Latins

The Latins were an Italic tribe which inhabited the region of Latium in central Italy from 1000 BC to 338 BC. The Latins historically originated in eastern Hungary, Moravia, and Austria, and they later migrated to Latium. Following the end of the Trojan War in 1240 BC, Aeneas and his band of Trojan refugees landed in Latium near the mouth of the Tiber, and the Latin king Latinus - the founder of Laurentum - was defeated after attempting to drive them out. Latinus decided to accept Aeneas as an ally and allowed him to marry his daughter Lavinia. Aeneas founded the city of Lavinium, named in honor of his wife, and it became the Latin capital after Latinus' death. Aeneas' son Ascanius went on to found the city of Alba Longa in the Alban Hills, and it remained the Latin capital for 400 years, replacing Lavinium. In 753 BC, Ascanius' descendant Romulus founded the new city of Rome, and the later king Tullus Hostilius burned Alba Longa to the ground and resettled its inhabitants on the Caelian Hill in Rome in the mid-7th century BC. After 600 BC, Rome became the most powerful and most populous Latin state, and the 14 other Latin states became rivals with Rome. After the fall of the Roman monarchy in 509 BC, the Romans and Latins allied against the invading Volsci and Aequi, but the alliance broke down after 390 BC, after which the Romans fought to conquer the Latin states. In the Latin War of 341-338 BC, the Romans decisively defeated and conquered the Latins, who were either annexed or permanently subjugated into Rome and assimilated as Romans.