Of some such nature, in all probability, was the relation between the Roman community and the Latin confederacy in the first period of the republic.  We cannot, however ascertain what elements are to be referred to earlier stipulations, and what to the revision of the alliance in 261.

With somewhat greater certainty the remodelling of the arrangements of the several communities belonging to the Latin confederacy, after the pattern of the consular constitution in Rome, may be characterized as an innovation and introduced in this connection.  For, although the different communities may very well have arrived at the abolition of royalty in itself independently of each other,(7) the identity in the appellation of the new annual kings in the Roman and other commonwealths of Latium, and the comprehensive application of the peculiar principle of collegiateness,(8) evidently point to some external connection.  At some time or other after the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome the arrangements of the Latin communities must have been throughout revised in accordance with the scheme of the consular constitution.  This adjustment of the Latin constitutions in conformity with that of the leading city may possibly belong only to a later period; but internal probability rather favours the supposition that the Roman nobility, after having effected the abolition of royalty for life at home, suggested a similar change of constitution to the communities of the Latin confederacy, and at length introduced aristocratic government everywhere in Latium—­ notwithstanding the serious resistance, imperilling the stability of the Romano-Latin league itself, which seems to have been offered on the one hand by the expelled Tarquins, and on the other by the royal clans and by partisans well affected to monarchy in the other communities of Latium.  The mighty development of the power of Etruria that occurred at this very time, the constant assaults of the Veientes, and the expedition of Porsena, may have materially contributed to secure the adherence of the Latin nation to the once-established form of union, or, in other words, to the continued recognition of the supremacy of Rome, and disposed them for its sake to acquiesce in a change of constitution for which, beyond doubt, the way had been in many respects prepared even in the bosom of the Latin communities, nay perhaps to submit even to an enlargement of the rights of hegemony.

Extension of Rome and Latium to the East and South

The permanently united nation was able not only to maintain, but also to extend on all sides its power.  We have already(9) mentioned that the Etruscans remained only for a short time in possession of supremacy over Latium, and that the relations there soon returned to the position in which they stood during the regal period; but it was not till more than a century after the expulsion of the kings from Rome that any real extension of the Roman boundaries took place in this direction.