In this manner, the component parts of the Sabellian nation, from the Picentians down to the Lucanians, presented different shades of their national character. The Sabine blood in some of them was probably not of more importance than the Frankish blood is among the modern French; for the 20,000 Franks of king Clovis were easily lost among the millions of Gauls. In our neighbourhood on the Rhine, however, the population is almost entirely Frankish, as the Franks settled here in great multitudes. The population here on both sides of the Rhine, and as far as the low German dialect is spoken, that is, as far as Andernach, is descended from the Ripuarian Franks. In the Netherlands also, there are Franks, but strongly mixed with Gauls, Batavian and Frisian tribes; still, however, the population is more Frankish than in France, and in northern France it is more so than in the south; from the Loire to Gascony only the lords of the land are Franks. In Languedoc, there was only a French garrison, and the remaining population, for centuries, remained Gothic. Although, therefore, the Franks extended even beyond the Pyrenees, their race, from the Main to Spain, presented very great differences. The country now called Franconia, scarcely contains any Franks at all. We cannot wonder, therefore, at the fact that in antiquity the Lucanians and the Sabines of Reate did not understand one another. The constitution of the Sabellian nations seems to have been essentially democratic, so that in the course of time the subjects acquired the full right of free country people. This nation, then, in point of manners and character, was extremely respectable, and this is the special glory of the ancient Sabines, Marsians, and of the Samnites with their confederates; the Picentians and Lucanians are less deserving of this praise. The Latin poets, from Virgil to Juvenal, always set forth the former, when they want to describe the frugal Italian mode of living. If the nation had but formed one compact state, it would not have been too weak at all. The Samnites had as many free citizens as the Romans and Latins, but although their forces were numerically equal to those of the Romans, still there was this difference, that they did not form one body. There can be no question that the different cantons had the supreme command by rotation, and this constituted their great weakness in the conflict with Rome, for in courage and perseverance the Samnites were assuredly not wanting. Even when in one year they gained great advantages they were useless, as in the next year the command belonged to another nation. C. Pontius was the only man among the Samnites capable of governing a state: he might have saved his country, if it had trusted him unconditionally—the Romans would, no doubt, have raised him to the consulship year after year. But it would seem that he had the supreme command only in one town—he was probably a Caudine—while in the next