Subjugation of the Latins and Campanians by Rome The Hegemony of Rome over Latium Shaken and Re-established The great achievement of the regal period was the establishment of the sovereignty of Rome over Latium under the form of hegemony.

It is in the nature of the case evident that the change in the constitution of Rome could not but powerfully affect both the relations of the Roman state towards Latium and the internal organization of the Latin communities themselves; and that it did so, is obvious from tradition.
The fluctuations which the revolution in Rome occasioned in the Romano-Latin confederacy are attested by the legend, unusually vivid and various in its hues, of the victory at the lake Regillus, which the dictator or consul Aulus Postumius (255?
258 ?) is said to have gained over the Latins with the help of the Dioscuri, and still more definitely by the renewal of the perpetual league between Rome and Latium by Spurius Cassius in his second consulate (261).

These narratives, however, give us no information as to the main matter, the legal relation between the new Roman republic and the Latin confederacy; and what from other sources we learn regarding that relation comes to us without date, and can only be inserted here with an approximation to probability.
Original Equality of Rights between Rome and Latium The nature of a hegemony implies that it becomes gradually converted into sovereignty by the mere inward force of circumstances; and the Roman hegemony over Latium formed no exception to the rule.

It was based upon the essential equality of rights between the Roman state on the one side and the Latin confederacy on the other;( 1) but at least in matters of war and in the treatment of the acquisitions thereby made this relation between the single state on the one hand and the league of states on the other virtually involved a hegemony.
According to the original constitution of the league not only was the right of making wars and treaties with foreign states--in other words, the full right of political self-determination--reserved in all probability both to Rome and to the individual towns of the Latin league; and when a joint war took place, Rome and Latium probably furnished the like contingent, each, as a rule, an "army" of 8400 men;( 2) but the chief command was held by the Roman general, who then nominated the officers of the staff, and so the leaders-of-division (-tribuni militum-), according to his own choice.

In case of victory the moveable part of the spoil, as well as the conquered territory, was shared between Rome and the confederacy; when the establishment of fortresses in the conquered territory was resolved on, their garrisons and population were composed partly of Roman, partly of confederate colonists; and not only so, but the newly-founded community was received as a sovereign federal state into the Latin confederacy and furnished with a seat and vote in the Latin diet.
Encroachments on That Equality of Rights-- As to Wars and Treaties-- As to the Officering of the Army-- As to Acquisitions in War These stipulations must probably even in the regal period, certainly in the republican epoch, have undergone alteration more and more to the disadvantage of the confederacy and to the further development of the hegemony of Rome.