Ancient States and Empires / For Colleges and Schools

by John Lord

Latium. Foundation of Rome.

Latium was a small country, bounded on the north by the Tiber, on the East by the Liris and Vinius, and on the south and west by the Tuscan Sea. It was immediately surrounded by the Etruscans, Sabines, Equi, and [pg 399] Marsi. When Latium was originally settled we do not know, but the people doubtless belonged to the Indo-European race, kindred to the early settlers of Europe. Latium was a plain, inclosed by mountains and traversed by the Tiber, of about seven hundred square miles. Between the Alban Lake and the Alban Mount, was Alba—the original seat of the Latin race, and the mother city of Rome. Here, according to tradition, reigned Ascanius, the son of Æneas, and his descendants for three hundred years were the Latin tribes. After eleven generations of kings, Amulius usurps the throne, which belonged to Numitor, the elder brother, and dooms his only daughter, Silvia, to perpetual virginity as a Vestal. Silvia, visited by a god, gives birth to twins, Romulus and Remus. The twins, exposed by the order of Amulius, are suckled by a she-wolf, and brought up by one of the king's herdsmen. They feed their flocks on the Palatine, but a quarrel ensuing between them and the herdsmen of Numitor on the Aventine, their royal origin is discovered, and the restoration of Numitor is effected. But the twins resolve to found a city, and Rome arises on the Palatine, an asylum for outlaws and slaves, who are provided with wives by the “rape of the Sabine women.”

The early inhabitants. Rome founded in violence.

Thus, according to the legends, was the foundation of Rome, on a hill about fourteen miles from the mouth of the Tiber, and on a site less healthy than the old Latin towns, B.C. 751, or 753. According to the speculations of Mommsen, it would seem that Rome was at a very early period the resort of a lawless band of men, who fortified themselves on the Palatine, and perhaps other hills, and robbed the small merchants, who sailed up and down the Tiber, as well as the neighboring rural population, even as the feudal barons intrenched themselves on hills overlooking plains and rivers. But all theories relating to the foundation of Rome are based either on legend or speculation. Until we arrive at certain facts, I prefer those based on legend, such as have been accepted for more than two thousand years. [pg 400] It is but little consequence whether Romulus and Remus are real characters, or poetic names. This is probable, that the situation of Rome was favorable in ancient times for rapine, even if it were not a healthy locality. The first beginnings of Rome were violence and robbery, and the murder of Remus by Romulus is a type of its early history, and whole subsequent career.

The Sabine element of Rome.

Romulus and his associate outlaws, now intrenched on the Palatine, organize a city and government, and extend the limits. The rape of the Sabines leads to war, and Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, obtains possession of the Capitoline Hill—the smallest but most famous of the seven hills on which Rome was subsequently built. In the valley between, on which the forum was afterward built, the combatants are separated by the Sabine wives of the outlaws, and the tribes or nations are united under the name of Ramnes and Tities, the Sabines retaining the capitol and the Quirinal, and the Romans the Palatine. Some Etruscans, in possession of the Cælian Hill, are incorporated as a third tribe, called Luceres. But it is probable that the Sabine element prevailed. Each tribe contains ten curiæ of a hundred citizens, which, with the three hundred horsemen, form a body of three thousand three hundred citizens, who alone enjoyed political rights.

The constitution.

The government, though monarchical, was limited. The king was bound to lay all questions of moment before the assembly of the thirty curiæ, called the Comitia Curiata. But the king had a council called the Senate, composed of one hundred members, who were called Patres, or Fathers, and doubtless were the heads of clans called Gentes. The Gentes were divided into Familiæ, or families. These Patres were the heads of the patrician houses—that class who alone had political rights, and who were Roman citizens.

Numa Pompilius.

Romulus is said to have reigned justly and ably for thirty-seven years, and no one could be found worthy to succeed him. At length the Roman tribe, the [pg 401] Ramnes, elected Numa Pompilius, from the Sabines, a man of wisdom and piety, and said to have acquired his learning from Pythagoras. This king instituted the religious and civil legislation of Rome, and built the temple of Janus in the midst of the Forum, whose doors were shut in peace and opened in war, but were never closed from his death to the reign of Augustus, but a brief period after the first Punic war.