The third rank accordingly consisted of free citizens; yet it had not the same rights as the two first. Nevertheless it thought itself better than all other people; it stood in the same position as that in which the Venetian citizens of the mainland did to the nobili. The nobleman of Venice treated one of these citizens with more regard than he showed to any of the others, so long as he did not take upon himself to claim to have a voice in political matters. Whoever belonged to the Luceres called himself a Roman; and if the dictator of Tusculum had come to Rome, the man of the third tribe in it would have looked down upon him as an inferior, although he himself was of no account. Tullus is succeeded by Ancus. Tullus makes his appearance as one of the Ramnes, as a descendant of Hostus Hostilius, one of the companions of Romulus; but Ancus on the contrary is a Sabine, and a grandson of Numa. His story has an historical air: there is none of the colouring of poetry in it. The development of the state advances in his reign another step. Rome and the Latin towns are, according to the old description, at war with each other, and the Romans carry it on with success. How many of the details of which we are told here, are historical, I cannot decide: that a war took place is credible enough. It is said that Ancus after this war led away many thousand Latins, and established them on the Aventine. The ancients judged differently of him: he at one time appears as _captator auræ popularis_, and at another he is called _bonus Ancus_. Like the three first kings, he is also stated to have been a lawgiver: of the later ones this is no more mentioned. He is said besides to have founded the colony of Ostia, and therefore to have extended his rule to the mouth of the Tiber. Ancus seems, like Tullus, to be historical; only we can hardly suppose that the one was the immediate successor of the other, and that the events which are placed in their reigns really belonged to those times. These events must be considered in the following manner. When at the end of the fourth reign, the Romans, after a long feud, came to an agreement with the Latins about the renewal of the long neglected league, Rome dropped her claims to a dominion which she could not preserve, and in exchange enlarged herself on another and a safer side. The eastern colonies coalesced with the preserved Latin towns, although this is nowhere expressly stated. Part of the Latin country was yielded to Rome, the rest entered into relations of friendship, and perhaps of isopolity with it. Rome in this acted wisely, as England did when she acknowledged the United States of North America.