=8.= Our history in this Book falls naturally into three divisions: I. THE ROMAN KINGDOM, B. C. 753-510. II. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, ” 510-30. III. THE ROMAN EMPIRE, ” 30-A. D. 476. The records of the First Period, so far as they relate to persons, are largely mixed with fable, and it is impossible to separate the fanciful from the real. The student is recommended to read the stories of the kings, in their earliest and most attractive form, in Dr. Arnold’s History of Rome. Under their beautiful mythical guise, these legends present, doubtless, a considerable amount of truth. Our limits only admit a statement of the popular ancient belief concerning the rise of Rome, among the other and older nations which inhabited Italy. =9.= Central and southern Italy were occupied, from the earliest known times, by three races, the Etrus´cans, Italians, and Iapygians. The latter were nearly related to the Greeks, as has been proved by their language and the identity of their objects of worship. They therefore mingled readily with the Hellenic settlers (see § 6), and Greek civilization quickly took root and flourished throughout southern Italy. The Italians proper—so called because, when united, they became the ruling race in Italy—arrived later in the peninsula than the Iapygians. They came from the north, and crowded into closer quarters the half-Hellenic inhabitants of the south. They consisted of four principal races: the Umbrians, Sabines, Oscans, and Latins. Of these the first three were closely connected, while the Latins were distinct. The latter formed a confederacy of thirty cities, or cantons, and met every year on the Alban Mount to offer a united sacrifice to Jupiter Latia´ris, the protecting deity of the Latin race. During this festival wars were suspended, as in Elis during the Olympic Games. =10.= The Etruscans, or Tuscans, were wholly different in language, appearance, and character from the other nations of Italy. Their origin is wrapped in mystery. Some suppose them to have been Turanian, and thus allied to the Lapps, Finns, and Estho´nians of northern Europe, and the Basques of Spain; others, and the greater number, believe the mass of the people to have been Pelasgi—that race which overspread Greece and Italy at a remoter period than history can reach—but to have been absorbed and enslaved by a more powerful people from the north, who called themselves _Ras´ena_, while they were named by others Etruscans. History first finds these invaders in Rhæ´tia, the country about the head-waters of the Ad´ige, the Danube, and the Rhine; then traces them to the plain of the Po, where, at a very early period, they formed a league of twelve cities; and thence south of the Apennines into Tus´cany, which, reduced in limits, still bears their name.