A brief account may be here given of the great Latin festival which usually in historical times took place in April. Though it was not held at Rome, but on the Alban Mount, it was under the direct supervision of the Roman state, and was in reality a Roman festival. The consuls on their entrance upon office on the Ides of March had to fix and announce the date of it[348]; and when in 153 B.C. the day of entrance was changed to January 1, the date of the festival does not seem to have been changed to suit it. The consuls must be present themselves, leaving a _praefectus urbi_ at Rome[349]; or in case of the compulsory absence of both consuls a dictator might be appointed _Feriarum Latinarum causa_. Only when the festival was over could they leave Rome for their provinces. It was therefore a festival of the highest importance to the Roman state. But the ritual will show that it must in fact have been much older than that state as we know it in historical times; it was a common festival of the most ancient Latin communities[350], celebrated on the lofty hill which arose in their midst, where dwelt the great protecting deity of their race. At what date Rome became the presiding city at the festival we do not know. The foundation of the temple on the hill was ascribed to the Tarquinii, and this tradition seems to be borne out by the character of the foundations discovered there, which resemble those of the Capitoline temple[351]. No doubt the Tarquinii may have renovated the cult or even given it an extended significance; but the Roman presidency must conjecturally be placed still further back. Perhaps no festival, Greek or Roman, carries us over such a vast period of time as this; its features betray its origin in the pastoral age, and it continued in almost uninterrupted grandeur till the end of the third century A.D., or even later[352].