its execution
was not the work either of a single man or of a single generation.
It is impossible to doubt that Hellenic influences exercised
a powerful effect on this remodelling of the Roman community, but
it is equally impossible to demonstrate the mode or the degree of
their operation. It has already been observed that the Servian
military constitution is essentially of an Hellenic type;(17)
and it will be afterwards shown that the games of the Circus were
organized on an Hellenic model. The new -regia-with the city hearth
was quite a Greek --prytaneion--, and the round temple of Vesta,
looking towards the east and not so much as consecrated by the
augurs, was constructed in no respect according to Italian, but
wholly in accordance with Hellenic, ritual. With these facts before
us, the statement of tradition appears not at all incredible that
the Ionian confederacy in Asia Minor to some extent served as a model
for the Romano-Latin league, and that the new federal sanctuary on
the Aventine was for that reason constructed in imitation of the
Artemision at Ephesus.

Notes for Book I Chapter VII

1. I. IV. Earliest Limits of the Roman Territory

2. The formulae of accursing for Gabii and Fidenae are quite
as characteristic (Macrob. Sat. iii. 9). It cannot, however, be
proved and is extremely improbable that, as respects these towns,
there was an actual historical accursing of the ground on which
they were built, such as really took place at Veii, Carthage, and
Fregellae. It may be conjectured that old accursing formularies
were applied to those two hated towns, and were considered by later
antiquaries as historical documents.

3. But there seems to be no good ground for the doubt recently
expressed in a quarter deserving of respect as to the destruction
of Alba having really been the act of Rome. It is true, indeed,
that the account of the destruction of Alba is in its details a
series of improbabilities and impossibilities; but that is true of
every historical fact inwoven into legend. To the question as to
the attitude of the rest of Latium towards the struggle between
Rome and Alba, we are unable to give an answer; but the question
itself rests on a false assumption, for it is not proved that the
constitution of the Latin league absolutely prohibited a separate
war between two Latin communities (I. III. The Latin League). Still
less is the fact that a number of Alban families were receive