If Rome had been overpowered in this struggle, the whole of her army would have been annihilated. The Latins, however, would not have been able to derive the same advantages from it which Rome did; for as Latium itself was wanting in that unity which is based upon a grand central point, the supremacy would have been left in abeyance between it and Samnium. There is every likelihood that Italy would then have fallen under a foreign yoke; it might perhaps have become the hopeless prey of Pyrrhus, or at least of the Carthaginians, and the Gauls would have incessantly wasted it. Had the Italian nations been wise, the same result would have been brought about without the destruction which now indeed accompanied it.

The battle must have been a complete defeat to the Latins; so decisive was it, that all were seized with panic. Capua evidently yielded at once; and those who had been beaten, did not even try to defend themselves behind the Vulturnus, but hurried away beyond the Liris. All fled. At Vescia, however, a new army was formed. Vescia is an Ausonian town near the Vescinian mountains, probably the present S. Agata di Goti: there are indeed no ruins there, but many tombs. It is situated on the natural road from the Liris to the Vulturnus; going to Naples, one has the mountains on the right hand. The flight of the Latins cannot then have been so disorderly as Livy describes it. Here those who had escaped assembled, and were reinforced by fresh contingents from the old Latin and Volscian towns; the Volscians on the sea coast, and on the Liris, the Auruncians and Sidicines, consequently the whole of the country between the Liris and the Vulturnus, were united. This army offered to the Romans a final battle near Trifanum on the Liris, between Sinuessa and Minturnæ. The Romans at once attacked, without resting from their march, and gained a decisive victory, though with a great loss of men; and this second overthrow of the Latins completed the destruction of all their resources, especially as they had the broad river Liris behind them. The contingents dispersed, each to defend its own town. The Romans quickly followed up the advantage which they had won, and went on towards Rome, passing through the very territory of the Latins. Whether Latium was then entirely subdued already, as Livy tells us, or yet later,—the Latins indeed are still open enemies the year after,—can only be decided according to probability. The Roman senate now pronounced judgment at once: perhaps these had laid down arms in their first fright, and had afterwards taken them up again; perhaps also the senate, with a grand confidence in the certainty of eventual success, passed the resolution that the ager publicus of the Latin state, the Falernian district of the Campanians, and part of the ager Privernas,—Privernum does not seem to have entered into the league of the Latins,—should be confiscated, and assigned to the Plebes viritim, that is to say, to every one who had put on the toga pura: assignments beyond the Vulturnus would not have been worth anything to the Romans. The assignation was, however, of very trifling extent, as the chief men among the plebeians intrigued with the patricians against the people. It was probably as a compensation for the ager Falernus, that to each of the Campanian knights a yearly revenue of four hundred and fifty denarii, to be paid by the commonalty of Capua, was adjudged: these, as was already remarked, were the Samnites of the old colony, who for the sake of their own interest had taken no share in the struggle. In the following year, after the Romans had received the submission of the Latins, that terrible punishment must have driven the latter to despair, and we see them again under arms. We know from more examples than one, with what cruelty the Romans dealt with a people that had revolted, for instance, Pleminius at Locri, during the war of Hannibal; so that we may believe that the garrisons in each of the towns were allowed to commit every crime, and such places had long to suffer all the horrors of a city taken by storm. The Romans now made war against the Latins from the nearest points of their territory. The insurrection was only in old Latium proper; in Tibur, Præneste, Pedum, on one side, and in Aricia, Lavinium, Antium, and Velitræ, on the other: this last town was originally Latin, then Volscian, at length it received a Roman colony; Tusculum and Ardea were Roman. These places formed two masses which defended themselves. The two consuls, Ti. Æmilius Mamercinus and Q. Publilius Philo, fought against them: Publilius had foiled an attempt of the Latins in the field;[137] Æmilius besieged Pedum. Here the united peoples of Tibur and Pedum had intrenched themselves, and the year passed away without any result. It was resolved to appoint a dictator; it is uncertain for what reason. Æmilius thence took occasion to name Publilius for that dignity.

There was now a suspension of arms, and attention was turned to domestic laws minuendo juri Patrum, the necessary results of the existing state of things, and not to be blamed, as Livy imagines. The first was, that one of the censors was now, of necessity, to be a plebeian. This in truth had already before been the case; C. Marcius, as we know, was the first plebeian censor; but it was only now that it became lawful, and was always done. The second, that to the laws which should be brought before the comitia centuriata, the patricians were to give a previous consent, whatever might be the resolution which the centuries should come to. Formerly the consuls had the initiative in the laws; afterwards also the prætor, as he too might preside in the senate, and make motions, his power having sprung from that of the consuls: the ædiles therefore had not this right, although they had the sella curulis. Yet the decree which the senate had passed on the motion of the magistrate, was not law; but it went to the centuries, and then to the curies. This circuitous method began when the comitia centuriata were added to the constitution. The senate was at first a patrician committee, and in fact even now the majority was still patrician; there was, however, already a very powerful plebeian element in it. Since the decemvirate, a hundred and ten years had elapsed; many patrician clans therefore must in that time have become extinct, and others have gone over to the Plebes. From Von Stetten’s history of the houses of Augsburg, we see that out of fifty-one houses in that city, thirty-eight became extinct in one hundred years; and that those which were left, then put forth the self-same claims which the fifty-one, a hundred years before, had not been able to make good. There was therefore no longer any reason whatever for allowing the patricians at Rome to have the veto as formerly; if it were taken away, it would only save a very great deal of unnecessary quarrelling. The more the patricians dwindled away, the more the ground was felt to be shaking beneath their feet, the more jealous they became, and the more they displayed their ill-humour in the weightiest business of the state. The change therefore made by Publilius, was a well-grounded one. Nothing, however, was ever formally abolished in Rome; but if old institutions were no more of use, they were allowed to continue as forms, so that they could do no harm: and thus it was enacted, that if the senate wanted anything to be decreed, the curies were to give their sanction to it beforehand. It is probable that, as in after days, only the lictors lent themselves to this farce. The third law is, ut plebiscita omnes Quirites tenerent; and it concerns, as was explained above, government decrees (ψηφίσματα), which were to be confirmed by the tribes, instead of by the centuries. This too was a mere formality; for if the tribunes, with whom the consul had previously conferred, agreed to them, the Plebs also always gave its consent.

The following year 417 is a decisive one: it is that in which the two hostile masses, the people of Pedum with their neighbours, and the inhabitants of the sea-coast, were utterly routed by L. Furius Camillus and C. Mænius, and Pedum taken by storm. C. Mænius is looked upon by the ancients as the one who decided the war. He conquered on the river Astura, the position of which is not known; a place of that name was situated between Circeii and Antium: certain it is, that he gained a victory on the coast, and Camillus another inland. To Mænius as the conqueror of the Latin people, an equestrian statue was erected. From henceforth no Latin army makes a stand any more in the field: the towns one by one capitulated. Livy’s account of it seems extremely satisfactory; but, if we compare it with other important notices, it is not so. He postdates events; some matters he omits, others he conceives but vaguely; and he makes no distinction between the free and the dependent municipium. Thus it happens, that we have only a general knowledge of these relations. The whole of the Latin state was broken up; the single towns, the senate resolved upon keeping, and making them of use to Rome, which, with extraordinary wisdom was done in different ways. Tusculum had had from of old the right of Roman citizenship, but not completely; its inhabitants now became full citizens. To the people of Lanuvium and of Nomentum, the freedom of Rome was granted, to become full citizens like the Tusculans; and at the same time, their population was enrolled in the census as plebeians, and admitted into the tribes. The Tusculans were put into the tribus Pupinia;[138] the Lanuvinians, and perhaps the Veliturnians, were formed into a new tribe, probably the Scaptia: whether the Nomentans formed the Mæcia, is uncertain. The Aricians also are mentioned by Livy among those who had received the citizenship; but according to an authentic account, they stood some years later in the position of a dependent municipium. Thus therefore these peoples attained to great honours. No place has given birth to so many renowned families as the little town of Tusculum, the cradle of the Fulvii, Porcii, Coruncanii, Curii, and others. This is a remark of Cicero’s, and as a general rule, a particularly large number of great men thus often come from certain places. Of Lanuvium hardly a family can be named.

Others also became citizens; but not optimo jure. From thence begins the class of citizens sine suffragio, which afterwards increases, and rises to a position of its own. The isopolites of old were municipes; and, if they settled in Rome, they could exercise the full rights of Roman citizens, a case like that of the freemen from the district of Florence before the year 1530. Into this relation of isopolity did those towns now enter, which had received the civitas sine suffragio. There was this difference, that formerly those only were municipes, who came to Rome, but whose native land enjoyed perfect independence in its political relations with other countries. This was now done away with. Single places became municipia; but were quite dependent with regard to foreign affairs; in the definition therefore in Festus, this is the second class of the municipia. Such municipia had connubium with Rome, and their own magistrates, and their inhabitants might acquire landed property there; but they were entirely dependent upon Rome, like an arrogated son on his father, or a wife quæ in manum convenerat: with regard to others they had no persona. Their right as regarded Rome, was to have equity at her hands. To that of Roman citizenship, they might be admitted as individuals by the censors; yet they did not serve in the legion, because they were not in the tribes; still they had to furnish troops, not as socii, but in fact as Romani, although in separate cohorts. The question may be mooted, whether they were liable to the tributum; that is to say, whether, if a tributum was levied at Rome, they had to pay according to the Roman census, and possessed the right of sharing burthens and advantages with the Roman people; or whether they were assessed at home. The latter was probably the case, as they raised and paid their troops themselves, and the tributum was also inherently connected with the tribus. To pay they had at all events; that was a thing of course. Without doubt, they had a share in the common land: if the Romans got a general assignation, these places also had a district assigned to them which they might dispose of in whatever way they chose. It is thus only, that Capua could have made such considerable acquisitions after the war of Pyrrhus.

Thus was this decision an important epoch for the Roman state. There sprang up quite a new class of municipia, the consequence of which was, that the Romans frequently bought estates in those districts. Soon, however, an inconvenience showed itself; as Romans had to appear before the tribunal of those who were by no means of so high a standing as themselves. This was afterwards remedied by the establishment of a præfectura; which the ancients, Livy in particular, misinterpreted, as if those towns had become quite subject when such an office was instituted. The province of the præfects (townwardens, reeves), was that of administering the law to the full citizens. Such places were then called fora or conciliabula, which was much the same thing as the townhouse in an American township: here was the court of law, and the markets also. The Roman who, for instance, bought at Capua a slave according to the law of that district, could not claim him as his property at Rome; if, however, the purchase had been made before the præfect according to Roman law, it could not be impugned on any account.

The fate of the other Latin towns was very hard. From Velitræ, the old senators, who were probably Volscians, together with a large part of the inhabitants, were led away across the Tiber into exile; and a new colony was sent into the place. To Antium, which was a sea-port, a marine colony was sent; the inhabitants received the inferior right of Roman citizenship, which the Roman settlers also entered into on going thither. The Antiates were deprived of their armed vessels (interdictum mare): the Romans detested piracy, and in this way got most easily out of it: whether the commerce of the Antiates suffered from it, was all the same to them. The other places were forbidden connubium and commercium among each other, and also common deliberations (concilia), as in Achaia, Phocis, Bœotia; from none of them could any thing be bought or sold to the other; besides which, each had its own burdens; so that, if once by any calamity the landed property in one of them fell in value, the distress was very great. They were limited to selling among themselves, or to Roman citizens, as they had commercium with Romans only. This was the cause of the decline of these towns; for in proportion as Romans settled there, their burthens became greater and greater, so that part of them vanished from the face of the earth. Præneste and Tibur only kept their footing. They were agro multati; but in Polybius’ times they again make their appearance in possession of the old jus municipii. According to Livy, it might seem as if none but the Laurentines had retained the old fœdus; but it is very possible that this was also the case with these two, and that, although they at that time lost their demesne, they still preserved the franchise of the municipium. Both of them had large and fruitful country districts, and they must have had peculiar vitality in them: Præneste indeed tried more than once to shake off the Roman yoke. In this isolation all those places were comprehended, which at the end of the fourth century were leagued with Latium. The prohibition of the concilia remained in force; for the feriæ Latinæ, the old diet, became a mere shadow, a conventus (πανήγυρις) solely for the celebration of the games. This isolation was also particularly extended to the Æquians, who doubtless had been in the Latin league.

This was an expedient which the Romans now invariably employed, wherever they wanted to break a conquered people, as they did afterwards in Achaia. By this means, the chief places were entirely severed; the feeling of unity died away; they looked on each other as strangers,—and such a separation generally brings on hostility after it, as in Northern and Southern Dittmarschen. As the Romans placed no garrisons in the towns, they were obliged to adopt this Machiavellian policy. In the same manner, the Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Tuscany, who likewise kept no troops, divided his subjects, and thereby made them bad.

The Latin colonies, as it seems, were severed from the rest of Latium; whereas formerly they had been attached in the first instance to Latium, and did not immediately depend upon Rome. They now became a peculiar class of subjects, the like of which had not existed before; as Rome from this time founds Latin colonies by her own absolute authority. These deserve the admiration with which Machiavel speaks of them; they are the device of a grand, statesmanlike spirit. They were increased to thirty, even as there had formerly been thirty Latin towns. These colonies have their origin in the treaty between the two peoples. A district conquered in common, was formerly shared between them both; but those which could not, or which were not to have been thus divided, were assigned as colonies. Rome also founded for herself several colonies, which received the Cærite franchise; but those were called Latin colonies. Here Roman citizens might settle, and thereby left the tribes; yet they could again become citizens, if they chose. Afterwards these colonies joined the Latin towns: in the list of the thirty Latin places, previous to the battle at the Regillus, in Dionysius, which are certainly those in the treaty of peace between Rome and Latium, there are some which were stated to have been founded as Latin colonies by Tarquin the Proud, and are mentioned as such in the war of Hannibal. With regard to these, there is no doubt but that those Romans who joined the Latins in them, acquired equal civil rights. In the Latin colonies, the number of citizens was much larger than in the Roman ones. Afterwards the Italians were admitted to take part in the colonies; they also sometimes got a share of the demesne; and thus the colonies became the great means for the spread of the Roman dominion, and by the Latin language, which became that of Roman policy, those of the old inhabitants were overpowered. They always were from the first dependent upon Rome, and quite unconnected with each other. Until then, the number of the Latin colonies was inconsiderable; from henceforth it increases. All these places were bound to military service, and Rome prescribed to them their contingent: they mainly contributed to the success of the Romans in the Samnite wars. The Romans surrounded themselves with colonies, as their border strongholds. A district was given over to several thousand men with the obligation to keep it; there were added to them from Rome as many as liked to join them, and others from Latium and other nations. The laws were established; the old inhabitants remained as a commonalty,—the mass of the tradesmen certainly consisted of them; they amalgamated before long with the coloni, and this germ grew up to be a stately tree. Rome first planted these colonies on the Liris, and in Campania; then drew this chain as high up as Umbria, and pushed it on further and further. This double plan of founding colonies, and of imparting the right of citizenship, without, and in some cases with the suffragium, became the means by which Rome, from a city-corporation, grew into a state which comprised the whole of Italy. The coloni were not charged with any personal taxes, which fell upon foreigners only; they had but to pay tithes from the Ager, ex formula.

The revolution which resulted from the conquest of the Latins, is immense in its consequences. Only two years before, Rome’s destruction by the Latins was quite a possible event; now all the resources of Latium had accrued to her, which had not been destroyed during the struggle. There follows, however, from the reasons mentioned above, an epoch of decline for the Latin towns.