nquered city
to the loss of its freedom. It was a distinctly Roman institution, and
shows the wisdom of the early Roman statesmen who thus marked out the way
for the complete absorption of the vanquished into the Roman citizen body,
which was thus strengthened to meet its continually increasing military
burdens. By 265, the Roman territory in Italy had an area of about 10,000
square miles. It extended along the west coast from the neighborhood of
Caere southwards to the southern border of Campania, and from the latitude
of Rome it stretched northeastwards through the territory of the Sabini to
the Adriatic coast, where the lands of the Picentes and the Senones had
been incorporated in the _ager Romanus_.

*The Latin colonies.* Of the non-Romans in Italy the people most closely
bound to Rome by ties of blood and common interests were the Latin allies.
Outside the few old Latin cities, that had not been absorbed by Rome in
338, these were the inhabitants of the Latin colonies, of which
thirty-five were founded on Italian soil. Prior to the destruction of the
Latin League seven of these colonies had been established, whose settlers
had been drawn half from the Latin cities and half from Rome. After 338,
these colonies remained in alliance with Rome, and those subsequently
founded received the same status. But for these the colonists were all
supplied by Rome. These colonists had to surrender their Roman citizenship
and become Latins, but if any one of them left a son of military age in
his place he had the right to return to Rome. Each colony had its own
administration, usually modelled upon that of Rome, and enjoyed the rights
of _commercium_ and _connubium_ both with Rome and with the other Latin
colonies. These settlements were towns of considerable size, having 2,500,
4,000 or 6,000 colonists, each of whom received a grant of 30 or 50
_iugera_ (20 or 34 acres) of land. Founded at strategic points on
conquered territory, they formed one of the strongest supports of the
Roman authority: at the same time colonization of this character served to
relieve over-population and satisfy land-hunger in Rome and Latium. In all
their internal affairs the Latin cities were sovereign communities,
possessing, in addition to their own laws and magistrates, the rights of
coinage and census. Their inhabitants constituted the _nomen Latinum_,
and, unlike the Roman _cives sine suffragio_, did not serve in the Roman
legions but formed separa