revent them from conspiring against her. Thus, with this
object in view, she made differences in the rights and privileges granted
to neighboring communities, in order that, not being subject to the same
limitations, and therefore not having the same grievances, they might not
have a common basis for joint action against her. It would naturally be a
part of that policy to allow or to encourage the retention by the several
communities of their own dialects. The common use of Latin would have
enabled them to combine against her with greater ease. With the conclusion
of the Social War this policy gave way before the new conception of
political unity for the people of Italian stock, and with political unity
came the introduction of Latin as the common tongue in all official
transactions of a local as well as of a federal character. The immediate
results of the war, and the policy which Rome carried out at its close of
sending out colonies and building roads in Italy, contributed still more
to the larger use of Latin throughout the central and southern parts of
the peninsula. Samnium, Lucania, and the territory of the Bruttii suffered
severely from depopulation; many colonies were sent into all these
districts, so that, although the old dialects must have persisted for a
time in some of the mountain towns to the north of Rome, the years
following the conclusion of the Social War mark the rapid disappearance of
them and the substitution of Latin in their place. Campania took little
part in the war, and was therefore left untouched. This fact accounts
probably for the occurrence of a few Oscan inscriptions on the walls of
Pompeii as late as 63 A.D.

We need not follow here the story of the subjugation of the Greek seaports
in southern Italy and of the peoples to the north who spoke non-Italic
languages. In all these cases Latin was brought into conflict with
languages not related to itself, and the situation contains slightly
different elements from those which present themselves in the struggle
between Latin and the Italic dialects. The latter were nearly enough
related to Latin to furnish some support for the theory that Latin was
modified by contact with them, and this theory has found advocates,[4] but
there is no sufficient reason for believing that it was materially
influenced. An interesting illustration of the influence of Greek on the
Latin of every-day life is furnished by the realistic novel which
Petronius wrote in