The Italian subjects were the inhabitants of the allied or dependent states. The list of these was a long one, including, as it did, the various communities which made up the populations of Etruria, Umbria, the Sabine territory, Samnium, Campania, Apulia, Lucania, Messapia, and Bruttium. All the allies, however, were not equally subject to Rome: the relations in which they stood to it were determined by the particular treaties which formed the separate alliances, and these, of course, varied according to the circumstances under which they had been concluded. Almost all the allied states, however, were permitted to retain their own laws, their own municipal arrangements, their own judges, etc. Throughout the peninsula, however, care was taken to destroy every vestige of nationality or national legislature among the allies of the same race. Upon the whole, this change from independence to subjection to Rome was beneficial to the Italian nations. Not the least benefit attending it was the total abolition of those wars between neighboring states which, while the peninsula was subdivided into small independent territories, had raged incessantly and fiercely. The Nomen Latinum, or Latin name, was a fictitious designation applied to a number of colonies scattered through the peninsula, and which, in respect of privileges, stood in an intermediate position between the Roman citizens and the Italians. The name probably originated in the circumstance, that the original colonists of this description were Latins. It is a curious fact, that even after Rome had attained the supremacy of the peninsula, there did not exist such a thing as even a dawning Roman literature, although the state had now existed nearly five hundred years; so much earlier than their literary faculty did the native talent of the Romans for governing mankind develop itself. It was by their massive character, more than by their powers of speculation or expression, that they were to impress the world. THE PUNIC WARS――SUBJUGATION OF FOREIGN NATIONS――ADMINISTRATION OF THE PROVINCES. Masters of Italy, it was not long before the Romans found themselves in collision with the nations surrounding the great basin of the Mediterranean; and as the last 125 years of the existence of the Roman state had been spent in the gradual conquest of the Italic nations, so the next 130 years (Y. R. 490-620, or B. C. 264-134) were spent in a series of conquests, by which various foreign countries were reduced to the condition of mere provinces of Italy. This series of conquests may be designated generally by the title of ‘the Punic Wars, and the Wars with the Greek States.’ A bare enumeration of them, with a statement of their results, is all that our limits will allow.