The extent of Latium was different at different times. In the earliest ages, it cannot have been confined between the Tiber and the Liris, but must have extended far beyond the Liris, perhaps as far as Cumae and the frontiers of Italia in its narrowest sense. Such it appears in the treaty between Rome and Carthage; this is evident from the words in Polybius, where it is stipulated, that the Carthaginians should make no conquests on the coast from Ostia to Terracina, which was subject to the Romans. Latium therefore must have extended farther south; I will not absolutely assert, that in the north also it extended beyond the Tiber. As afterwards the whole of the sea coast was taken possession of by the Volscians, the coast for a time did not belong to Latium, and even Antium must have been separated from it. But Latium, in a narrower sense, is the country of the thirty allied towns forming the Latin state during the first period of the Roman republic, when the sea coast was separated from it. This continued to be the extent of Latium until the end of the fourth century of the city, when the maritime towns again united with Latium and formed the great Latin league, which I have described in the first edition of my history, and which, as I have only now discovered, was formed in the year 397. Latium then extended as far as the Liris, but not beyond it, for in the south of this river we find Campania, which during the earliest times is never mentioned. During this period therefore, the Volscians and Auruncans on the coast are likewise called Latins. This meaning of the name afterwards changed again, and only a portion of that country together with all the Latin colonies was termed _nomen Latinum_, that is _gens Latina_, or _genus Latinum_, just as we have _nomen Romanum_, _nomen Fabium_ in Livy. The Latin colonies consisted of Romans, Latins, and Italicans; they became a single nation, which the Romans planted all over Italy, and they rose to such importance as almost to throw the ancient Latin towns into oblivion, so that at the time of the Hannibalian war the name Latini signified the Latin colonies and the few Latin towns which had belonged to the ancient confederacy and had not yet obtained the Roman franchise. Their number continued to increase until the lex Julia, which conferred the Roman franchise upon all of them; Tibur and Praeneste also, the only remaining towns of the old Latin confederacy, now received the franchise, and for the moment the Latini ceased to exist. However, at Rome any gaps which arose, were immediately filled up; when one generation became effete, another of new and vigorous citizens was established in its place. C. Pompeius Strabo afterwards conferred the _jus Latii_ upon the towns of Gallia Transpadana, and with this wise and progressive measure introduced something quite different from what had been customary before. These new Latins were levied for