In the year 286, the Romans conquer Antium, or, according to another more probable account, Antium opens its gates to them. In the narrative as we have it, the town is Volscian, and part of the population fly to the Volscians at Ecetræ. Antium, just like Agylla and the other towns on the coast, was originally Tyrrhenian; yet there may have been a party uppermost in it, which, feeling itself too weak, called in the Volscians, and Ecetræ, the south-eastern capital of this people, may have sent a colony thither. This colony again was opposed by part of the citizens; these called in the Romans, and the Volscians returned to Ecetræ. The Volscians now wished to regain what they had lost, and thence arose these obstinate wars. After Antium had surrendered to the Romans and their allies, it received a colony of Romans, Latins, and Hernicans,--a proof, that these three people divided their conquests in equal shares. It is evident enough how this is perverted in Dionysius: Livy thinks that too few Romans had liked to go thither. Antium was now linked to the three confederates. The old Antiates formed the commonalty, and the citizens of the three united states its colony, there being probably three hundred from each, and four hundred from the Hernicans only; for among these the division into four seems to have been prevalent, whence also the _cohortes quadringenariæ_ are mentioned. The _Antiates mille milites_, who are met with in the later Volscian wars, seem to have reference to this colony. But as the Romans at that time were not the strongest in the field, and the old inhabitants were always badly off in a colony, it is quite accountable, that Antium after ten years should have fallen off again, in the same manner as it had joined the Romans. This success of the Romans in the war was but transitory. Here ends our first period, and these contests now assume quite a new character.