The Hernicans are remarkable in history. They kept off the Romans with brilliant courage; the alliance with them is historically certain. It was a joint league with the Romans and Latins, and therefore they received the third part of the booty. Nevertheless Roman antiquaries would have it, and Dionysius has allowed himself to be deceived by them, that the Romans had exclusively the supremacy; that therefore they had had two-thirds, and the Latins one-third of the booty; and that of those two-thirds the Romans had generously given half to the Hernicans. Yet when Romans and Latins conclude together an alliance with that brave people, it is no more than reasonable that each of them should have given up a sixth. Rome, according to Dionysius’ own version, had by no means the supremacy over the Latins. These relations must afterwards have been dissolved by some compromise. At a later period, by insisting upon their privileges the Hernicans brought on their own ruin. Spurius Cassius is by far the most distinguished man of that age. In the times which are now quite dark, the most remarkable events are connected with his name; first the alliance with the Sabines (252),--without doubt accompanied by isopolity, to judge from the rolls of the census,--then this league with the Hernicans. In this alliance, Rome is placed in quite a different position from what it had been in the former one; just as the relations of Athens to its allies are changed about Ol. 100, after the battle at Naxos. When Athens established its second naval supremacy, the towns were far from being as dependent as formerly; and Demosthenes, when he founded his great league, with all the wisdom of an enlightened statesman no more demands that Athens should have the rule, but merely that it should be the life and the soul of the confederacy. For this, traitors to their country like Æschines, taxed him with having degraded it, inasmuch as the messenger of Athens was of no more weight than that of an Eubœan town. They wanted, so they falsely said, to see the sovereignty of Athens. Yet the question at that time was merely this, to preserve their freedom against Philip; and therefore Demosthenes readily concluded peace with any town that wished for it, and took the lead only by the power of his intellect. The same position is gained for Rome by Cassius; and this very fact shows him to have been a great man, with a clear head and a sound judgment. The Etruscan war had crushed the dominion of Rome on the right bank of the Tiber; the Volscians and Æquians were both of them advancing; the towns on the coasts were lost; it was necessary to arrange matters, not as one wished, but as one could. This the so-called historians of later days wanted to disguise from themselves, owing to their blinded partiality for their own native country. Livy--and the writers in whose wake Dionysius followed, were full of senseless veneration for the greatness of their forefathers.