248 Oittlines of European History Once a year, however, they went up to the Alban Mount (Fig. 109), where all the Latin tribes united in a feast of their chief god, Jupiter, whose rude mud-brick sanctuary was on the Mount. M Fig. 109. Ruins of the Roman Forum The scene is taken from the Capitol Hill (see plan, p. 250) looking south- eastward along the Forum to the distant Alban Mount on the horizon (p. 248). The steep elevation at the right is the Palatine Hill, where the palace of the Roman emperors stood. The long lines of bases of col- umns on the right belonged to a basilica built by Julius Caesar (Fig. 113); on the left of these was the open market place of the Forum (p. 249) ; the columns in the foreground belong to the Temple of Saturn (Fig. 1 13), which was used as a treasury by the Roman government Sometimes, too, they were forced to unite with the other commu- nities to defend themselves against their neighbors, especially the Samnites, a powerful group of mountain tribes in the south. It was at such times that the peasant was obliged to make the day's journey up to the town to purchase weapons for his son, when he reached fighting age. These — the spear, the short
