XVIII. CHAP. mans, he said, made no war with children. Upon this the Faliscans, won by his magnanimity, surrendered to him at discretion, themselves, their city, and their country. Whether the city however was really surrendered at this time may seem very doubtful; that it sued for and obtained peace is likely it lost also a portion of its territory, for we read of a number of Faliscans as forming a part of the four new tribes 69 of Roman citizens, which were created immediately after the Gaulish invasion. Submission of Nepete and Sutrium. The Romans reach the ridge In the same or in the following year may be placed also the submission of Nepete and Sutrium 70, which appear immediately after the retreat of the Gauls as the dependent allies of Rome. They did not surrender themselves, "dediderunt se," but obtained a treaty of alliance, such as we find so often between the weaker and the stronger states in Greece. Nepete still exists with almost the same name, and is a well-known town on the Perugia road to Rome, standing in a beautiful country between the edge of the Campagna and the valley of the Tiber, a little to the north of Monterosi. Sutrium also exists in the modern town of Sutri, a little to the west of the present road from Monterosi to Ronciglione. The Romans had now reached what may be called 69 Livy, VI. 4. 70 Diodorus places in the same year the peace with the Faliscans, and something in connexion with Sutrium. The present text is corrupt: Σούτριον μὲν ὥρμησαν. Nie buhr proposes to supply ènì, but the corruption lies, I think, in the verb, and in the preceding conjunction, κaí. See Diodorus, XIV. 98. XVIII. mountains. the extreme natural boundary of the basin of the CHAP. Tiber on the side of Etruria. Sutrium and Nepete of the looked up immediately to the great and lofty ridge Ciminian of the Ciminian mountains, that ridge which the traveller ascends as soon as he leaves Viterbo, while from its summit he catches his first view of the neighbourhood of Rome, of the line of the Apennines skirting the Campagna to the north-east, and of the Alban hills in the furthest distance, and, although the particular objects cannot be distinguished, of that ever-memorable plain in which stands Rome. This ridge, in short, separates the streams which feed the Tiber from the valley of Viterbo and the basin of the lake of Bolsena, or to speak the language of the fourth century of Rome, it separated the territories of Veii and Falerii, the advanced posts, as it were, of the Etruscan confederacy, from those of Vulsinii and Tarquinii, two of the greatest and most distinguished states of the whole nation. them, and in war with Vulsinii and natians. Eighty years after this period, the passage of the They cross Ciminian mountains was regarded as a memorable are engaged event, as little less than the entrance into an un- the people of known world". But now, emboldened by their the Salpivictories over the nearer Etruscan cities, and aware, no doubt, that the dread of the Gauls on the northern frontier would render a general gathering of the whole nation impossible, the Romans seemed anxious to cross their natural boundary, and to penetrate into the heart of Etruria. A war broke out, we 71 Livy, IX. 36. XVIII. CHAP know not on what grounds, between Rome and Vulsinii 72; but in the first year the Romans were crippled, according to their own account, by a famine and pestilence, and the Vulsinians, aided by the Salpinatians, a neighbouring people wholly unknown to us, invaded the Roman territory without opposiA.U.C. 364. tion. In the next year however the Romans were A.C. 388. able to act on the offensive; a great victory was Conclusion. gained over the Vulsinians, the Salpinatians did not risk a battle, and after the lands of either people had been laid waste by the conquerors, the Vulsinians sued for and obtained a truce for twenty years 73, on the condition of giving satisfaction to the Romans to the extent of their demands, and furnishing a year's pay for the army employed against them. Of the Salpinatians we hear no further mention, either now or at any future period. Thus Rome was gaining ground rapidly in Etruria, while in Latium she could not yet dislodge her old enemies the Equians even from the Alban hills. With so stubborn, so active, and so powerful an adversary on the south, any attempt to make extensive conquests on the north must ever have been full of danger; and an alliance between the Etruscan confederacy and the Opican nations, at this period of the Roman history, would probably have effected what the league between the Etruscan and Sabellian nations ninety years afterwards attempted in vain. But Providence, which designed that Rome should win the empire of the world, altered the course of events by turning the torrent of a Gaulish invasion upon Latium. This it was which crushed the Equians for ever; and which obliged the Romans by its consequences to confine their attention again for a long period to the left bank of the Tiber. There, in many years of patient and arduous struggles, they laid deeper and firmer the foundations of their after greatness, by effectually subduing the remnant of their Opican enemies, and obtaining a more complete command than ever over the resources of the cities of the Latins. Thus the Gaulish invasion and conquest of Rome, was but the instrument of her greater and surer advance to the dominion of Italy. CHAP. XVIII. CHAPTER XIX. INTERNAL HISTORY FROM 350 TO 364-PLEBEIAN "SICINIUS.-He's a disease that must be cut away. SHAKSPEARE, Coriolanus. Φοβηθέντες γὰρ αὐτοῦ οἱ πολλοὶ τὸ μέγεθος τῆς τε κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα παρανομίας ἐς τὴν δίαιταν . . . . ὡς τυραννίδος ἐπιθυμοῦντι πολέKaléσTασaν.-THUCYDIDES, VI. 15. μιοι .... XIX. Advance of the plebeians. CHAP. IN the fourteen years which elapsed between the beginning of the last war with Veii and the invasion of the Gauls, the plebeian leaders reaped the fruit of the seed which their predecessors had sown so perseveringly. Now for the first time we find plebeians not only admitted into the college of military tribunes, but forming in it the majority. Yet even this was as it were only the first fruits of the harvest; many years elapsed before the full crop was brought to the sickle. The pa In the year 352, the third year of the war with Veii, terfere with the Romans intending, as has been mentioned, to tricians in the election of tribunes. blockade the city, were obliged to keep a part of their |