Every year they celebrated a common festival, when
their delegates, assembled at Alba, sacrificed a bull in honor of
their common god, the Latin Jupiter.
=Rome.=--On the frontier of Latium, on the borders of Etruria, in the
marshy plain studded with hills that followed the Tiber, rose the city
of Rome, the centre of the Roman people scattered in the plain. The
land was malarial and dreary; but the situation was good. The Tiber
served as a barrier against the enemy from Etruria, the hills were
fortresses. The sea was but six leagues away, far enough to escape
fear of pirates, and near enough to permit the transportation of
merchandise. The port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a suburb
of Rome, as Piraeus was of Athens. The locality was therefore agreeable
to a people of soldiers and merchants.
=Roma Quadrata and the Capitol.=--Of the first centuries of Rome we
know only some legends, and the Romans knew no more than we. Rome,
they said, was a little square town, limited to the Palatine Hill. The
founder whom they called Romulus had according to the Etruscan forms
traced the circuit with the plough.
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