Here the same instinct of substituting the fallen off members of political organizations is at work, which is to be perceived every where so long as institutions quietly go on in accordance with the old traditionary forms, and not with the actual wants of the times. Thus also in the twelve Achæan towns, in the seven Frisian maritime provinces, when one is ruined, the number is made up by splitting another. Where once a fixed number exists, although a unit may fall off, it is not given up, but it is always renewed. We may add, that the state of the Latins lost in the west, and gained in the east; we therefore take Alba as having thirty boroughs, and the thirty Latin towns as a state which at first was in league with Alba, and was afterwards subjected to its sovereignty. The old places of the aborigines were, according to Cato’s important statement in Dionysius, small villages scattered on the hills. Such a place lay upon the Palatine, and had the name of _Roma_, certainly a Greek one. Not far off, there are several other places with Greek names, Pyrgi and Alsium; nor is it an erroneous supposition that Terracina had formerly been called Τραχεινή, the rough place, or that Formiæ is to be derived from ὅρμος, anchorage, roadstead. As certainly as Pyrgi meant towers, as certainly did Roma the place of strength.[51] Rome is described as a Pelasgian place where Evander lived, the founder of learning and civilization. The first step in civilization, according to the legend, began with Saturn. In the tradition found in Virgil, which is to be taken quite literally, the first men grew out of trees (_gensque virum truncis et duro robore creti_). As in Greece the μύρμηκες were changed into myrmidons, and the stones of Deucalion into men and women, thus the trees also by some Divine energy grew men. These half men acquired by degrees human manners, and that they owe to Saturn. Yet really liberal cultivation they considered to have originated with Evander, who must not be looked upon as coming from Arcadia, but as the good man. He was the inventor or teacher of the use of letters.