FOOTNOTES:
[24] A colony, I may remind my readers, was practically a military outpost. It was inhabited by old soldiers to whom land had been granted. There were two classes of colonies, Roman and Latin, as there were two kinds of citizenship, Roman and Latin. Livy has an interesting passage about the behaviour of the Latin colonies in the year 209. There were thirty in all. Twelve of these declared themselves to be unable to comply with the requisitions for men and money made upon them. The other eighteen expressed themselves in an opposite sense, as willing to do even more than was asked of them. Among these we find Brundisium, Luceria, Venusium, Paestum, and Beneventum, all important places in the region generally occupied by Hannibal. Livy goes so far as to say that it was their support that was the salvation of Rome. "After all these years they must not be forgotten or deprived of the praise which they so well deserved."