Latin stock against their northern neighbours. There was no place better fitted for an emporium of the Latin river and sea traffic, and for a maritime frontier fortress of Latium, than Rome. It combined the advantages of a strong position and of immediate vicinity to the river; it commanded both banks of the stream down to its mouth; it was so situated as to be equally convenient for the river navigator descending the Tiber or the Anio, and for the seafarer with vessels of so moderate a size as those which were then used; and it afforded greater protection from pirates than places situated immediately on the coast. That Rome was indebted accordingly, if not for its origin, at any rate for its importance, to these commercial and strategical advantages of its position, there are numerous indications to show—indications which are of very different weight from the statements of quasi-historical romances. Thence arose its very ancient relations with Cære, which was to Etruria what Rome was to Latium, and accordingly became Rome's most intimate neighbour and commercial ally. Thence arose the unusual importance of the bridges over the Tiber, and of bridge-building generally in the Roman commonwealth. Thence came the galley in the city arms; thence, too, the very ancient Roman port