King of Rome
The King of Rome was the chief magistrate of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hill. Seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 BC; these kings ruled for an average of 35 years. The kings after Romulus were not known to be dynasts and no reference is made to the hereditary principle until after the fifth king Tarquinius Priscus; some have assumed that the Tarquins and their attempt to institute a hereditary monarchy over this conjectured earlier elective monarchy resulted in the formation of the republic. Early Rome was not self-governing, was ruled by the king; the king possessed absolute power over the people. The senate was a weak oligarchy, capable of exercising only minor administrative powers, so that Rome was ruled by its king, in effect an absolute monarch; the senate's main function was to administer the wishes of the king. After Romulus, Rome's first legendary king, Roman kings were elected by the people of Rome, sitting as a Curiate Assembly, who voted on the candidate, nominated by a chosen member of the senate called an interrex.
Candidates for the throne could be chosen from any source. For example, one such candidate, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus was a citizen and migrant from a neighboring Etruscan city-state; the people of Rome, sitting as the Curiate Assembly, could either accept or reject the nominated candidate-king. The insignia of the king was twelve lictors wielding the fasces, a throne of a Curule chair, the purple Toga Picta, red shoes, a white diadem around the head. Only the king could wear a purple toga; the supreme power of the state was vested in the rex, whose position gave the following powers: Beyond his religious authority, the king was invested with the supreme military and judicial authority through the use of imperium. The imperium of the king was held for life and protected him from being brought to trial for his actions; as being the sole owner of imperium in Rome at the time, the king possessed ultimate executive power and unchecked military authority as the commander-in-chief of all Rome's legions.
His executive power and his sole imperium allowed him to issue decrees with the force of law. The laws that kept citizens safe from the misuse of magistrates owning imperium did not exist during the times of the king. Another power of the king was the power to either nominate all officials to offices; the king would appoint a tribunus celerum to serve as both the tribune of Ramnes tribe in Rome but as the commander of the king's personal bodyguard, the Celeres. The king was required to appoint the tribune upon entering office and the tribune left office upon the king's death; the tribune was second in rank to the king and possessed the power to convene the Curiate Assembly and lay legislation before it. Another officer appointed by the king was the praefectus urbi, which acted as the warden of the city; when the king was absent from the city, the prefect held all of the king's powers and abilities to the point of being bestowed with imperium while inside the city. The king received the right to be the sole person to appoint patricians to the Senate.
The king's imperium granted him both military powers as well as qualified him to pronounce legal judgment in all cases as the chief justice of Rome. Although he could assign pontiffs to act as minor judges in some cases, he had supreme authority in all cases brought before him, both civil and criminal; this made the king supreme in times of both peace. While some writers believed there was no appeal from the king's decisions, others believed that a proposal for appeal could be brought before the king by any patrician during a meeting of the Curiate Assembly. To assist the king, a council advised the king during all trials, but this council had no power to control the king's decisions. Two criminal detectives were appointed by him as well as a two-man criminal court which oversaw for cases of treason. Under the kings, the Senate and Curiate Assembly had little power and authority, they could only be called together by the king and could only discuss the matters the king laid before them. While the Curiate Assembly did have the power to pass laws, submitted by the king, the Senate was an honorable council.
It could advise the king on his action but, by no means, could prevent him from acting. The only thing that the king could not do without the approval of the Senate and Curiate Assembly was to declare war against a foreign nation; these issues allowed the King to more or less rule by decree with the exception of the above-mentioned affairs. Whenever a Roman king died, Rome entered a period of interregnum. Supreme power in the state would be devolved to the Senate, which had the task of finding a new king; the Senate would assemble and appoint one of its own members as the interrex to serve for a period of five days with the sole purpose of nominating the next king of Rome. After the five-day period, the interrex would appoint another Senator for another five-day term; this process would continue until the election of a new king. Once the interrex found a suitable nominee for the kingship, he would bring the nominee before the Senate and the Senate would examine him. If the Senate confirmed the nomination, the interrex would convene the Curiate Assembly and preside as its chairman during the election of the King.
Once a candidate was proposed to the Curi
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology is an encyclopedia/biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans 3,700 pages, it is a classic work of 19th-century lexicography. The work is a companion to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities and Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography; the work lists thirty-five authors in addition to the editor, an author for some definitions and articles. The authors were classical scholars from Oxford, Rugby School, the University of Bonn, but some were from other institutions. Many of the mythological entries were the work of the German expatriate Leonhard Schmitz, who helped to popularise German classical scholarship in Britain. With respect to biographies, Smith intended to be comprehensive. In the preface, he writes:The biographical articles in this work include the names of all persons of any importance which occur in the Greek and Roman writers, from the earliest times down to the extinction of the Western Empire in the year 476 of our era, to the extinction of the Eastern Empire by the capture of Constantinople by the turks in the year 1453.
Samuel Sharpe thought Edward Bunbury had plagiarised his work, as he wrote of in his diary entry on 3 September 1850: I felt mortified on reading the articles on the Ptolemies in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of Classical Biography." They were all written by E. H. Bunbury with the help of my "History of Egypt," and with-out any acknowledgment, though he borrowed the volume from my brother Dan for the purpose. Many of the Dictionary's definitions and articles have been referred to in more recent works, Robert Graves has been accused of "lifting his impressive-looking source references straight, unchecked" from it when writing The Greek Myths; the work is now in the public domain, is available in several places on the Internet. While still accurate, much is missing more recent discoveries and epigraphic material. More the context in which ancient evidence is viewed has changed in the intervening century and a half. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
Vol. I online at University of Michigan Library. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. II online at University of Michigan Library. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. III online at University of Michigan Library; the Internet Archive has a derivative work: Smith, William. A new classical dictionary of biography and geography based on the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology.". London: Murray. Anthon, Charles. A new classical dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and geography: based upon the Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology by William Smith. New York: Harper and Brothers
Roman–Latin wars
The Roman–Latin wars were a series of wars fought between ancient Rome and the Latins, from the earliest stages of the history of Rome until the final subjugation of the Latins to Rome in the aftermath of the Latin War. The Latins first went to war with Rome in the 7th century BC during the reign of the Roman king Ancus Marcius. According to Livy the war was commenced by the Latins who anticipated Ancus would follow the pious pursuit of peace adopted by his grandfather, Numa Pompilius; the Latins made an incursion on Roman lands. When a Roman embassy sought restitution for the damage, the Latins gave a contemptuous reply. Ancus accordingly declared war on the Latins; the declaration is notable since, according to Livy, it was the first time that the Romans had declared war by means of the rites of the fetials. Ancus Marcius marched from Rome with a newly levied army and took the Latin town of Politorium by storm, its residents were removed to settle on the Aventine Hill in Rome as new citizens, following the Roman traditions from wars with the Sabines and Albans.
When the other Latins subsequently occupied the empty town of Politorium, Ancus took the town again and demolished it. Further citizens were removed to Rome when Ancus conquered the Latin towns of Ficana; the war focused on the Latin town of Medullia. The town was well fortified. Several engagements took place outside the town and the Romans were victorious. Ancus returned to Rome with much loot. More Latins were brought to Rome as citizens and were settled at the foot of the Aventine near the Palatine Hill, by the temple of Murcia; when Rome was ruled by Lucius Tarquinius Priscus the Latins went to war with Rome on two occasions. On the first, which according to the Fasti Triumphales occurred prior to 588 BC, Tarquinius took the Latin town of Apiolae by storm, from there brought back a great amount of loot to Rome. On the second occasion, Tarquinius subdued the entirety of Latium, took a number of towns that belonged to the Latins or which had revolted to them: Corniculum, old Ficulea, Crustumerium, Ameriola and Nomentum, before agreeing to peace.
In 508 BC, Lars Porsena king of Clusium departed Rome after ending his war against Rome by peace treaty. Porsena split his forces, sent part of the Clusian army with his son Aruns to besiege the Latin city of Aricia; the Aricians sent for assistance from the Latin League, from the Greek city of Cumae. When support arrived, the Arician army ventured beyond the walls of the city, the combined armies met the Clusian forces in battle. According to Livy, the Clusians routed the Arician forces, but the Cumaean troops allowed the Clusians to pass by attacked from the rear, gaining victory against the Clusians. Livy says. In 503 BC two Latin towns and Cora, said by Livy to be colonies of Rome, revolted against Rome, they had the assistance of the southern Aurunci tribe. Livy says that a Roman army led by the consuls Agrippa Menenius Lanatus and Publius Postumius Tubertus met the enemy on the frontiers and was victorious, after which Livy says the war was confined to Pometia. Livy says. Livy says that the consuls celebrated a triumph, however the Fasti Triumphales record that an ovation was celebrated by Postumius and a triumph by Menenius, both over the Sabines.
In the following year the consuls were Sp.. Cassius. Livy says that they attempted to take Pometia by storm, but resorted to siege engines; however the Aurunci launched a successful sally, destroying the siege engines, wounding many, nearly killing one of the consuls. The Romans retreated to Rome, recruited additional troops, returned to Pometia, they rebuilt the siege engines and when they were about to take the town, the Pometians surrendered. The Aurunci leaders were beheaded, the Pometians sold into slavery, the town razed and the land sold. Livy says; the Fasti Triumphales record only one triumph, by Cassius. In 501 BC word reached Rome that thirty of the Latin cities had joined in league against Rome, at the instigation of Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum; because of this, Titus Lartius was appointed as Rome's first dictator, with Spurius Cassius as his magister equitum. However war with the Latins did not come to pass until at least two years later. In 499 BC, or 496 BC, war broke out. At first Fidenae was besieged, Crustumerium was captured, Praeneste defected to the Romans.
Aulus Postumius was appointed dictator, with Titus Aebutius Elva as his magister equitum. With the Roman army, they marched into the Latin territory and were victorious at the Battle of Lake Regillus. Shortly afterwards, in 495 BC, the Latins resisted calls from the Volsci to join with them to attack Rome, went so far as to deliver the Volscian ambassadors to Rome; the Roman senate, in gratitude, granted freedom to 6,000 Latin prisoners, in return the Latins sent a crown of gold to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome. A great crowd formed, including the freed Latin prisoners. Great bonds of friendship were said to have arisen between the Romans and the Latins as a result of this event; the Latins warned Rome of the Volscian invasion which occurred shortly after in the same yearIn 493 a treaty, the Foedus Cassianum, was concluded, establishing a mutual military alliance betw
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Atticistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime. Dionysius' opinion of the necessity of a promotion of paideia within education, from true knowledge of Classical sources, endured for centuries in a form integral to the identity of the Greek elite, he was a Halicarnassian. At some time he moved to Rome after the termination of the civil wars, spent twenty-two years studying Latin and literature and preparing materials for his history. During this period, he gave lessons in rhetoric, enjoyed the society of many distinguished men; the date of his death is unknown. In the 19th century, it was supposed that he was the ancestor of Aelius Dionysius of Halicarnassus, his major work, entitled Ῥωμαϊκὴ Ἀρχαιολογία, embraced the history of Rome from the mythical period to the beginning of the First Punic War. It was divided into twenty books, of which the first nine remain entire, the tenth and eleventh are nearly complete, the remaining books exist in fragments in the excerpts of the Roman emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus and an epitome discovered by Angelo Mai in a Milan manuscript.
The first three books of Appian, Plutarch's Life of Camillus and Life of Coriolanus embody much of Dionysius. His chief object was to reconcile the Greeks to the rule of Rome, by dilating upon the good qualities of their conquerors and by arguing, using more ancient sources, that the Romans were genuine descendants of the older Greeks. According to him, history is philosophy teaching by examples, this idea he has carried out from the point of view of a Greek rhetorician, but he consulted the best authorities, his work and that of Livy are the only connected and detailed extant accounts of early Roman history. Dionysius was the author of several rhetorical treatises, in which he shows that he has studied the best Attic models: The Art of Rhetoric, rather a collection of essays on the theory of rhetoric and not all his work; the last two treatises are supplemented by letters to Gn. Pompeius and Ammaeus. Dionysian imitatio is the literary method of imitation as formulated by Dionysius, who conceived it as the rhetorical practice of emulating, adapting and enriching a source text by an earlier author.
Dionysius' concept marked a significant departure from the concept of mimesis formulated by Aristotle in the 4th century BC, only concerned with "imitation of nature" and not "imitation of other authors." Latin orators and rhetoricians adopted Dionysius' method of imitatio and discarded Aristotle's mimesis. Dionysius is one of the primary sources for the accounts of the Roman foundation myth and the myth of Romulus and Remus, he was relied upon for the publications of Livy and Plutarch. He writes extensively on the myth; the myth spans the first 2 volumes of his Roman Antiquities, beginning with Book I chapter 73 and concluding in Book II chapter 56. Dionysius claims, her family descends from Aeneas of Troy and the daughter of King Latinus of the Original Latin tribes. Procas, her grandfather had willed the throne to his son Numitor but he was deposed by her uncle, Amulius. For fear of the threat that Numitor's heirs might pose, the king had Ilia's brother, Aegestus killed and blamed robbers; the truth about the crime was known by some, including Numitor.
Amulius appointed Ilia to the Vestal priestesshood, where her vow of chastity would prevent her from producing any further male rivals. Despite this, she became pregnant a few years claiming to have been raped; the different accounts of the twins' conception are laid out, but Dionysius declines to choose one over the others. The sources variously relate that it was a suitor, Amulius himself, or the god Mars himself; the latter is supposed to have comforted Ilia by making her grieve, telling her that she would bear twins whose bravery and triumphs would be unmatched. Ilia hid her pregnancy with claims of illness so as to avoid her vestal duties. Amulius suspected her and employed physicians and his wife to monitor her for signs of being with child; when he did discover the truth, she was placed under armed guard. After being informed of the delivery of the twins, Amulius suspected that she had in fact given birth to triplets; the third child had been concealed from the guards present. Ilia kept secretly in a hidden dungeon for the rest of her life.
Citing Fabius, Porcius Cato, Piso, Dionysius recounts the most common t
John Reinhard Weguelin
John Reinhard Weguelin was an English painter and illustrator, active from 1877 to after 1910. He specialized in figurative paintings with lush backgrounds landscapes or garden scenes. Weguelin emulated the neo-classical style of Edward Poynter and Lawrence Alma-Tadema, painting subjects inspired by classical antiquity and mythology, he depicted scenes of everyday life in ancient Greece and Rome, as well as mythological subjects, with an emphasis on pastoral scenes. Weguelin drew on folklore for inspiration, painted numerous images of nymphs and mermaids, his subjects were similar to those of his contemporary, John William Waterhouse, who specialized in painting the female figure against dramatic backgrounds, but unlike Waterhouse, many of Weguelin's subjects are nude or scantily-clad. Weguelin was noted for his realistic use of light. Although his earliest work was in watercolour, all of Weguelin's important works from 1878 to 1892 were oil paintings. In order to supplement his income, he drew and painted illustrations for several books, most famously Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome.
Beginning in 1893, Weguelin devoted himself entirely to watercolour, became a member of the Royal Watercolour Society. Weguelin's work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and a number of other important London galleries, was regarded during his career. However, he was forgotten following the first World War, as his style of painting fell out of fashion, he is best remembered as the painter of Lesbia, depicting the fabled muse of the Roman poet Catullus. John Reinhard Weguelin was born 23 June 1849, in the village near Arundel, his father, William Andrew Weguelin, was Rector of South Stoke, but was forced to relinquish his position about 1856, when he joined the Tractarian Movement, became a Roman Catholic. When he was still a child, Weguelin's family departed Sussex for Italy, where they lived for several years. Weguelin spent much time at Rome, where he was inspired by history. Other than a few drawing lessons in Italy, Weguelin had no formal training in art during his childhood. In 1860, the eleven-year-old Weguelin was sent to Cardinal Newman's Oratory School in Edgbaston.
From 1870 to 1873, he worked as an underwriter for Lloyd's of London. At the age of twenty-three in 1873, Weguelin enrolled in the Slade School of Fine Art headed by Edward Poynter, he studied there under both Poynter and his successor, Alphonse Legros. Weguelin's first exhibited work was a watercolour, The Death of the First-born, at the Dudley Gallery in 1877. On his graduation from "the Slade," he had his first painting exhibited at the Royal Academy. Although celebrated as a watercolourist, Weguelin would not exhibit in this medium again until the 1890s, nearly all of his paintings until 1893 were in oil. Weguelin was influenced by the work of Lawrence Alma-Tadema, but within a few years he developed his own interpretation of classical subjects. Beginning in 1878, he exhibited numerous paintings at various London galleries, including the Royal Academy, the Grosvenor Gallery, the New Gallery, his work was featured by the Society of British Artists. His subjects included landscapes and Biblical themes, pastoral scenes.
He produced illustrations for several books, including the 1881 edition of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, G. A. Henty's The Cat of Bubastes, a volume of poems by Catullus, Hans Christian Andersen's stories in The Little Mermaid and other Tales, Thomas Stanley's translation of Anacreon; the Library described Weguelin as one of the few decorative artists who relied on pen, habitually expressed themselves in "wash" rather than by line: "Mr. Weguelin has illustrated Anacreon in a manner to earn the appreciation of Greek scholars, his illustrations to Hans Andersen have had a wider and not less appreciative reception, his drawings have movement and atmosphere."In 1893, Weguelin took up watercolour for the first time since leaving the Slade. He exhibited The Swing at the Royal Academy, after a few months he was elected an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, he became a full member in 1897. From this time, Weguelin painted exclusively in watercolour, produced little in oil.
He exhibited at a gallery in Pall Mall East. Weguelin enjoyed canoeing and swimming, was a member of the Savile Club. In mature life, he settled at Hastings, he died 28 April 1927. Weguelin's early works could be considered classicist, reconstructing images of daily life from Greek and Roman times. However, his work reflected a free adaptation of the pagan spirit of classical art, instead of adhering to a historical interpretation. Writing in 1904, art critic Alfred Lys Baldry described Weguelin as "a painter of classic abstractions."In an 1888 article on exhibitions at the New Gallery, The Art Journal compared the work of three contemporaries, Alma-Tadema, whose work had influenced Weguelin, Charles Napier Kennedy, Weguelin himself, to that of George Frederic Watts. All four artists treated similar subjects. Mr. Alma-Tadema's Venus and Mars, Mr. C. N. Kennedy's Fair-haired Slave who made himself a King, Mr. J. R. Weguelin's Bacchus and the Choir of Nymphs are figure subjects of more realistic intention than the preceding.
Mr. Tadema's colour is the most mellow, Mr. Weguelin's the hardest and coldest. All three are studied, give a more or less true notion of the figure in its natural relation to the environment. Weguelin's work was described by Baldry in The Practice of Water-Colour Painting:It is as a painter of the nude figure in
Frascati
Frascati is a city and comune in the Metropolitan City of Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located 20 kilometres south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is associated with science, being the location of several international scientific laboratories. Frascati produces the white wine with the same name, it is a historical and artistic centre. The most important archeological finding in the area, dating back to Ancient Roman times, during the late Republican Age, is a patrician Roman villa belonging to Lucullus. In the first century AD its owner was Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus, who married Agrippina the Younger, mother of Nero, his properties were confiscated by the Flavian imperial dynasty. Consul Flavius Clemens lived in the villa with his wife Domitilla during the rule of Domitian. According to the Liber Pontificalis, in the 9th century Frascati was a little village founded two centuries earlier; the name of the city comes from a typical local tradition of collecting firewood —many place-names around the town refer to trees or wood.
After the destruction of nearby Tusculum in 1191, the town's population increased and the bishopric moved from Tusculum to Frascati. Pope Innocent III endorsed the city as a feudal possession of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, but in the following centuries its territories were ravaged by frequent raids that impoverished it, it was owned by various baronial families, including the Colonna, until, in 1460, Pope Pius II fortified the city with walls. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Pope Julius II gave Frascati as a feudal possession to the condottiero Marcantonio I Colonna, who lived there from 1508 together with his wife Lucrezia della Rovere, niece of Pope Julius II. In 1515 Colonna gave Frascati its first statute, Statuti e Capituli del Castello di Frascati, under the Latin title Populus antiquae civitas Tusculi. In 1518 a hospital was built, named after St. Sebastiano, in memory of the old basilica destroyed in the 9th century. After Prince Colonna's death in 1522, Lucrezia della Rovere sold Frascati to Pier Luigi Farnese, nephew of Pope Paul III.
On May 1, 1527 a Landsknecht company, after having sacked Rome, arrived out of the bordering villages. However, the soldiers changed the direction of their movement next to a niche, a "Rural Aedicule" consecrated to the Virgin Mary, the town was therefore saved; this event is commemorated by a church now called Capocroce. In 1538, Pope Paul III conferred the title of "Civitas" to Frascati, with the name "Tusculum Novum". In 1598 construction began on a new cathedral dedicated to St. Peter. On September 15, 1616 the first public and free school in Europe was established on the initiative of Saint Joseph Calasanz. On June 18, 1656 a part of the plaster peeled off a wall inside the Church of St. Mary in Vivario, an ancient fresco became visible, it was protector from the plague. In that same year there was an epidemic of plague in Rome but Frascati was unaffected. Since that year, the two Saints have been co-patron Saints of the city. There are statues of the two saints in the façade of the Cathedral.
Between 1713 and 1729, the head from a colossus of Antinous was discovered in the area, displayed in the Villa Mondragone. In 1757 the Valle theater opened in the centre of the town, in 1761 the fortress changed to a princely palace under the patronage of Cardinal Henry Stuart, Duke of York. In 1809 Frascati was annexed to the French Empire, selected as the capital of the Roman canton. In autumn 1837, there was a plague epidemic in Rome, 5,000 people left Rome. Frascati was the only city. Since Frascati's flag has been the same as Rome's, yellow and red. In 1840 the "Accademia Tuscolana" was founded in the city by Cardinal-Bishop Ludovico Micara. In 1856 the city was chosen as the terminus of the Rome–Frascati railway, the first railway to be built by the Papal State; the last section of the railway line was opened in 1884, 14 years after the city became part of the new Kingdom of Italy. On December 17, 1901, Frascati started to receive electricity from a hydroelectric plant in Tivoli. In 1906, an electric tram line opened for service between Frascati and Castelli Romani.
The trams traveled wholly along tracks laid down on existing streets as an interurban electric streetcar. In 1954 the electric tram line was replaced by buses. Another electric tram service, the Rome and Fiuggi Rail Road, called "Vicinali", was opened for service in 1916, it connected Monte Porzio Catone, Monte Compatri and San Cesareo. This tram line was replaced by buses. In 1943, during World War II, Frascati was bombed because it contained the German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone. 50% of its buildings, including many monuments and houses, were destroyed. One thousand Italians and 150 Germans died in that air strike and in a second air strike on January 22, 1944, the day of the battle of Anzio; the city was liberated from the Nazi German occupation on June 4, 1944 by the 85th Infantry Division. In 1944–1945 the ruins of the buildings were used to fill in a valley, that land now supports the "8 September Stadium". Frascati is famous for its notable villas, which were built from the 16th century onwards by Popes and Roman nobles as "status symbols" of Roman aristocracy.
These country houses were designed for social activities rather than farming. The villas are well preserved, or have been and authentically restored following damage during World War II; the main villas are: Vi
Volsci
The Volsci were an Italic tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. At the time they inhabited the hilly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the south, the Hernici on the east, stretching from Norba and Cora in the north to Antium in the south. Rivals of Rome for several hundred years, their territories were taken over by and assimilated into the growing republic by 300 BCE. Strabo says, it was placed in the Pomentine plain, between the Latins and the Pontine marshes, which took their name from the plain. The Volsci spoke Volscian, a Sabellic Italic language, related to Oscan and Umbrian, more distantly to Latin. In the Volscian territory lay the little town of Velitrae, home of the ancestors of Caesar Augustus. From this town comes an inscription dating from early in the 3rd century BCE; the Volsci were among the most dangerous enemies of ancient Rome, allied with the Aequi, whereas their neighbors the Hernici from 486 BCE onwards were the allies of Rome.
According to Rome's early semi-legendary history, Rome's seventh and last king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the first to go to war against the Volsci, commencing two centuries of a relationship of conflict between the two states. The legendary Roman warrior Gaius Marcius Coriolanus earned his cognomen after taking the Volscian town of Corioli in 493 BCE; the reputed rise and fall of this hero is chronicled in Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which served as the basis for Shakespeare's play Coriolanus. However, if Livy's account of the war between Rome and Clusium is accurate, it can be seen that the relationship between Rome and the Volsci was not always hostile. Livy writes that, at the approach of the Clusian army in 508 BCE, with the prospect of a siege, the Roman senate arranged for the purchase of grain from the Volsci to feed the lower classes of Rome. Attius Tullus Aufidius. Camilla in Virgil's Aeneid, a Volscian Warrior Maiden. Virgil says, she fights on the side of the Latins and kills many of the Trojan refugees before being killed herself by the Etruscan hero Arruns
