The Historians' History of the World 05

The strangeness of the choice is acknowledged even in the legend; the tale of the foundation of Rome by refugees from Alba, under the leadership of the Albanian princes Romulus and Remus, is nothing but a naïve attempt of early quasi-history to explain the strangeness of the establishment of the city on so unfavourable a site, and at the same time to connect the origin of Rome with the common metropolis of Latium. It is especially from such fairy tales which purport to be history and are nothing but inventions made on the spur of the moment and not particularly clever, that serious history has to disencumber itself; but perhaps it is permissible to go a step further, and after considering the special features of the neighbourhood, to advance a positive theory, not as to the origin of the place, but as to the cause of its swift and astonishing prosperity and of its peculiar position in Latium.

Let us look first at the ancient boundaries of the Roman territory. To the east the towns of Antemnæ, Fidenæ, Cænina, Collatia, and Gabii lie in the near neighbourhood, some of them not five miles distant from the gates of Servian Rome; the boundary of the province must consequently have been hard by the city gates. Fourteen miles to the south we come on the powerful communities of Tusculum and Alba, and here the Roman territory seems not to have extended farther than to the Fossa Cluilia, five miles from Rome. Similarly, in the southwesterly direction, the boundary between Rome and Lavinium was already encountered at the sixth milestone.

Whilst on the land side the Roman province was everywhere confined to the narrowest possible limits, on the other hand, from the earliest times it stretched uninterruptedly along both banks of the Tiber in the direction of the sea; and no place representing an ancient provincial centre nor any sort of trace of an ancient provincial border is encountered between Rome and the coast. It is true that legend, which can assign an origin for everything, is here also able to inform us that the Roman possessions on the right bank of the Tiber, the “seven hamlets” (septem pagi), and the important salt-works at its mouth were taken by King Romulus from the Veientes, and that King Ancus fortified the tête de pont, the “Mount of Janus” (Janiculum), on the right bank of the Tiber, and on the left laid the foundation of the Roman Piræus, the harbour town at the “mouth” (ostia) of the river. But on the other hand the fact that the possessions on the Etruscan bank must have belonged to the very earliest Roman territory is attested by a better witness, namely by the grove of the creative goddess (Dea Dia) which stood in this very place, at the fourth milestone of the road subsequently made to the harbour, and was the original high place of the Roman Arval festival and Arval brotherhood. Indeed, from time immemorial, the clan of the Romilii, probably the most distinguished among all the Roman clans, had its seat here; the Janiculum was a part of the town itself and Ostia a citizen colony, that is, a suburb. This cannot have been mere chance. The Tiber was the natural highway of Latium, and its mouth, on a coast so poorly provided with harbours, was the necessary place of anchorage for ships.

Moreover, the Tiber formed, from the earliest times, the frontier defence of the Latin stock against their northern neighbours. No place is better qualified than Rome to be both the entrepôt of the Latin river and sea commerce and the frontier fortress of Latium. She combined the advantages of a strong position and the immediate neighbourhood of the river; she commanded both banks of the stream down to its mouth; she was equally convenient for the river-ships descending the Tiber or the Anio or, in those days of moderate-sized vessels, for those designed for the sea; and she afforded better protection against pirates than the towns lying immediately on the coast. That it was to these commercial and strategical advantages that Rome owed, if not her origin, at least her importance, numerous proofs are forthcoming, which are of far greater importance than the data furnished by historical romances. With these are connected her early relations with Cære, which was to Etruria what Rome was to Latium, and consequently became the city’s closest neighbour and commercial ally; thence came the extraordinary importance of the bridges over the Tiber, and of bridge building generally in the Roman commonwealth, and hence the galley in the city arms.