Shortly afterward Tullus Hostilius made war against the Etruscans of Fidenae and Veii. The Albans, under their dictator Mettius Fuffetius, followed him to the war as the subjects of Rome. In the battle against the Etruscans, the Alban dictator, faithless and insolent, withdrew to the hills, but when the Etruscans were defeated he descended to the plain, and congratulated the Roman king. Tullus pretended to be deceived. On the following day he summoned the two armies to receive their praises and rewards. The Albans came without arms, and were surrounded by the Roman troops. They then heard their sentence. Their dictator was to be torn in pieces by horses driven opposite ways; their city was to be razed to the ground; and they themselves, with their wives and children, transported to Rome. Tullus assigned to them the Caelian Hill for their habitation. Some of the noble families of Alba were enrolled among the Roman patricians, but the great mass of the Alban people were not admitted to the privileges of the ruling class. They were the origin of the Roman _Plebs_, who were thus quite distinct from the Patricians and their Clients. The Patricians still formed exclusively the Populus, or Roman people, properly so called. The Plebs were a subject-class without any share in the government. After carrying on several other wars Tullus fell sick, and sought to win the favor of the gods, as Numa had done, by prayers and divination. But Jupiter was angry with him, and smote him and his whole house with fire from heaven. Thus perished Tullus, after a reign of thirty-two years. 4. REIGN OF ANCUS MARCIUS, B.C. 640-616.--Ancus Marcius, the successor of Tullus Hostilius, was a Sabine, being the son of Numa's daughter. He sought to tread in the footsteps of his grandfather by reviving the religious ceremonies which had fallen into neglect; but a war with the Latins called him from the pursuits of peace. He conquered several of the Latin cities, and removed many of the inhabitants to Rome, where he assigned them the Aventine for their habitation. Thus the number of the Plebeians was greatly enlarged. Ancus instituted the Fetiales, whose duty it was to demand satisfaction from a foreign state when any dispute arose, to determine the circumstances under which hostilities might be commenced, and to perform the proper religious rites on the declaration of war. He also founded a colony at Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, built a fortress on the Janiculum as a protection against the Etruscans, and united it with the city by a bridge across the Tiber, called the Pons Sublicius, because it was made of wooden piles, and erected a prison to restrain offenders. He died after a reign of twenty-four years. [Illustration: Arch of Volaterrae.] [Footnote 3: The Palladium was a statue of Pallas, or Minerva, which was said to have fallen from heaven, and was preserved at Rome with the most sacred care.]