. Rome : its rise and fall ; a text-book for high schools and colleges. broad outlines, very nearlywith actual fact. In very early times Latium, the flat country, as thename probably signifies, lying south of the lower course ofthe Tiber, was dotted with settlements of the Latin settlements were merely groups of clans (par. 9), orvillage communities, to which has been given the name ofcantons. The villages constituting any given canton weregenerally, it would seem, scattered over the little cantonalterritory, in order that the villagers, who were petty farmers 7 Chap. 40 ROM
. Rome : its rise and fall ; a text-book for high schools and colleges. broad outlines, very nearlywith actual fact. In very early times Latium, the flat country, as thename probably signifies, lying south of the lower course ofthe Tiber, was dotted with settlements of the Latin settlements were merely groups of clans (par. 9), orvillage communities, to which has been given the name ofcantons. The villages constituting any given canton weregenerally, it would seem, scattered over the little cantonalterritory, in order that the villagers, who were petty farmers 7 Chap. 40 ROME AS A KINGDOM. and shepherds, might be near the land they cultivated orthe common pastures out upon which they drove theirsheep and cattle; but sometimes the villages appear tohave been huddled together on some eligible spot, suchas a low hill might afford. Whether or not the clans form-ing a canton were united by blood or descent is unknown ;but at any rate they had a common worship, and thuswere closely united by the tie of religion, if not by thatof The Site of Tibur, the Modern Tivoli. (After an old engraving. To the left, the ruins of an ancient temple of Vesta.) Each canton had a central stronghold, which served asa refuge for the villagers in times of danger, and as acommon meetmg-place for their markets and religious fes-tivals. The site chosen for this canton-centre was, when-ever practicable, some easily defended rock or hill, of whichthe situation of Tibur, built on a spur of the Apennines ROME UNDER THE KINGS. 41 jutting out into the Campagna, and that of Alba Longa,on the isolated Alban Mount, are good According to tradition there were in all Latium in pre-historic times thirty of these clan-clusters, or embryo-cities,as we, with our eye upon their future, may designate formed a sovereign, independent state, with powerto wage war against its neighbors or to make treatieswith them. Before the dawn of history these cantonshad
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