Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/142

termingling with them the more readily, that the distinction in language and habits could not have been at all so marked then as we find it afterwards. To the class of such inroads belongs the tradition of the entrance of the Reatini and Sabines into Latium and their contests with the Romans; similar phenomena were probably repeated all along the west coast. Upon the whole the Sabines maintained their footing in the mountains, as in the district bordering on Latium which has since been called by their name, and in the Volscian land; probably because the Latin population did not extend thither, or was less dense there, while on the other hand the well-peopled plains were better able to offer resistance to the invaders, although they were not in all cases able or desirous to prevent isolated bands from gaining a footing, such as the Tities and afterwards the Claudii in Rome (P. 46). In this way the stocks became mingled here and there, a state of things which serves to explain the numerous relations that subsisted between the Volscians and Latins, and how it happened that their district, as well as Sabina, afterwards became so speedily Latinized.

Samnites. The chief branch, however, of the Umbrian stock migrated eastward from. Sabina, into the mountains of the Abruzzi, and the adjacent hill-country to the south of them. Here, as on the west coast, they occupied mountainous districts, whose thinly scattered population gave way before the immigrants or submitted to their yoke; while in the plain along the Apulian coast the ancient native population, the Iapygians, upon the whole maintained their ground, although involved in constant feuds, in particular on the northern frontier about Luceria and Arpi. When these migrations took place cannot of course be determined; but it was probably about the period of the regal government in Rome. Tradition reports that the Sabines, pressed by the Umbrians, vowed a ver sacrum, that is, swore that they would give up and send beyond their bounds the sons and daughters born in the year of war, so soon as these should reach maturity, that the gods might at their pleasure destroy them or bestow upon them new abodes in other lands. One band was led by the ox of Mars; these were the Safini or Samnites, who in the first instance established themselves on the mountains adjoining the river Sagrus, and at a later period proceeded to occupy the beautiful plain on the east of the Matese chain, near the sources of the Tifernus. Both in their old and in their new territory they named their place of public assembly,