The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5). Theodor Mommsen

the ruling Latin nationality had assimilated to itself the Sabines and Volscians and had scattered isolated Latin communities over all Italy; these germs were merely developed, when subsequently the Latin language became the mother-tongue of every one entitled to wear the Latin toga. That the Romans already clearly recognized this as their aim, is shown by the familiar extension of the Latin name to the whole body of contingent-furnishing Italian allies.(45) Whatever can still be recognized of this grand political structure testifies to the great political sagacity of its nameless architects; and the singular cohesion, which that confederation composed of so many and so diversified ingredients subsequently exhibited under the severest shocks, stamped their great work with the seal of success. From the time when the threads of this net drawn as skilfully as firmly around Italy were concentrated in the hands of the Roman community, it was a great power, and took its place in the system of the Mediterranean states in the room of Tarentum, Lucania, and other intermediate and minor states erased by the last wars from the list of political powers. Rome received, as it were, an official recognition of its new position by means of the two solemn embassies, which in 481 were sent from Alexandria to Rome and from Rome to Alexandria, and which, though primarily they regulated only commercial relations, beyond doubt prepared the way for a political alliance. As Carthage was contending with the Egyptian government regarding Cyrene and was soon to contend with that of Rome regarding Sicily, so Macedonia was contending with the former for the predominant influence in Greece, with the latter proximately for the dominion of the Adriatic coasts. The new struggles, which were preparing on all sides, could not but influence each other, and Rome, as mistress of Italy, could not fail to be drawn into the wide arena which the victories and projects of Alexander the Great had marked out as the field of conflict for his successors.

      Notes for Book II Chapter VII

      1. The story that the Romans also sent envoys to Alexander at Babylon on the testimony of Clitarchus (Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 5, 57), from whom the other authorities who mention this fact (Aristus and Asclepiades, ap. Arrian, vii. 15, 5; Memnon, c. 25) doubtless derived it. Clitarchus certainly was contemporary with these events; nevertheless, his Life of Alexander was decidedly a historical romance rather than a history; and, looking to the silence of the trustworthy biographers (Arrian, l. c.; Liv. ix. 18) and the utterly romantic details of the account—which represents the Romans, for instance, as delivering to Alexander a chaplet of gold, and the latter as prophesying the future greatness of Rome—we cannot but set down this story as one of the many embellishments which Clitarchus introduced into the history.

      2. II. VI. Last Struggles of Samnium

      3. Near the modern Anglona; not to be confounded with the better known town of the same name in the district of Cosenza.

      4. These numbers appear credible. The Roman account assigns, probably in dead and wounded, 15,000 to each side; a later one even specifies 5000 as dead on the Roman, and 20,000 on the Greek side. These accounts may be mentioned here for the purpose of exhibiting, in one of the few instances where it is possible to check the statement, the untrustworthiness—almost without exception—of the reports of numbers, which are swelled by the unscrupulous invention of the annalists with avalanche-like rapidity.

      5. The later Romans, and the moderns following them, give a version of the league, as if the Romans had designedly avoided accepting the Carthaginian help in Italy. This would have been irrational, and the facts pronounce against it. The circumstance that Mago did not land at Ostia is to be explained not by any such foresight, but simply by the fact that Latium was not at all threatened by Pyrrhus and so did not need Carthaginian aid; and the Carthaginians certainly fought for Rome in front of Rhegium.

      6. II. IV. Victories of Salamis and Himera, and Their Effects

      7. II. IV. Fruitlessness of the Celtic Victory

      8. The grounds for assigning the document given in Polybius (iii. 22) not to 245, but to 406, are set forth in my Rom. Chronologie, p. 320 f. [translated in the Appendix to this volume].

      9. II. V. Domination of the Romans; Exasperation of the Latins

      10. II. VII. Breach between Rome and Tarentum

      11. II. V. Colonization of the Volsci

      12. II. V. Colonization of the Volsci

      13. II. VI. New Fortresses in Apulia and Campania

      14. II. VI. Last Struggles of Samnium

      15. II. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads

      16. II. VII. The Boii

      17. II. VII. Construction of New Fortresses and Roads

      18. These were Pyrgi, Ostia, Antium, Tarracina, Minturnae, Sinuessa Sena Gallica, and Castrum Novum.

      19. This statement is quite as distinct (Liv. viii. 14; -interdictum mari Antiati populo est-) as it is intrinsically credible; for Antium was inhabited not merely by colonists, but also by its former citizens who had been nursed in enmity to Rome (II. V. Colonizations in The Land Of The Volsci). This view is, no doubt, inconsistent with the Greek accounts, which assert that Alexander the Great (431) and Demetrius Poliorcetes (471) lodged complaints at Rome regarding Antiate pirates. The former statement is of the same stamp, and perhaps from the same source, with that regarding the Roman embassy to Babylon (II. VII. Relations Between The East and West). It seems more likely that Demetrius Poliorcetes may have tried by edict to put down piracy in the Tyrrhene sea which he had never set eyes upon, and it is not at all inconceivable that the Antiates may have even as Roman citizens, in defiance of the prohibition, continued for a time their old trade in an underhand fashion: much dependence must not however, be placed even on the second story.

      20. II. VI. Last Campaigns in Samnium

      21. II. VII. Decline of the Roman Naval Power

      22. According to Servius (in Aen. iv. 628) it was stipulated in the Romano-Carthaginian treaties, that no Roman should set foot on (or rather occupy) Carthaginian, and no Carthaginian on Roman, soil, but Corsica was to remain in a neutral position between them (-ut neque Romani ad litora Carthaginiensium accederent neque Carthaginienses ad litora Romanorum. … .Corsica esset media inter Romanos et Carthaginienses-). This appears to refer to our present period, and the colonization of Corsica seems to have been prevented by this very treaty.

      23. II. VII. Submission of Lower Italy

      24. The clause, by which a dependent people binds itself "to uphold in a friendly manner the sovereignty of that of Rome" (-maiestatem populi Romani comiter conservare-), is certainly the technical appellation of that mildest form of subjection, but it probably did not come into use till a considerably later period (Cic. pro Balbo, 16, 35). The appellation of clientship derived from private law, aptly as in its very indefiniteness it denotes the relation (Dig. xlix. 15, 7, i), was scarcely applied to it officially in earlier times.

      25. II. IV. South Etruria Roman

      26. II. VI. Consolidation of the Roman Rule in Central Italy

      27. II. VI. Last Struggles of Samnium

      28. II. V. Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian Provinces

      29. II. V. Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian Provinces

      30. That Tusculum as it was the first to obtain passive burgess-rights (II. V. Crises within the Romano-Latin League) was also the first to exchange these for the rights of full burgesses, is probable in itself and presumably it is in the latter and not in the former respect that the town is named by Cicero (pro Mur. 8, 19) -municipium antiquissimum-.

      31. II. V. Complete Submission of the Volscian and Campanian Provinces

      32. II. IV. South Etruria Roman

      33. -V. Cervio A. f. cosol dedicavit- and -lunonei Quiritri sacra. C. Falcilius L. f. consol dedicavit-.

      34. According to the testimony of Cicero (pro Caec. 35) Sulla gave to the Volaterrans the former -ius- of Ariminum, that is—adds the orator—the -ius- of the "twelve colonies" which had not the Roman -civitas- but had full -commercium- with the Romans. Few things have been so much discussed