the Etruscan towns stood to Rome. In this condition, we find Caere in the time of the Hannibalian war. Afterwards it is no longer mentioned, except that we find it entered as a Marian colony in the lists of colonies drawn up by Hyginus and Frontinus. VEII was situated not quite ten English miles from Rome. Its circumference, according to Dionysius, was like that of Rome under Servius Tullius, and the same as the ancient Attic ἄστυ. However, it is scarcely credible that Dionysius should have possessed such accurate information about a town which had been razed to the ground long before his own time. It is well known, that Veii was destroyed by the Romans even before the Gallic period, because the plebeians had declared that they would emigrate to Veii, if the patricians thought them unworthy of being members of the same state. For this reason, the patricians and the senate systematically destroyed the place. Its site is undoubted, but scarcely any traces of Etruscan remains are found there. In the reign of Tiberius, we find it mentioned as a military colony, but we do not know when or how it was constituted as such. About thirty years ago, excavations were made on the spot, and some beautiful works of art, and among them a very fine statue of Tiberius, were discovered; but most of the things found there are not above mediocrity, and all the inscriptions refer to the restoration of the place by Tiberius. Henceforth, and down to the overthrow of the western empire, Veii remained a small country town in the neighbourhood of the capital. A bishop of Veii occurs as late as the fifth century. It is quite in accordance with the natural course of things, that places which were great before Rome rose to eminence, and for a time her equals, were in the end subdued and perished in the wars with their rival. In places of this kind a new population gradually sprang up, and corporations were formed which were nothing else but military colonies, and could not last long, as most of the men were unmarried. Such a population was generally of the worst kind, consisting of inn-keepers, carters, and the like; the places were in reality suburbs of Rome, though at a considerable distance from it. CAPENA was about the same distance from Rome as Veii; it is mentioned in the earlier times, but afterwards completely disappears, and its inhabitants, according to all appearances, were removed to Rome after the Punic war. SUTRIUM and NEPET were for a long time the frontier towns of Etruria towards the territory of Rome.