neighbours. There was no place better fitted for an emporium of the
Latin river and sea traffic, and for a maritime frontier fortress
of Latium, than Rome. It combined the advantages of a strong position
and of immediate vicinity to the river; it commanded both banks of
the stream down to its mouth; it was so situated as to be equally
convenient for the river navigator descending the Tiber or the
Anio, and for the seafarer with vessels of so moderate a size as
those which were then used; and it afforded greater protection from
pirates than places situated immediately on the coast. That Rome
was indebted, if not for its origin, at any rate for its importance,
to these commercial and strategical advantages of its position,
there are accordingly numerous further indications, which are
of very different weight from the statements of quasi-historical
romances. Thence arose its very ancient relations with Caere, which
was to Etruria what Rome was to Latium, and accordingly became Rome's
most intimate neighbour and commercial ally. Thence arose the unusual
importance of the bridge over the Tiber, and of bridge-building
generally in the Roman commonwealth. Thence came the galley in the
city arms; thence, too, the very ancient Roman port-duties on the
exports and imports of Ostia, which were from the first levied only
on what was to be exposed for sale (-promercale-), not on what was
for the shipper's own use (-usuarium-), and which were therefore
in reality a tax upon commerce. Thence, to anticipate, the
comparatively early occurrence in Rome of coined money, and of
commercial treaties with transmarine states. In this sense, then,
certainly Rome may have been, as the legend assumes, a creation
rather than a growth, and the youngest rather than the oldest among
the Latin cities. Beyond doubt the country was already in some
degree cultivated, and the Alban range as well as various other
heights of the Campagna were occupied by strongholds, when the Latin