Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/70

50 duties on the exports and imports of Ostia, which were from the first levied only on what was to be exposed for sale (promercale), not on what was for the shipper's own use (usuarium), and which were therefore in reality a tax upon commerce. Thence, to anticipate, the comparatively early appearance in Rome of coined money, and of commercial treaties with transmarine states. In this sense, then, it is certainly not improbable that Rome may have been, as the legend assumes, a creation rather than a growth, and the youngest rather than the eldest among the Latin cities. Beyond doubt the country was already in some degree cultivated, and the Alban range as well as many other heights of the Campagna were occupied by strongholds, when the Latin frontier emporium arose on the Tiber. Whether it was a resolve of the Latin confederacy, or the clear-sighted genius of some unknown founder, or the natural development of traffic, that called the city of Rome into being, it is vain even to surmise.

But in connection with this view of the position of Rome as the emporium of Latium another observation suggests itself. At the time when history begins to dawn on us, Rome appears, in contradistinction to the league of the Latin communities, as an united city. The Latin habit of dwelling in open villages, and of using the common stronghold only for festivals and assemblies, or in case of special need, was subjected to restriction at a far earlier period, probably, in the canton of Rome than anywhere else in Latium. The Roman did not cease to manage his farm in person, or to regard it as his proper home; but the unwholesome atmosphere of the Campagna could not but induce him to take up his abode as much as possible on the more airy and salubrious city hills; and by the side of the cultivators of the soil there must have been a numerous non-agricultural population, partly foreigners, partly native, settled there from very early times. This to some extent accounts for the dense population of the old Roman territory, which may be estimated at the utmost at 115 square miles, partly of marshy or sandy soil, and which, even under the earliest constitution of the city, furnished a force of 3300 freemen, and must have therefore numbered at least 10,000 free inhabitants. But further, every one acquainted with the Romans and their history is aware that it is their civic and mercantile character that forms the basis of what-