of Rome was
able to contend for, and at length to achieve, the sovereignty of
the Latin league.

Notes for Book I Chapter IV

1. A similar change of sound is exhibited in the case of the following
formations, all of them of a very ancient kind: -pars--portio-,
-Mars- -Mors-, -farreum- ancient form for -horreum-, -Fabii- -Fovii-,
-Valerius- -Volesus-, -vacuus- -vacivus-.

2. The --synoikismos-- did not necessarily involve an actual
settlement together at one spot; but while each resided as formerly
on his own land, there was thenceforth only one council-hall and
court-house for the whole (Thucyd. ii. 15; Herodot. i. 170).

3. We might even, looking to the Attic --trittus-- and the Umbrian
-trifo-, raise the question whether a triple division of the
community was not a fundamental principle of the Graeco-ltalians:
in that case the triple division of the Roman community would not be
referable to the amalgamation of several once independent tribes.
But, in order to the establishment of a hypothesis so much at
variance with tradition, such a threefold division would require to
present itself more generally throughout the Graeco-Italian field
than seems to be the case, and to appear uniformly everywhere as
the ground-scheme. The Umbrians may possibly have adopted the word
-tribus- only when they came under the influence of Roman rule; it
cannot with certainty be traced in Oscan.

4. Although the older opinion, that Latin is to be viewed as
a mixed language made up of Greek and non-Greek elements, has been
now abandoned on all sides, judicious inquirers even (e. g. Schwegler,
R. G. i. 184, 193) still seek to discover in Latin a mixture of
two nearly related Italian dialects. But we ask in vain for the
linguistic or historical facts which render such an hypothesis
necessary. When a language presents the appearance of being an
intermediate link between two others, every philologist knows that
the phenomenon may quite as probably depend, and more frequently
does depend, on organic development than on external intermixture.

5. That the Quinctian Luperci had precedence in rank over the Fabian
is evident from the circumstance that the fabulists attribute the
Quinctii to Romulus, the Fabii to Remus (Ovid, Fast. ii. 373 seq.;
Vict. De Orig. 22). That the Fabii belonged to the Hill-Romans is
shown by the sacrifice of their -gens- on the Quirinal (Liv. v.
46, 52), whether that sacrifice may or may not have been conn