race; secluded in their mountains, remote from strangers, they remained like the Aryans of the ancient period; they lived in groups with their herds scattered in the plains; they had no villages nor cities.  Fortresses erected on the mountains defended them in time of war.  They were brave martial people, of simple and substantial manners.  They later constituted the strength of the Roman armies.  A proverb ran:  “Who could vanquish the Marsians without the Marsians?”

=The Sacred Spring.=—­In the midst of a pressing danger, the Sabines, according to a legend, believing their gods to be angry, decided to appease their displeasure by sacrificing to the god of war and of death everything that was born during a certain spring.  This sacrifice was called a “Sacred Spring.”  All the children born in this year belonged to the god.  Arrived at the age of manhood, they left the country and journeyed abroad.  These exiles formed several groups, each taking for guide one of the sacred animals of Italy, a woodpecker, a wolf, or a bull, and followed it as a messenger of the god.  Where the animal halted the band settled itself.  Many peoples of Italy, it was said, had originated in these colonies of emigrants and still preserved the name of the animal which had led their ancestors.  Such were, the Hirpines (people of the wolf), the Picentines (people of the woodpecker), and the Samnites whose capital was named Bovianum (city of the ox).

=The Samnites.=—­The Samnites were the most powerful of all.  Settled in the Abruzzi, a paradise for brigands, they descended into the fertile plains of Naples and of Apulia and put Etruscan and Greek towns to ransom.

The Samnites fought against the Romans for two centuries; although always beaten because they had no central administration and no discipline they yet reopened the war.  Their last fight was heroic.  An old man brought to the chiefs of the army a sacred book written on linen.  They formed in the interior of the camp a wall of linen, raised an altar in the midst of it, and around this stood soldiers with unsheathed swords.  One by one the bravest of the warriors entered the precinct.  They swore not to flee before the enemy and to kill the fugitives.  Those who took the oath, to the number of 16,000, donned linen garments.  This was the “linen legion”; it engaged in battle, and was slaughtered to the last man.

=The Greeks of Italy.=—­All south Italy was covered with Greek colonies, some, like Sybaris, Croton, and Tarentum, very populous and powerful.  But the Greeks did not venture on the Roman coast for fear of the Etruscans.  Except the city of Cumae the Greek colonies down to the third century had almost no relations with the Romans.