The Western World and Rome 249 sword, and the shield — he has adopted from the Samnites. His fathers could find them in the market made only of bronze, but now they were to be had of iron, and a bronze sword was a rarity. The market was at a ford in the Tiber just above the coast marshes, which extend some ten or twelve miles inland from its mouth. At this ford the Etruscan merchants from the north side crossed over with their wares to find a market among the Latin peasants. The traffic resulted in a settlement on a hill known as the Palatine^ (Fig. 109). The settlement had long Etruscan been there and a line of Etruscan nobles had once succeeded in Rome° gaining control of the place as its kings. Several other hills close by, seven of them in all, bore straggling settlements which grad- ually merged into a considerable city, indeed the largest of middle Italy. It was called Rome. The peasant could recall the tradition which told how the townsmen, as they increased in wealth and power, rose against their Etruscan lords and expelled them. As he reaches the market place, the " forum " (Fig. 109, and Greek ships plan, p. 250), which lies beside the Palatine and another hill known influences as the Capitol, he looks down the valley toward the river. There lies a group of ships from the great Mediterranean world out- side, of which the peasant knows so litde. Some of them are from the Greek cities of the south (cut, p. 166) and some from the Etruscan ports along the northern coast. There are no Roman ships among them. The peasant goes down to the dock. Here he finds a Roman mechanic building a ship constructed exactly like the Greek and Etruscan ships beside it. The Greek merchants bring written invoices and bills. The Greek in- . Romans, entirely unable to read them at first, are slowly the alphabet 1 The traditional date for the foundation of Rome — namely, the middle of the eighth century B.C. (often 753 B.C.) — has come to us from the ancient Roman historians and is worthless. There was a settlement of men at this important place on the Tiber as early as the Late Stone Age. In later times the Roman folk told fabulous tales about the foundation of the city by two brothers, Romulus and Remus, and these tales were long accepted as narratives of fact, though it is evident that they are purely fanciful. The headpiece of this chapter (p. 241) shows the two brothers as infants suckled by a wolf, according to the tradition.
