position
that the Roman nobility, after having effected the abolition of
royalty for life at home, suggested a similar change of constitution
to the communities of the Latin confederacy, and at length introduced
aristocratic government everywhere in Latium-- notwithstanding the
serious resistance, imperilling the stability of the Romano-Latin
league itself, which seems to have been offered on the one hand by
the expelled Tarquins, and on the other by the royal clans and by
partisans well affected to monarchy in the other communities of
Latium. The mighty development of the power of Etruria that occurred
at this very time, the constant assaults of the Veientes, and the
expedition of Porsena, may have materially contributed to secure the
adherence of the Latin nation to the once-established form of union,
or, in other words, to the continued recognition of the supremacy
of Rome, and disposed them for its sake to acquiesce in a change
of constitution for which, beyond doubt, the way had been in many
respects prepared even in the bosom of the Latin communities, nay
perhaps to submit even to an enlargement of the rights of hegemony.

Extension of Rome and Latium to the East and South

The permanently united nation was able not only to maintain, but
also to extend on all sides its power. We have already(9) mentioned
that the Etruscans remained only for a short time in possession of
supremacy over Latium, and that the relations there soon returned to
the position in which they stood during the regal period; but it was
not till more than a century after the expulsion of the kings from
Rome that any real extension of the Roman boundaries took place
in this direction.

With the Sabines who occupied the middle mountain range from the
borders of the Umbrians down to the region between the Tiber and
the Anio, and who, at the epoch when the history of Rome begins,
penetrated fighting and conquering as far as Latium itself, the
Romans notwithstanding their immediate neighbourhood subsequently came
comparatively little into contact. The feeble sympathy of the Sabines
with the desperate resistance offered by the neighbouring peoples in
the east and south, is evident even from the accounts of the annals;
and--what is of more importance--we find here no fortresses to keep
the land in subjection, such as were so numerously established
especially in the Volscian plain. Perhaps this lack of opposition
was connected with the fact that