13.  The analogy also between the so-called Servian constitution and the treatment of the Attic —­metoeci—­ deserves to be particularly noticed.  Athens, like Rome, opened her gates at a comparatively early period to the —­metoeci—­, and afterwards summoned them also to share the burdens of the state.  We cannot suppose that any direct connection existed in this instance between Athens and Rome; but the coincidence serves all the more distinctly to show how the same causes—­urban centralization and urban development—­everywhere and of necessity produce similar effects.

CHAPTER VII

The Hegemony of Rome in Latium

Extension of the Roman Territory

The brave and impassioned Italian race doubtless never lacked feuds among themselves and with their neighbours:  as the country flourished and civilization advanced, feuds must have become gradually changed into war and raids for pillage into conquest, and political powers must have begun to assume shape.  No Italian Homer, however, has preserved for us a picture of these earliest frays and plundering excursions, in which the character of nations is moulded and expressed like the mind of the man in the sports and enterprises of the boy; nor does historical tradition enable us to form a judgment, with even approximate accuracy, as to the outward development of power and the comparative resources of the several Latin cantons.  It is only in the case of Rome, at the utmost, that we can trace in some degree the extension of its power and of its territory.  The earliest demonstrable boundaries of the united Roman community have been already stated;(1) in the landward direction they were on an average just about five miles distant from the capital of the canton, and it was only toward the coast that they extended as far as the mouth of the Tiber (-Ostia-), at a distance of somewhat more than fourteen miles from Rome.  “The new city,” says Strabo, in his description of the primitive Rome, “was surrounded by larger and smaller tribes, some of whom dwelt in independent villages and were not subordinate to any national union.”  It seems to have been at the expense of these neighbours of kindred lineage in the first instance that the earliest extensions of the Roman territory took place.

Territory on the Anio—­Alba

The Latin communities situated on the upper Tiber and between the Tiber and the Anio-Antemnae, Crustumerium, Ficulnea, Medullia, Caenina, Corniculum, Cameria, Collatia,—­were those which pressed most closely and sorely on Rome, and they appear to have forfeited their independence in very early times to the arms of the Romans.  The only community that subsequently appears as independent in this district was Nomentum; which perhaps saved its freedom by alliance with Rome.  The possession of Fidenae, the -tete