Latin War (498–493 BC)

First Latin War
Part of the Latin Wars
Depiction of the Battle of Lake Regillus, the most well known battle of the war.
Date 498 BC – 493 BC Location Latium Result Roman victory
Belligerents
Roman Republic	Latin League
Commanders and leaders
Spurius Cassius Viscellinus Titus Largius Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis Titus Aebutius Elva	Octavius Mamilius Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

The Latin War was a war fought between the Roman Republic and the Latin League from 498 BC to 493 BC.

According to the historical chronicles, the beginnings of this war between the Romans and Latins can be seen as early as 501 BC, though the root causes date back much farther. In 501 BC, the Romans elected Titus Lartius as dictator with Spurius Cassius Viscellinus as his Master of the Horse, an overt indication of the expectation of conflict. There were two major incidents in 501 BC that likely provoked the Romans to elect a dictator. First, an incident arose between the Romans and the Sabines in which a group of Sabines ironically abducted a number of Roman women during a festival being held in Rome. This relatively trivial action led to a violent altercation which threatened to nearly bring the two cities to war even though Rome had decisively defeated the Sabines very recently sometime between 505-503 BC. The other and more significant cause for the appointment of a dictator was the agitation of the rest of the Latin League, a group of around 30 different Latin city-states which were situated throughout Latium, and what Rome correctly perceived to be their mobilization towards a war footing. Soon after the appointment of Titus Largius to the dictatorship, the Sabines sued for a quick peace, leaving Largius to concentrate the brunt of his attention on the rest of the Latin League. The growing might of Rome in Latium had begun to upset the balance of power in Latium. As a result, Octavius Mamilius, the leader of Tusculum began agitating the cities of the Latin League in a common cause against Rome. Mamilius was the son in law of the ex-Roman King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus who had gone into exile at Tusculum following his defeat at the Battle of Silva Arsia with the Etruscans and his failure to again capture Rome with the support of Clusium immediately after that.

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