was quite as necessary in the case of such a canton
as in that of a clanship; but as the members of the
clan, or in other words the constituent elements of
the canton, dwelt in their villages, the centre of
the canton cannot have been a place of joint settlement
in the strict sense—a town. It must,
on the contrary, have been simply a place of common
assembly, containing the seat of justice and the common
sanctuary of the canton, where the members of the
canton met every eighth day for purposes of intercourse
and amusement, and where, in case of war, they obtained
for themselves and their cattle a safer shelter from
the invading enemy than in the villages: in ordinary
circumstances this place of meeting was not at all
or but scantily inhabited. Ancient places of
refuge, of a kind quite similar, may still be recognized
at the present day on the tops of several of the hills
in the highlands of east Switzerland. Such a
place was called in Italy “height” (-capitolium-,
like —akra—, the mountain-top),
or “stronghold” (-arx-, from -arcere-);
it was not a town at first, but it became the nucleus
of one, as houses naturally gathered round the stronghold
and were afterwards surrounded with the “ring”
(-urbs-, connected with -urvus-, -rurvus-, perhaps
also with -orbis-). The stronghold and town
were visibly distinguished from each other by the number
of gates, of which the stronghold has as few as possible,
and the town many, the former ordinarily but one,
the latter at least three. Such fortresses were
the bases of that cantonal constitution which prevailed
in Italy anterior to the existence of towns: a
constitution, the nature of which may still be recognized
with some degree of clearness in those provinces of
Italy which did not until a late period reach, and
in some cases have not yet fully reached, the stage
of aggregation in towns, such as the land of the Marsi
and the small cantons of the Abruzzi. The country
if the Aequiculi, who even in the imperial period
dwelt not in towns, but in numerous open hamlets,
presents a number of ancient ring-walls, which, regarded
as “deserted towns” with their solitary
temples, excited the astonishment of the Roman as
well as of modern archaeologists, who have fancied
that they could find accommodation there, the former
for their “primitive inhabitants” (-aborigines-),
the latter for their Pelasgians. We shall certainly
be nearer the truth in recognizing these structures
not as walled towns, but as places of refuge for the
inhabitants of the district, such as were doubtless
found in more ancient times over all Italy, although
constructed in less artistic style. It was natural
that at the period when the stocks that had made the
transition to urban life were surrounding their towns
with stone walls, those districts whose inhabitants
continued to dwell in open hamlets should replace the
earthen ramparts and palisades of their strongholds
with buildings of stone. When peace came to
be securely established throughout the land and such
fortresses were no longer needed, these places of refuge
were abandoned and soon became a riddle to after generations.