Let us look first at the ancient boundaries of the Roman territory. To the east the towns of Antemnæ, Fidenæ, Cænina, Collatia, and Gabii lie in the near neighbourhood, some of them not five miles distant from the gates of Servian Rome; the boundary of the province must consequently have been hard by the city gates. Fourteen miles to the south we come on the powerful communities of Tusculum and Alba, and here the Roman territory seems not to have extended farther than to the Fossa Cluilia, five miles from Rome. Similarly, in the southwesterly direction, the boundary between Rome and Lavinium was already encountered at the sixth milestone. Whilst on the land side the Roman province was everywhere confined to the narrowest possible limits, on the other hand, from the earliest times it stretched uninterruptedly along both banks of the Tiber in the direction of the sea; and no place representing an ancient provincial centre nor any sort of trace of an ancient provincial border is encountered between Rome and the coast. It is true that legend, which can assign an origin for everything, is here also able to inform us that the Roman possessions on the right bank of the Tiber, the “seven hamlets” (_septem pagi_), and the important salt-works at its mouth were taken by King Romulus from the Veientes, and that King Ancus fortified the _tête de pont_, the “Mount of Janus” (_Janiculum_), on the right bank of the Tiber, and on the left laid the foundation of the Roman Piræus, the harbour town at the “mouth” (_ostia_) of the river. But on the other hand the fact that the possessions on the Etruscan bank must have belonged to the very earliest Roman territory is attested by a better witness, namely by the grove of the creative goddess (_Dea Dia_) which stood in this very place, at the fourth milestone of the road subsequently made to the harbour, and was the original high place of the Roman Arval festival and Arval brotherhood. Indeed, from time immemorial, the clan of the Romilii, probably the most distinguished among all the Roman clans, had its seat here; the Janiculum was a part of the town itself and Ostia a citizen colony, that is, a suburb. This cannot have been mere chance. The Tiber was the natural highway of Latium, and its mouth, on a coast so poorly provided with harbours, was the necessary place of anchorage for ships.