In the Roman history the same events very often recur again. As after the Gallic conquest, the Latins and their allies separated from Rome; thus also after the Etruscan calamity they broke the alliance which had been brought about in the reign of Tarquin. The confederation of the two states, which we find in the days of Servius Tullius, had under Tarquin been changed into a union, which notwithstanding the obscurity of all the details, is evident from the combination of the Roman and Latin centuries into maniples. This combination is the more certain as Livy mentions it in two different places, in his account of Tarquin the Proud, and in the eighth book, wherein he describes the battle-array. The sources from which he drew contained authorities quite independent of each other, which he gives without understanding them; yet in such a manner that we may gather from them the real views of the annalists. He surely wrote the second passage without the least recollection of the first. The relation in which the parties stood may have been this, that Rome had the chief command, and the Latins received their share in the booty; or the two people may have held the _imperium_ by turns. But in the treaty with Carthage we see the supremacy vested in Rome, and the Latins in the position of periœcians. The war, the only reminiscences of which are an historical one, the conquest of Crustumeria, and a poetical one, the battle at the Regillus, has this consequence that the Latins pass from the condition of periœcians to that of inhabitants of rural districts with equal rights: as in Gröningen the districts at last were placed on the same footing with the town, and formed only one province with it with regard to the foreigner. As the first cause of the war Tarquin and his house are named. That he was not unconnected with it, may easily be believed, as his alliance by marriage with Mamilius Octavius of Tusculum has the appearance of history; but we can by no means receive the battle at the lake Regillus as it is told. It does not enter into my thoughts to deny that the Romans tried to restore their rule by war; but it is altogether a different question, whether at the Regillus a great battle was fought under the command of the Dictator Postumius, in which the Latins were conquered and reduced to their former position. No, if we may reason from effects to causes, which is not as infallible in moral as in physical problems, the Latins were by no means defeated; for, they attained, although after a considerable time only, their object,--a completely free alliance with Rome. One might draw the opposite conclusion from the fact that Postumius, who is said to have been dictator or consul, was called Regillensis; but the Claudii are also surnamed Regillani. Cognomens borrowed from places are quite common among the patricians, as e. g. the Sergii are called Fidenatus; Regillensis was likewise derived from the town Regillus; and surnames of this kind are even