, were all more or less ancient centres
of Latin colonization, not to speak of many others less famous and
in some cases almost forgotten.

The Latin League

All these cantons were in primitive times politically sovereign,
and each of them was governed by its prince with the co-operation
of the council of elders and the assembly of warriors. Nevertheless
the feeling of fellowship based on community of descent and of
language not only pervaded the whole of them, but manifested itself
in an important religious and political institution--the perpetual
league of the collective Latin cantons. The presidency belonged
originally, according to the universal Italian as well as Hellenic
usage, to that canton within whose bounds lay the meeting-place of
the league; in this case it was the canton of Alba, which, as we
have said, was generally regarded as the oldest and most eminent
of the Latin cantons. The communities entitled to participate in
the league were in the beginning thirty--a number which we find
occurring with singular frequency as the sum of the constituent
parts of a commonwealth in Greece and Italy. What cantons originally
made up the number of the thirty old Latin communities or, as with
reference to the metropolitan rights of Alba they are also called,
the thirty Alban colonies, tradition has not recorded, and we can
no longer ascertain. The rendezvous of this union was, like the
Pamboeotia and the Panionia among the similar confederacies of the
Greeks, the "Latin festival" (-feriae Latinae-), at which, on the
"Mount of Alba" (-Mons Albanus-, -Monte Cavo-), upon a day annually
appointed by the chief magistrate for the purpose, an ox was
offered in sacrifice by the assembled Latin stock to the "Latin god"
(-Jupiter Latiaris-). Each community taking part in the ceremony
had to contribute to the sacrificial feast its fixed proportion
of cattle, milk, and cheese, and to receive in return a portion of
the roasted victim. These usages continued down to a late period,
and are well known: respecting the more important legal bearings
of this association we can do little else than institute conjectures.

From the most ancient times there were held, in connection with
the religious festival on the Mount of Alba, assemblies of the
representatives of the several communities at the neighbouring
Latin seat of justice at the source of the Ferentina (near Marino).
Indeed such a confederacy cannot be conceived to exi