banks of the Tiber towards the sea. Between Rome and the coast there
occurs no locality that is mentioned as an ancient canton-centre,
and no trace of any ancient canton-boundary. The legend indeed,
which has its definite explanation of the origin of everything,
professes to tell us that the Roman possessions on the right bank of
the Tiber, the "seven hamlets" (-septem pagi-), and the important
salt-works at its mouth, were taken by king Romulus from the Veientes,
and that king Ancus fortified on the right bank the -tete de pont-,
the "mount of Janus" (-Janiculum-), and founded on the left the
Roman Peiraeus, the seaport at the river's "mouth" (-Ostia-). But
in fact we have evidence more trustworthy than that of legend, that
the possessions on the Etruscan bank of the Tiber must have belonged
to the original territory of Rome; for in this very quarter, at
the fourth milestone on the later road to the port, lay the grove
of the creative goddess (-Dea Dia-), the primitive chief seat of
the Arval festival and Arval brotherhood of Rome. Indeed from time
immemorial the clan of the Romilii, once the chief probably of all
the Roman clans, was settled in this very quarter; the Janiculum
formed a part of the city itself, and Ostia was a burgess colony
or, in other words, a suburb.


The Tiber and Its Traffic


This cannot have been the result of mere accident. The Tiber was
the natural highway for the traffic of Latium; and its mouth, on
a coast scantily provided with harbours, became necessarily the
anchorage of seafarers. Moreover, the Tiber formed from very ancient
times the frontier defence of the Latin stock against their northern