344 L A T I U M
being derived from an authentic document (see Niebuhr's Roman History, vol. ii. p. 23), enumerates them as follows: – Ardea, Aricia, Bovillæ, Bubentum, Corniculum, Carventum, Circeii, Corioli, Corbio, Cora, Fortinei (?), Gabii, Laurentum, Lavinium, Labicum, Lanuvium, Nomentum, Norba, Præneste, Pedum, Querquetulum, Satricum, Scaptia, Setia, Tellenæ, Tibur, Tusculum, Toleria, Tricrinum (?), Velitræ.
The list thus given by Dionysius is arranged in an order approximately alphabetical. Omitting the two names which are probably corrupt, and a few of which the site cannot be determined with any certainty, the others may be described according to their geographical arrangement. Laurentum and Lavinium, names so conspicuous in the legendary history of Æneas, were situated in the sandy strip near the sea-coast, – the former only 8 miles east of Ostia, which was from the first merely the port of Rome, and never figured as an independent city. Farther eastward again lay Ardea, the ancient capital of the Rutuli, and some distance beyond that Antium, situated on the sea-coast, which, though not in the list of Dionysius, was certainly a Latin city. On the southern underfalls of the Alban mountains, commanding the plain at the foot, stood Lanuvium and Velitræ; Aricia rose on a neighbouring hill, and Corioli was probably situated in the plain beneath. The more important city of Tusculum occupied one of the northern summits of the same group; while opposite to it, in a commanding situation on a lofty offshoot of the Apennines, rose Præneste, now Palestrina. Bola and Pedum were in the same neighbourhood, Labicum on the slope of the Alban hills below Tusculum, and Corbio on a rocky summit east of the same city. Tibur (Tivoli) occupied a height commanding the outlet of the river Anio. Corniculum, farther west, stood on the summit of one of three conical hills that rise abruptly out of the plain at the distance of a few miles from Monte Gennaro, the nearest of the Apennines, and which were thence known as the Montes Corniculani. Nomentum was a few miles farther north, between the Apennines and the Tiber, and close to the Sabine frontier. The boundary between the two nations was indeed in this part very fluctuating. Nearly in the centre of the plain of the Campagna stood Gabii; Bovillæ was also in the plain, but close to the Appian Way, where it begins to ascend the Alban hills. Several other cities – Tellenæ, Scaptia, and Querquetulum – mentioned in the list of Dionysius were probably situated in the Campagna, but their site cannot be determined. Satricuni, on the other hand was south of the Albau hills, apparently between Telitræ and Antium; while Cora, Norba, and Setia (all of which retain their ancient names with little modification) crowned the rocky heights which form advanced posts from the Volscian mountains towards the Pontine Marshes.
It must be borne in mind that the list given by Dionysius belonged to a date about 490 B.C., and a considerable number of the Latin cities had before that time either been utterly destroyed or reduced to subjection by Rome, and had thus lost their independent existence. Such were Antemnæ and Cœnina, both of them situated within a few miles of Rome, and the conquest of which was ascribed to Romulus; Fidenæ, about 5 miles north of the city, and close to the Tiber; and Crustumerium, in the hilly tract farther north towards the Sabine frontier. Pometia also, on the borders of the Pontine Marshes, to which it was said to have given name, was a city of importance, the destruction of which was ascribed to Tarquinius Superbus. But by far the most important of these extinct cities was Alba, on the lake to which it gave its name, which was, according to the tradition universally received, the parent of Rome, as well as of numerous other cities within the limits of Latium, including Gabii, Fidenæ, Collatia, Nomentum, and other well-known towns. Whether or not this tradition deserves to rank as historical, it appears certain that at an early period there existed a confederacy of thirty towns, of which Alba was the supreme head. A list of these is given us by Pliny (iii. 5, 968) under the name of "populi Albenses," which includes only six of those found in the list of Dionysius; and these for the most part among the more obscure and least known of the names there given; while the more powerful cities of Aricia, Lanuvium, and Tusculum, though situated immediately on the Alban hills, are not included, and appear to have maintained a wholly independent position. This earlier league was doubtless broken up by the fall of Alba; it was probably the increasing power of the Volsci and Æqui that led to the formation of the later league, including all the more powerful cities of Latium, as well as to the alliance concluded by them with the Romans in the consulship of Sp. Cassius (493 B.C.).
The cities of the Latin league continued to hold general meetings or assemblies from time to time at the Grove of Ferentina, a sanctuary at the foot of the Alban hills in a valley below Marino, while they had also a common place of worship on the summit of the Alban Mount (the Monte Cavo), where stood the celebrated temple of Jupiter Latiaris. The participation in the annual sacrifices at this sanctuary was regarded as typical of a Latin city; and they continued to be celebrated long after the Latins had lost their independence and been incorporated in the Roman state. This change took place in 338 B.C. During the centuries that followed down to the end of the Roman republic many of the Latin towns sank into a very decayed condition. Cicero speaks of Gabii, Labicum, and Bovillæ as places that had fallen into abject poverty, while Horace refers to Gabii and Fidenæ as mere "deserted villages." Many of the smaller places mentioned in the list of Dionysius, or the early wars of the Romans, had altogether ceased to exist, but the statement of Pliny that fifty-three communities (populi) had thus perished within the boundaries of Old Latium is certainly exaggerated, and his list of the "illustrious cities" (clara oppida) that had thus disappeared is very confused and unintelligible. Still more erroneous is his statement that there were once twenty-four cities on the site occupied in his time by the Pontine Marshes, – an assertion not confirmed by any other authority, and utterly at variance with the physical conditions of the tract in question.
II. Latium Novum, or Adjectum, as it is termed by Pliny, comprised the territories occupied in earlier times by the Volscians, Hernicans, and Auruncans. It was for the most part a rugged and mountainous country, extending at the back of Latium proper, from the frontier of the Sabines to the sea-coast between Terracina and Sinuessa. But it was not separated from the adjacent territories by any natural frontier or physical boundaries, and it is only by the enumeration of the towns in Pliny according to the division of Italy by Augustus that we can determine its limits. It included the upper valley of the Anio, with the towns of Sublaqueum and Treba; the Hernican cities of Anagnia, Ferentiniun, Alatrium, and Verulæ – a group of mountain strongholds on the north side of the valley of the Trerus or Sacco; together with the Volscian cities on the south of the same valley, and in that of the Liris, the whole of which, with the exception of its extreme upper end, was included in the Volscian territory. Here were situated Signia, Frusino, Fabrateria, Fregellæ, Sora, Arpinum, Atina, Aquinum, Casinum, and Interamna; Anxur, or Tarracina, was the only seaport that properly belonged to the Volscians, the coast from thence to the mouth of the Liris being included in the territory of the Auruncans, or Ausonians as they were termed by Greek writers, who possessed the maritime towns of Fundi, Formiæ, Caieta, and Minturnæ, together with Suessa in the interior, which had replaced their more ancient capital of Aurunca. Sinuessa, on the sea-coast between the Liris (Garigliano) and the Vulturnus, was the last town in Latium according to the official use of the term.
Though the Apennines comprised within the boundaries of Latium do not rise to a height approaching that of the loftiest summits of the central range, they attain to a considerable altitude, and form steep and rugged mountain masses from 4000 to 5000 feet high. They are traversed by three principal valleys: – (1) that of the Anio, now called Teverone, which descends from above Subiaco to Tivoli, where it enters the plain of the Campagna; (2) that of the Trerus or Sacco, which has its source below Palestrina (Præneste), and flows through a comparatively broad valley that separates the main mass of the Apennines from the Volscian mountains or Monti Lepiui, till it joins the Liris below Ceprano; (3) that of the Liris or Garigliano, which enters the confines of New Latium about 20 miles from its source, flows under the walls of Sora, and has a very tortuous course from thence to the sea at Minturnæ; its lower valley is for the most part of considerable width, and forms a fertile tract of considerable extent, bordered on both sides by hills covered with vines, olives, and fruit trees, and thickly studded with towns and villages.
It may be observed that, long after the Latins had ceased to exist
