national cultures of Italy gradually perished to enrich a single
people. While the historian may not attempt to follow out the great
course of events into the infinite multiplicity of individual detail,
he does not overstep his province when, laying hold of detached
fragments of scattered tradition, he indicates the most important
changes which during this epoch took place in the national life of
Italy. That in such an inquiry the life of Rome becomes still more
prominent than in the earlier epoch, is not merely the result of the
accidental blanks of our tradition; it was an essential consequence
of the change in the political position of Rome, that the Latin
nationality should more and more cast the other nationalities of Italy
into the shade. We have already pointed to the fact, that at this
epoch the neighbouring lands--southern Etruria, Sabina, the land of
the Volscians, --began to become Romanized, as is attested by the
almost total absence of monuments of the old native dialects, and by
the occurrence of very ancient Roman inscriptions in those regions;
the admission of the Sabines to full burgess-rights at the end of this
period(44) betokens that the Latinizing of Central Italy was already
at that time the conscious aim of Roman policy. The numerous
individual assignations and colonial establishments scattered
throughout Italy were, not only in a military but also in a linguistic
and national point of view, the advanced posts of the Latin stock. The
Latinizing of the Italians was scarcely at this time generally aimed
at; on the contrary, the Roman senate seems to have intentionally
upheld the distinction between the Latin and the other nationalities,
and they did not yet, for example, allow the introduction of Latin
into official use among the half-burgess communities of Campania. The
force of circumstances, however, is stronger than even the strongest
government: the language and customs of the Latin people immediately
shared its predominance in Italy, and already began to undermine
the other Italian nationalities.

Progress of Hellenism in Italy--
Adoption of Greek Habits at the Table

These nationalities were at the same time assailed from another
quarter and by an ascendency resting on another basis--by Hellenism.
This was the period when Hellenism began to become conscious of its
intellectual superiority to the other nations, and to diffuse itself
on every side. Italy did not remain unaffected by i