city, do not belong to history; but the historical existence of Alba is not at all doubtful on that account, nor have the ancients ever doubted it.  The Sacra Albana and the Albani tumuli atque luci, which existed as late as the time of Cicero, are proofs of its early existence; ruins indeed no longer exist, but the situation of the city in the valley of Grotta Ferrata may still be recognized.  Between the lake and the long chain of hills near the monastery of Palazzuolo one still sees the rock cut steep down toward the lake, evidently the work of man, which rendered it impossible to attack the city on that side; the summit on the other side formed the arx.  That the Albans were in possession of the sovereignty of Latium is a tradition which we may believe to be founded on good authority, as it is traced to Cincius.  Afterward the Latins became the masters of the district and temple of Jupiter.  Further, the statement that Alba shared the flesh of the victim on the Alban mount with the thirty towns, and that after the fall of Alba the Latins chose their own magistrates, are glimpses of real history.  The ancient tunnel made for discharging the water of the Alban Lake still exists, and through its vault a canal was made called Fossa Cluilia:  this vault, which is still visible, is a work of earlier construction than any Roman one.  But all that can be said of Alba and the Latins at that time is, that Alba was the capital, exercising the sovereignty over Latium; that its temple of Jupiter was the rallying point of the people who were governed by it; and that the gens Silvia was the ruling clan.

It cannot be doubted that the number of Latin towns was actually thirty, just that of the Albensian demi; this number afterward occurs again in the later thirty Latin towns and in the thirty Roman tribes, and it is moreover indicated by the story of the foundation of Lavinium by thirty families, in which we may recognize the union of the two tribes.  The statement that Lavinium was a Trojan colony and was afterward abandoned, but restored by Alba, and further that the sanctuary could not be transferred from it to Alba, is only an accommodation to the Trojan and native tradition, however much it may bear the appearance of antiquity.  For Lavinium is nothing else than a general name for Latium, just as Panionium is for Ionia, Latinus, Lavinus, and Lavicus being one and the same name, as is recognized even by Servius.  Lavinium was the central point of the Prisci Latini, and there is no doubt that in the early period before Alba ruled over Lavinium, worship was offered mutually at Alba and at Lavinium, as was afterward the case at Rome in the temple of Diana on the Aventine, and at the festivals of the Romans and Latins on the Alban mount.