assimilation of the name to the tongue of the Italic people, there went
hand in hand an adaptation of his nature to their needs, so that by
degrees he became thoroughly italicised both in form and content. It is
probable that the cult came into Rome as well as into the other cities
of Latium, but in Rome it was confined to a few individuals, and at
first obtained no public recognition. On the contrary, for reasons that
we are at a loss to find, this Greek cult seems to have reached very
large proportions in the little town of Tibur (Tivoli), fourteen miles
north-east of Rome. There it dominated all other worship and lost so
much of its foreign atmosphere that it became thoroughly latinised. In
the course of time the Roman state acknowledged this Tivoli cult of
Hercules and accepted a branch of it as its own. But the extraordinary
thing about this acknowledgment is that the Romans felt it to be a Latin
and not a foreign cult. They showed this intimate and friendly feeling
by permitting an altar to Hercules to be erected within the city proper,
in the Forum Boarium. But in order to understand the significance of
this act a word of digression is necessary.

Under the old Roman regime every act of life was performed under the
supervision of the gods, and this godly patronage was especially
emphasised in acts which affected the life of the community. No act was
of greater importance for the community than the choice of a home, the
location of a settlement. Thus the founding of an ancient city was
accompanied by sacred rites, chief among which was the ploughing of a
furrow around the space which was ultimately to be enclosed by the wall.
This furrow formed a symbolic wall on very much the same principle as
that on which the witch draws her circle. The furrow was called the
_pomerium_ and was to the world of the gods what the city wall was to
the world of men. It did not however always coincide with the actual
city wall, and the space it embraced was sometimes less, sometimes more,