PREFACE.

This study is the first of a series of studies already in progress, in which the author hopes to make some contributions to the history of the towns of the early Latin League, from the topographical and epigraphical points of view.

The author takes this opportunity to thank Dr. Kirby Flower Smith, Head of the Department of Latin, at whose suggestion this study was begun, and under whose supervision and with whose hearty assistance its revision was completed.

He owes his warmest thanks also to Dr. Harry Langford Wilson, Professor of Roman Archaeology and Epigraphy, with whom he made many trips to Praeneste, and whose help and suggestions were most valuable.

Especially does he wish to testify to the inspiration to thoroughness which came from the teaching and the example of his dearly revered teacher, Professor Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Head of the Greek Department, and he acknowledges also with pleasure the benefit from the scholarly methods of Dr. David M. Robinson, and the manifold suggestiveness of the teaching of Dr. Maurice Bloomfield.

The cordial assistance of the author’s aunt, Dr. Esther B. Van Deman, Carnegie Fellow in the American School at Rome, both during his stay in Rome and Praeneste and since his return to America, has been invaluable, and the privilege afforded him by Professor Dr. Christian Huelsen, of the German Archaeological Institute, of consulting the as yet unpublished indices of the sixth volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, is acknowledged with deep gratitude.

The author is deeply grateful for the facilities afforded him in the prosecution of his investigations while he was a resident in Palestrina, and he takes great pleasure in thanking for their courtesies, Cav.  Capitano Felice Cicerchia, President of the Archaeological Society at Palestrina, his brother, Cav.  Emilio Cicerchia, Government Inspector of Antiquities, Professor Pompeo Bernardini, Mayor of the City, and Cav.  Francesco Coltellacci, Municipal Secretary.

Finally, he desires to express his cordial appreciation of the kind advice and generous assistance given by Professor John Martin Vincent in connection with the publication of this monograph.

A STUDY OF THE TOPOGRAPHY AND MUNICIPAL HISTORY OF PRAENESTE.

CHAPTER I.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF PRAENESTE.

Nearly a half mile out from the rugged Sabine mountains, standing clear from them, and directly in front of the sinuous little valley which the northernmost headstream of the Trerus made for itself, rises a conspicuous and commanding mountain, two thousand three hundred and eighteen feet above the level of the sea, and something more than half that height above the plain below.  This limestone mountain, the modern Monte Glicestro, presents on the north a precipitous and