Here we have the key of another political relation. About this time we first behold the appearance of a dictator, which is properly a Latin magistracy; for not only single towns, but also the whole of the Latin people might have a dictator, as Cato informs us. It was natural that the Romans likewise now elected a dictator who ruled alternately with the Latin one, on which account the _imperium_ was granted for six months only. Among the Tuscans the king of each town had a lictor. The lictors of all the twelve towns, whenever they united, had to be in attendance upon the common chief. Thus, of course, the twelve Latin and the twelve Roman lictors were given to the common dictator: the consuls together had had no more than twelve lictors, who waited upon both by turns. A _magister populi_ also at Rome is now spoken of more than once: whether he was from the beginning one and the same with the dictator, or whether he was elected for Rome alone is uncertain. The dictatorship had probably only reference to the league with Latium. A consul might have been dictator without there necessarily being a _magister populi_; yet if there was a _magister populi_, then must a dictator likewise have been appointed for the foreigner, it being contrary to usage that there should have been two names for the same office. Very likely there was for some time a dictator every year, an office which sometimes was conferred upon one of the consuls, and at others upon some one specially chosen for it. In the history which now follows, we find ourselves upon real historical ground; we have distinct men, and distinct facts, although now and then legends are still interpolated among the Fasti. That errors have crept in, is merely the fate of all that is human; yet we are to look upon this history as we would upon any other, and we ought not to make it the subject of a silly display of scepticism. A new war breaks out in which Cora and Pometia fall into the hands of the Auruncians; they are afterwards said to have been retaken by the Romans and Latins, which is highly problematical. This war occurs twice in Livy; it has certainly happened, but whether in 251 or 258, cannot matter much to us. Whenever in the annals of the Romans a serious defeat was simply stated, their descendants found gratification for their vanity in not leaving things as they were, but making the calamity all right again by a bold lie. The most glaring, yet not the only example of this in Roman history, is the deliverance of the city by Camillus, the fictitiousness of which has been already shown by Beaufort very ably. Polybius informs us, that the Gauls had retired with their booty at the tidings of an inroad of the Venetians into their country; yet it may have been, that in very early times indeed an old Vates sang the tale in a poem on Camillus. In the Samnite wars also, every defeat of consequence, which cannot be disguised, is followed by a victory quite unconnected with any thing else; and