Latium

“ The small states of Latium which surrounded it possessed, perhaps, men as enlightened and citizens equally courageous, but there certainly did not exist among them, to the same degree as at Rome, the genius of war, the love of country, faith in high destinies, the conviction of an incontestible superiority, powerful motives of activity, instilled into them perseveringly by great men during two hundred and forty-four years. ”

“ Her walls, her shrines, but relics of the dead.
That hill, where Cæsars dwelt in other days,
Forsaken mourns, where once it towered sublime;
Each mouldering medal now far less displays
The triumphs won by Latium, than by Time. ”

“ The immortal gods have made you so completely masters of the situation that they have put it into your hands to decide whether there shall be hence-forth a Latium or not. So far, then, as the Latins are concerned, you can secure for yourselves a lasting peace by either cruelty or kindness. Do you wish to adopt ruthless measures against a people that have surrendered and been defeated? It is open to you to wipe out the whole Latin nation and create desolation and solitude in that country which has furnished you with a splendid army of allies which you have employed in many great wars. ”

“ Latium in the poverty of its artistic development stands almost on a level with uncivilized peoples; Hellas developed with incredible rapidity out of its religious conceptions the myth and the worshipped idol, and out of these that marvellous world of poetry and sculpture, the like of which history has not again to show. In Latium no other influences were powerful in public and private life but prudence, riches, and strength ”

“ Rome, planted on a march, rose, in the way in which marchlands often do rise, to supremacy among her fellows. Our first authentic record of the early commonwealth sets Rome before us as bearing rule over the whole of Latium. This dominion she seems to have lost soon after the driving out of the kings, and some of her territory right of the Tiber seems to have become Etruscan. Presently Rome appears, no longer as mistress of Latium, but as forming one member of a triple league concluded on equal terms with the Latins as a body, and with the Hernicans. ”

“ It is about time, Titus Manlius and senators, that you gave up treating us as though you were our suzerains, when you see the State of Latium raised by the bounty of the gods to a most flourishing position, both in population and in military power, the Samnites defeated, the Sidicines and Campanians in alliance with us, even the Volscians now making common cause with us, whilst your own colonies actually prefer the government of Latium to that of Rome. ”

“ Why is not one consul elected from the Latins? Those who possess half the strength, do they possess half the government? This is not in itself too much honour for us, seeing that we acknowledge Rome to be the head of Latium, but we have made it appear so by our prolonged forbearance.
"But if ever you longed for an opportunity of taking your place in the government and of making use of your liberty, now is the time; this is the opportunity which has been given you by your own courage and the goodness of the gods. You tried their patience by refusing to supply troops. ”

“ Under the kingly rule Rome becomes the most important and powerful of the cities of Latium, and a foundation is laid of social, religious, and political institutions which are destined to achieve a magnificent triumph. The kings of Rome are all great men—wise and statesmanlike, patrons of civilization among a rude and primitive people. No state for more than two hundred years was ever ruled by more enlightened princes, ambitious indeed, sometimes unscrupulous, but fortunate and successful. ”

“ As Murray strongly recommends you to visit this spectacle, at which you are promised a brilliant exhibition of all the costumes of modern Latium, I took an early train to Frascati and measured, in company with a prodigious stream of humble pedestrians, the half-hour’s interval to Grotta Ferrata, where the fair is held. The road winds along the hillside, among the silver-sprinkled olives and through a charming wood where the ivy seemed tacked upon the oaks by women’s fingers and the birds were singing to the late anemones. ”

“ The participation in the annual sacrifices at this sanctuary was regarded as typical of a Latin city (hence the name “prisci Latini” given to the participating peoples) ; and they continued to be celebrated long after the Latins had lost their independence and been incorporated in the Roman state. [8]
We are on firmer ground in dealing with the spread of the supremacy of Rome in Latium when we take account of the foundation of new colonies and of the formation of new tribes, processes which as a rule go together. The Roman supremacy. ”

“ The change thus introduced, though already manifest in the composition of the Latin league (see below) was not formally established till the reign of Augustus, who formed of this larger Latium and Campania taken together the first region of Italy; but it is already recognized by Strabo (v. 3. 2. p. 228) , as well as by Pliny, who terms the additional territory thus incorporated Latium Adjectum, while he designates the original Latium, extending from the Tiber to Circeii, as Latium Antiquum. ”

“ We notice, however, that the continual warfare in which the Roman state was engaged led to the decadence of the free population of Latium, and that the extension of the empire of Rome was fatal to the prosperity of the territory which immediately surrounded the city. [16]
What had previously, it seems, been a well-peopled region, with peasant proprietors, kept healthy by careful drainage, became in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. a district consisting in large measure of huge estates (latifundia) owned by the Roman aristocracy, cultivated by gangs Causes of depopulation. ”

“ So Latium and Campania were strewn with little towns by river and seashore, or hill-top built with more or less peaceful citadel; each holding the lands it could watch, or that its citizen armies could turn out quickly to defend. Each was always at war or in league with most of the others; but material civilization had not receded so far as among the mountaineers. ”

“ North of it on the same coast was ETRURIA, and to the south was CAMPANIA. On the Adriatic coast were UMBRIA, PICÉNUM, and SAMNIUM.
The cities of Latium were Rome, on the Tiber, and its seaport, Ostia, near the mouth of the same river. Ten miles northwest of Rome was Veii, an Etruscan city, and about the same distance southeast was Alba Longa. Nearly the same distance directly south of Rome, on the coast, was Lavinium, and east-northeast of Rome was Tibur. Neighboring to Alba Longa were Tusculum and the Alban Lake. The Pomptine Marshes were near the coast, in the southern part of Latium. ”

“ It seems futile to search further for evidence of racial differences. A more satisfactory explanation is suggested by the fact that economic conditions were such in Latium as readily to create class distinctions. In the first place, the land varied greatly in productivity.14 The Alban hills are high enough to attract a greater rainfall than the Latian plain secures, while the lands beneath the Sabine and Roman hills are aided by subsoil moisture from mountain springs. These things gave certain farmers a great advantage over others, since the dry season in Latium is normally very long. ”

“ After having traversed the cultivated and fertile vallies of Umbria, one is affected with double emotion at beholding the deplorable state of poor neglected Latium. For several posts before you arrive at Rome, few villages, little cultivation, and scarcely any inhabitants, are to be seen. In the Campania of Rome, formerly the best cultivated and best peopled spot in the world, no houses, no trees, no inclosures; [379] nothing but the scattered ruins of temples and tombs, presenting the idea of a country depopulated by a pestilence. All is motionless, silent, and forlorn. ”

“ Italy was at that time full of Greek science and of Greek systems, and these studies were at that time cultivated in Latium with greater zeal than they now are in the same towns; and here, too, at Rome, on account of the tranquil state of the republic at that time, they were far from neglected.
Therefore, the people of Tarentum, and Rhegium, and Neapolis, presented him with the freedom of the city and with other gifts; and all men who were capable of judging of genius thought him deserving of their acquaintance and hospitality. ”

“ Without waiting even to choose the sites for their camps, the two armies piled their baggage, fought and finished the war, for the Latins were so utterly worsted that when the consul with his victorious army was preparing to ravage their territory, they made a complete surrender and the Campanians followed their example. Latium and Capua were deprived of their territory. The Latin territory, including that of Privernum, together with the Falernian, which had belonged to the Campanians as far as the Volturnus, was distributed amongst the Roman plebs. ”

“ I often wish for a tolerable map of the neighbourhood, which would show the position of the different objects of our curiosity, especially of the antiquities, and it appears to me a strong feature of the sluggishness of modern Rome, that a work so extremely desirable, should have been so entirely neglected. I say entirely, for Sickler’s miserable map of Latium is not worth mention. I feel the want in nothing more, than in endeavouring to trace the aqueducts. ”

“ It is the Latins proper, it says, those pre-Roman Italians who by settling in Latium had from the first kept themselves free from the Greek influence, who were the ancestors of the Romans. Contradicting exoteric history, the Occult records affirm that if, owing to circumstances too long and complicated to be related here, the settlers of Latium preserved their primitive nationality a little longer than their brothers who had first entered the peninsula with them after leaving the East (which was not their original home) , they lost it very soon, for other reasons. ”

“ The farms were small, averaging perhaps eight to fifteen acres, an area large enough to provide a family with a stable though meagre livelihood. The farmers were hard working and frugal.
At this period of Roman history and mythology Latium was one of many communities occupying Italy. Each was self-governing. Each took the steps necessary for survival and expansion. Like their neighbors, the inhabitants of Latium were prepared to defend themselves against piracy, brigandage and ambitious, aggressive rivals. ”

“ But since you cannot bring your minds to abandon your impudent claims to sovereignty, we will go so far, in recognising that we are kindred nations, as to offer peace upon the conditions of equal rights for both, since it has pleased the gods to grant equal strength to both; though we are quite able to assert the independence of Latium by force of arms. One consul must be elected from Rome, the other from Latium; the senate must contain an equal number of members from both nations; there must be one nation, one republic. ”

“ Only the central portion of that region between the Tiber, the spurs of the Apennines, the Alban Mount, and the sea, a district of about 700 square miles, not much larger than the present canton of Zurich, was Latium proper, the "broad plain" [1] as it appears to the eye of the observer from the heights of Monte Cavo. Though the country is a plain, it is not monotonously flat. ”

“ Rome the emporium of Latium. 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. ”

“ Thrust in as they were between Æquians and Volscians, no alliance could be more precious than theirs to Rome and Latium. They were the most exposed member of the League, the outpost of Latium, as Latium itself was the outpost of Rome. Of all the three, the brunt of the struggle must have fallen most fiercely upon them; the hills of Anagni 171 must have looked down on many a fierce struggle with the invading occupants of the opposite range of mountains. The walls of Anagni must have endured or yielded to many a fierce attack of their ever-threatening neighbours. ”

“ Thus there not only existed in Latium the same fundamental elements out of which Hellenic culture and art grew, but Hellenic culture and art themselves exercised a powerful influence over Latium in very early times. Not only did the Latins possess the elements of gymnastic training, in so far as the Roman boy learned like every farmer's son to manage horses and waggon and to handle the hunting-spear, and as in Rome every burgess was at the same time a soldier ”

“ No Italian Homer, however, has preserved for us a picture of these earliest frays and plundering excursions, in which the character of nations is moulded and expressed, like the mind of the man in the sports and enterprises of the boy; nor does historical tradition enable us to form a judgment, with even approximate accuracy, as to the outward development of power and comparative resources in the several cantons of Latium. It is only in the case of Rome, at the utmost, that we can trace in some degree the extension of its power and of its territory. ”

“ Thus the language and writing of Latium indicate that the direction of Latin commerce lay towards the Cumæans and Sicilians. Every other trace which has survived from so remote an age leads to the same conclusion; such as the coin of Posidonia found in Latium the purchase of grain, when a failure of the harvest occurred in Rome, from the Volscians, Cumæans, and Siceliots (and, as was natural, from the Etruscans also) ; but, above all, the relation subsisting between the Latin and Sicilian monetary systems. ”