Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
To this latter language, of
course, the Latins generally were strangers, as was shown by their
enactment in respect to the Sibylline oracles;(7) but an acquaintance
with it must have been not at all uncommon in the case of merchants.
The same may be affirmed of the knowledge of reading and writing,
closely connected as it was with the knowledge of Greek.(8)
The
culture of the ancient world, however, was not based either
on the knowledge of foreign languages or on elementary technical
accomplishments. An influence more important than any thus imparted
was exercised over the development of Latium by the elements of the
fine arts, which were already in very early times received from the
Greeks. For it was the Greeks alone, and not the Phoenicians
or the Etruscans, that in this respect exercised an influence on
the Italians.
