In these wars all the efforts of the Volscians were directed towards acquiring the territory to the north, and that on the seacoast and on the river Trerus, while the Æquians strove to extend their dominions westward and southwestward as far as the Latin-Roman domains. [Sidenote: [487-425 B.C.]] The Romans, on their side, sought to check the growth of the Volscians by spreading out parallel with them; and they immediately planted settlements or rather military posts all through the mountain regions between the Trerus and the Pomptine marsh, to separate the eastern tribes of the Volscians from those of the western. At times very serious in character, this war was carried on for a long period without any advantage to the Latins or the Romans, until at last, after 487, the struggle was brought almost to the very doors of Rome.[30] Step by step the Æquians pushed on until they gained possession of the Latin marshes as far as Mount Algidus, on the eastern wall of the Alban hills; and it was this chain of mountains that the latter made the starting-point of all their marauding expeditions into the Roman territory. It was 459 before a change came that was favourable to the Romans. In this year the western branch of the Volscians which for seventy years had not taken up arms against Rome, concluded a formal peace with the Romans, doubtless sacrificing thereto their capital, Antium, which had so frequently been the object of dispute. Relieved on that side, the Romans could now direct all their power against the Æquians and the eastern Volscians and in 431 there came a decidedly favourable turn in their affairs. Probably the Volscians had been considerably weakened by incursions from the constantly expanding Sabellian tribes in their rear, and the Romans now took the offensive against them with growing success until piece by piece they regained all the territory that had formerly been taken from the Latins. The Æquians were driven back to their highlands, and the country of the eastern Volscians, turned into a seat of war, was traversed in 408 by the Romans who plundered on all sides. So weakened were Rome’s adversaries in 404 that they looked on passively at the siege and capture of Veii. In 400 Tarracina was taken, and in 393 Circeii was freshly colonised, so that even in the later period when it had attained its greatest size all of Latium was either subject or allied to Rome. Moreover as a result of these struggles, and during their course, the compact between the Romans and their Latin allies grew into a sort of hegemony, the Romans claiming the sole right to decide in all matters relating to wars and contracts, while the Latin prætors ceased to alternate with the Roman generals as commanders-in-chief of the army, and the positions of staff officers in the allied troops, at first open only to men appointed by the Romans, soon came to be filled almost exclusively by the Romans themselves.