handed down in connection with ritual, the existence of Sabellian
elements can nowhere be pointed out in Rome; and the Latin
language in particular furnishes absolutely no support to any such
hypothesis.(4) It would in fact be more than surprising, if the
Latin nation should have had its nationality in any sensible degree
affected by the insertion of a single community from a stock so
very closely related to it; and, besides, it must not be forgotten
that at the time when the Tides settled beside the Ramnians, Latin
nationality rested on Latium as its basis, and not on Rome. The new
tripartite Roman commonwealth was, notwithstanding some incidental
elements which were originally Sabellian, just what the community
of the Ramnians had previously been--a portion of the Latin nation.


Rome the Emporium of Latium


Long, in all probability, before an urban settlement arose on the
Tiber, these Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, at first separate,
afterwards united, had their stronghold on the Roman hills, and
tilled their fields from the surrounding villages. The "wolf-festival"
(Lupercalia) which the gens of the Quinctii celebrated on the
Palatine hill, was probably a tradition from these primitive times--a
festival of husbandmen and shepherds, which more than any other
preserved the homely pastimes of patriarchal simplicity, and,
singularly enough, maintained itself longer than all the other
heathen festivals in Christian Rome,


Character of Its Site