ry, the Anio. Hills rise here and there; as Soracte in the
northeast, the promontory of Circeium in the southwest, Janiculum
near Rome, and the Alban range farther south. The low lands (modern
_Campagna_) were malarious and unhealthy. Hence the first settlements
were made on the hills, which also could be easily fortified.

The first town established was ALBA; around this sprung up other towns,
as Lanuvium, Aricia, Tusculum, Tibur, Praeneste, Laurentum, Roma, and
Lavinium.

These towns, thirty in number, formed a confederacy, called the LATIN
CONFEDERACY, and chose Alba to be its head. An annual festival was
celebrated with great solemnity by the magistrates on the Alban Mount,
called the Latin festival. Here all the people assembled and offered
sacrifice to their common god, Jupiter (_Latiaris_).

(Illustration: Latium)

CHAPTER III. THE ROMANS AND THEIR EARLY GOVERNMENT.

We have learned the probable origin of the LATINS; how they settled
in Latium, and founded numerous towns. We shall now examine more
particularly that one of the Latin towns which was destined to outstrip
all her sisters in prosperity and power.

Fourteen miles from the mouth of the Tiber, the monotonous level of
the plain through which the river flows is broken by a cluster of
hills (Footnote: The seven hills of historic Rome were the Aventine,
Capitoline, Coelian, Esquiline (the highest, 218 feet), Palatine,
Quirinal, and Viminal. The Janiculum was on the other side of the Tiber,
and was held by the early Romans as a stronghold against the Etruscans.
It was connected with Rome by a wooden bridge (_Pons Sublicius_).)
rising to a considerable height, around one of which, the PALATINE,
first settled a tribe of Latins called RAMNES,--a name gradually changed
to ROMANS.

When this settlement was formed is not known. Tradition says in 753. It
may have been much earlier. These first settlers of Rome were possibly
a colony from Alba. In the early stages of their history they united
themselves with a Sabine colony that had settled north of them on the
QUIRINAL HILL. The name of TITIES was given to this new tribe. A third
tribe, named LUCERES, composed, possibly, of conquered Latins,
was afterwards added and settled upon the COELIAN HILL. All early
communities, to which the Romans were no exception, were composed of
several groups of FAMILIES. The Romans called these groups GENTES, and
a single group was called a GENS. All the members of a _g