the league were in the beginning thirty--a number which we find
occurring with singular frequency as the sum of the constituent
parts of a commonwealth in Greece and Italy. What cantons originally
made up the number of the thirty old Latin communities or, as with
reference to the metropolitan rights of Alba they are also called,
the thirty Alban colonies, tradition has not recorded, and we can
no longer ascertain. The rendezvous of this union was, like the
Pamboeotia and the Panionia among the similar confederacies of the
Greeks, the "Latin festival" (-feriae Latinae-), at which, on the
"Mount of Alba" (-Mons Albanus-, -Monte Cavo-), upon a day annually
appointed by the chief magistrate for the purpose, an ox was
offered in sacrifice by the assembled Latin stock to the "Latin god"
(-Jupiter Latiaris-). Each community taking part in the ceremony
had to contribute to the sacrificial feast its fixed proportion
of cattle, milk, and cheese, and to receive in return a portion of
the roasted victim. These usages continued down to a late period,
and are well known: respecting the more important legal bearings
of this association we can do little else than institute conjectures.

From the most ancient times there were held, in connection with
the religious festival on the Mount of Alba, assemblies of the
representatives of the several communities at the neighbouring
Latin seat of justice at the source of the Ferentina (near Marino).
Indeed such a confederacy cannot be conceived to exist without
having a certain power of superintendence over the associated body,
and without possessing a system of law binding on all. Tradition
records, and we may well believe, that the league exercised
jurisdiction in reference to violations of federal law, and that
it could in such cases pronounce even sentence of death. The later
communion of legal rights and, in some sense, of marriage that