While the Greeks were thus forging rapidly ahead, their ancient kindred,
the Latins, were also progressing, though at a rate less dazzling. The
true date of Rome's founding we do not know. Her own legends give B.C.
753.[17] But recent excavations on the Palatine hill show that it was
already fortified at a much earlier period. Rome, we believe, was
originally a frontier fortress erected by the Latins to protect them
from the attacks of the non-Aryan races among whom they had intruded.
This stronghold became ever more numerously peopled, until it grew into
an individual state separate from the other Latin cities.

[Footnote 17: See _The Foundation of Rome_, page 116.]

The Romans passed through the vicissitudes which we have already noted
in Greece as characteristic of the Aryan development. The early war
leader became an absolute king, his power tended to become hereditary,
but its abuse roused the more powerful citizens to rebellion, and the
kingdom vanished in an oligarchy.[18] This last change occurred in Rome
about B.C. 510, and it was attended by such disasters that the city sank
back into a condition that was almost barbarous when compared with her
opulence under the Tarquin kings.

[Footnote 18: See _Rome Established as a Republic_, page 300.]

It was soon after this that the Persians, ignorant of their own
decadence, and dreaming still of world power, resolved to conquer the
remaining little states lying scarce known along the boundaries of their
empire. They attacked the Greeks, and at Marathon (B.C. 490) and Salamis
(B.C. 480) were hurled back and their power broken.[19]