The History of Rome, Book I: The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the MonarchyMommsen, Theodor
History
The History of Rome, Book I: The Period Anterior to the Abolition of the Monarchy
Mommsen, Theodor
Rome -- History
No relation is discoverable between the urban settlements thus
gradually formed and the three communities into which from an
immemorially early period the Roman commonwealth was in political
law divided. As the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres appear to have
been communities originally independent, they must have had their
settlements originally apart; but they certainly did not dwell
in separate circumvallations on the Seven Hills, and all fictions
to this effect in ancient or modern times must be consigned by
the intelligent inquirer to the same fate with the charming tale
of Tarpeia and the battle of the Palatine. On the contrary each
of the three tribes of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres must have been
distributed throughout the two regions of the oldest city, the
Subura and Palatine, and the suburban region as well: with this
may be connected the fact, that afterwards not only in the Suburan
and Palatine, but in each of the regions subsequently added to the
city, there were three pairs of Argean chapels. The Palatine city
of the Seven Mounts may have had a history of its own; no other
tradition of it has survived than simply that of its having once
existed. But as the leaves of the forest make room for the new
growth of spring, although they fall unseen by human eyes, so has
this unknown city of the Seven Mounts made room for the Rome of
history.
The Hill-Romans on the Quirinal
But the Palatine city was not the only one that in ancient times
existed within the circle afterwards enclosed by the Servian walls;
opposite to it, in its immediate vicinity, there lay a second city
on the Quirinal. The "old stronghold" (-Capitolium vetus-) with a
sanctuary of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and a temple of the goddess
of Fidelity in which state treaties were publicly deposited, forms
the evident counterpart of the later Capitol with its temple to
Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and with its shrine of Fides Romana
likewise destined as it were for a repository of international
law, and furnishes a sure proof that the Quirinal also was once
the centre of an independent commonwealth. The same fact may be
inferred from the double worship of Mars on the Palatine and the
Quirinal; for Mars was the type of the warrior and the oldest chief
divinity of the burgess communities of Italy. With this is connected
the further circumstance that his ministers, the two primitive
colleges of the "Leapers" (-Salii-) and of the "Wolves" (-Luperci-)
existed in the later Rome in duplicate: by the side of the Salii
of the Palatine there were also Salii of the Quirinal; by the side
of the Quinctian Luperci of the Palatine there was a Fabian guild
of Luperci, which in all probability had their sanctuary on the
Quirinal.(5)
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