commercial connections subsisting between Rome and the Sicilian
Greeks, than by the ancient identity of the languages of the Siculi
and the Romans. According to all indications, however, not only
Latium, but probably also the Campanian and Lucanian districts,
the Italia proper between the gulfs of Tarentum and Laus, and the
eastern half of Sicily were in primitive times inhabited by different
branches of the Latin nation.

Destinies very dissimilar awaited these different branches. Those
settled in Sicily, Magna Graecia, and Campania came into contact
with the Greeks at a period when they were unable to offer resistance
to their civilization, and were either completely Hellenized, as in
the case of Sicily, or at any rate so weakened that they succumbed
without marked resistance to the fresh energy of the Sabine tribes.
In this way the Siculi, the Itali and Morgetes, and the Ausonians
never came to play an active part in the history of the peninsula.
It was otherwise with Latium, where no Greek colonies were
founded, and the inhabitants after hard struggles were successful
in maintaining their ground against the Sabines as well as against
their northern neighbours. Let us cast a glance at this district,
which was destined more than any other to influence the fortunes
of the ancient world.


Latium


The plain of Latium must have been in primeval times the scene of
the grandest conflicts of nature, while the slowly formative agency
of water deposited, and the eruptions of mighty volcanoes upheaved,