To what an extent the later character of Rome affected national tradition, or rather fiction, as to her original character, we see from the fable which tells us that she had no navy before the first Punic war, and that when compelled to build a fleet by the exigencies of that war, she had to copy a Carthaginian war galley which had been cast ashore, and to train her rowers by exercising them on dry land. She had a fleet before the war with Pyrrhus, probably from the time at which she took possession of Antium, if not before; and her first treaty with Carthage even if it is to be assigned to the date to which Mommsen, and not to that which Polybius assigns it, shows that before 348 B.C. she had an interest in a wide sea-board, which must have carried with it some amount of maritime power. Now this wealthy, and, as we suppose, industrial and commercial city was the chief place, and in course of time became the mistress and protectress, of a plain large for that part of Italy, and then in such a condition as to be tempting to the spoiler. Over this plain on two sides hung ranges of mountains inhabited by hill tribes, Sabines, AEquians, Volscians, Hernicans, with the fierce and restless Samnite in the rear. No doubt these hill tribes raided on the plain as hill tribes always do; probably they were continually being pressed down upon it by the migratory movements of other tribes behind them. Some of them seem to have been in the habit of regularly swarming, like bees, under the form of the _Ver Sacrum_. On the north, again, were the Etruscan hill towns, with their lords, pirates by sea, and probably marauders by land; for the period of a more degenerate luxury and frivolity may be regarded as subsequent to their subjugation by the Romans; at any rate, when they first appear upon the scene they are a conquering race. The wars with the AEqui and Volsci have been ludicrously multiplied and exaggerated by Livy; but even without the testimony of any historian, we might assume that there would be wars with them and with the other mountaineers, and also with the marauding Etruscan chiefs. At the same time, we may be sure that, in personal strength and prowess, the men of the plain and of the city would be inferior both to the mountaineers and to those Etruscan chiefs whose trade was war. How did the men of the plain and of the city manage to make up for this inferiority, to turn the scale of force in their favour, and ultimately to subdue both the mountaineers and Etruscans? In the conflict with the mountaineers, something might be done by that superiority of weapons which superior wealth would afford. But more would be done by military organization and discipline. To military organization and discipline the Romans accordingly learnt to submit themselves, as did the English Parliamentarians after the experience of Edgehill, as did the democracy of the Northern States of America after the experience of the first campaign. At the same time the