the federal communities,
certainly cannot have preceded the establishment of the curule
aedileship in Rome, which occurred in 387; probably it took place
about that very time. Beyond doubt this arrangement was only one
of a series of measures curtailing the liberties and modifying
the organization of the federal communities in the interest of
aristocratic policy.

Domination of the Romans; Exasperation of the Latins--
Collision between the Romans and the Samnites

After the fall of Veii and the conquest of the Pomptine territory,
Rome evidently felt herself powerful enough to tighten the reins of
her hegemony and to reduce the whole of the Latin cities to a position
so dependent that they became in fact completely subject. At this
period (406) the Carthaginians, in a commercial treaty concluded with
Rome, bound themselves to inflict no injury on the Latins who were
subject to Rome, viz. the maritime towns of Ardea, Antium, Circeii,
and Tarracina; if, however, any one of the Latin towns should fall
away from the Roman alliance, the Phoenicians were to be allowed to
attack it, but in the event of conquering it they were bound not to
raze it, but to hand it over to the Romans. This plainly shows by
what chains the Roman community bound to itself the towns protected
by it and how much a town, which dared to withdraw from the native
protectorate, sacrificed or risked by such a course.

It is true that even now the Latin confederacy at least--if not also
the Hernican--retained its formal title to a third of the gains of
war, and doubtless some other remnants of the former equality of
rights; but what was palpably lost was important enough to explain the
exasperation which at this period prevailed among the Latins against
Rome. Not only did numerous Latin volunteers fight under foreign
standards against the community at their head, wherever they found
armies in the field against Rome; but in 405 even the Latin federal
assembly resolved to refuse to the Romans its contingent. To all
appearance a renewed rising of the whole Latin confederacy might be
anticipated at no distant date; and at that very moment a collision
was imminent with another Italian nation, which was able to encounter
on equal terms the united strength of the Latin stock. After the
overthrow of the northern Volscians no considerable people in
the first instance opposed the Romans in the south; their legions
unchecked approached the Liris. As early a