The conquerors were probably called Cascans. This name Servius has preserved from Saufeius, a grammarian who seems to belong to the first century of the Christian era. They are also met with under the name of Sacranians, and to this the expression in Dionysius refers, that it had been a ἱερὰ νεότης. Part of the people which under the name of Opicans and Oscans inhabited the interior of Italy, or was more likely pushed down from the north, and wedged in between the old Pelasgian places, settled in the Apennines round the lake Fusinus (at present called Celano), towards Reate. Their chief town was called Lista: they bordered on the Siculians, who inhabited the country as far as beyond Tibur. There was a legend concerning them, that in the war with the Sabines, who had already taken from them Reate, and were driving them before them further and further, they had made a vow of a _ver sacrum_. This custom of the Italian nations when evil times befel them, was kept up also among the Romans. It was vowed to consecrate to the gods all cattle, in short, all that should be produced in the ensuing spring; and to send out in colonies the male children born at that period, as soon as ever they were grown up: the produce was either to be offered up, or redeemed. Thus devoted, the Sacranians marched against Latium, and subjected to themselves the Siculians. In Latium they settled among the old inhabitants, and became united with them into one people, which received the name of _Prisci Latini_; for, the Cascans must also have been called _Prisci_. To take _Prisci Latini_ in Livy for _Old Latins_ would be an absurdity: he has borrowed the formula of the declaration of war by the Fetiales, in which the expression first occurs, from the ancient rituals; it goes back to the time of Ancus Marcius, whilst before that of Tarquin the Proud, there were certainly no Latin colonies which we may suppose to have been placed in opposition to the rest of the people. _Prisci Latini_ stands for _Prisci et Latini_, as the Latin language always expresses two necessary contra-positions, or two notions inseparably combined, by an immediate juxtaposition of the two words. The earliest Romans made as little use of cement in their language, as in their buildings. Brissonius has very clearly shown this, and has thereby fixed the formula _Populus Romanus Quirites_; only that he goes too far when he asserts that _Populus Romanus Quiritium_ had never been said, which has been justly controverted by J. F. Gronovius. In the same manner, _patres conscripti_, instead of _qui patres, quique conscripti sunt_; and in legal forms, _locati conducti_, _emti venditi_, &c. _Priscus_ and _Cascus_ mean in after times very old, quaint, as Gothic or old Franconian, do in German; hence we have _casce loqui_, _vocabula casca_.--These conquerors spoke Oscan; and from the fusion of their language with the Siculo-Pelasgian arose that extraordinary medley which we call Latin, in which the