THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

I. The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson

CHAPTER VII - The Hegemony of Rome in Latium

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Page 7

The Hegemony of Rome over Latium - Alba

While the conquests of Rome in Latium may be mainly regarded as direct extensions of her territory and people presenting the same general features, a further and special significance attached to the conquest of Alba. It was not merely the problematical size and presumed riches of Alba that led tradition to assign a prominence so peculiar to its capture. Alba was regarded as the metropolis of the Latin confederacy, and had the right of presiding among the thirty communities that belonged to it. The destruction of Alba, of course, no more dissolved the league itself than the destruction of Thebes dissolved the Boeotian confederacy;(7) but, in entire consistency with the strict application of the -ius privatum- which was characteristic of the Latin laws of war, Rome now claimed the presidency of the league as the heir-at-law of Alba.

7. The community of Bovillae appears even to have been formed out of part of the Alban domain, and to have been admitted in room of Alba among the autonomous Latin towns. Its Alban origin is attested by its having been the seat of worship for the Julian gens and by the name -Albani Longani Bovillenses- (Orelli-Henzen, 119, 2252, 6019); its autonomy by Dionysius, v. 61, and Cicero, pro Plancio, 9, 23.

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