ce the earthen ramparts
and palisades of their strongholds with buildings of stone. When
peace came to be securely established throughout the land and
such fortresses were no longer needed, these places of refuge were
abandoned and soon became a riddle to after generations.

Localities of the Oldest Cantons

These cantons accordingly, having their rendezvous in some
stronghold, and including a certain number of clanships, form the
primitive political unities with which Italian history begins. At
what period, and to what extent, such cantons were formed in Latium,
cannot be determined with precision; nor is it a matter of special
historical interest The isolated Alban range, that natural stronghold
of Latium, which offered to settlers the most wholesome air, the
freshest springs, and the most secure position, would doubtless be
first occupied by the new comers.

Alba

Here accordingly, along the narrow plateau above Palazzuola, between
the Alban lake (-Lago di Castello-) and the Alban mount (-Monte
Cavo-), extended the town of Alba, which was universally regarded
as the primitive seat of the Latin stock, and the mother-city of
Rome as well as of all the other Old Latin communities; here, too,
on the slopes lay the very ancient Latin canton-centres of Lanuvium,
Aricia, and Tusculum. Here are found some of those primitive works
of masonry, which usually mark the beginnings of civilization and
seem to stand as a witness to posterity that in reality Pallas
Athena when she does appear, comes into the world full grown. Such
is the escarpment of the wall of rock below Alba in the direction
of Palazzuola, whereby the place, which is rendered naturally
inaccessible by the steep declivities of Monte Cavo on the south,
is rendered equally unapproachable on the north, and only the two
narrow approaches on the east and west, which are capable of being
easily defended, are left open for traffic. Such, above all, is
the large subterranean tunnel cut--so that a man can stand upright
within it--through the hard wall of lava, 6000 feet thick, by which
the waters of the lake formed in the old crater of the Alban Mount
were reduced to their present level and a considerable space was
gained for tillage on the mountain itself.

The summits of the last offshoots of the Sabine range form natural
fastnesses of the Latin plain; and the canton-strongholds there
gave rise at a later period to the considerable towns of Tibur and