Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad free right now.

Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. The scent of roasting meat filled the air under the trees. The grove was a sacred place and had been for as long as anyone

could remember. It was usually quiet here under the boughs of the oak and maple

trees with only occasional visitors who hiked up through the Albin hills to this open air shrine at the edge of a crystal clear lake, but not today.

Today, the sound of voices whistled through the new greenery and butting shoots of an early spring in Latia.

Hundreds of people had come from all across the region to offer sacrifices and observe the rights

as their ancestors had done and as they assumed their descendants would do as well.

For centuries the Latins had come here. and as they assumed their descendants would do as well.

For centuries, the Latins had come here to renew their bonds of mutual obligation with the goddess

of the wood.

She was just one of the deities they honored high up among the Alban hills.

Uphitel Latiaris was undoubtedly the most important of them.

But the timing of this festival, before the campaigning season began for the year, meant that it was the perfect opportunity for the aristocrats of

Latium to come together to plan the summer's activities. They had come from Tibour and Preneste, Satriacum, and

Etruscan Kairi.

Above all, though, they came from Rome, taking the day-long journey south through the towering gates

of the enormous new city walls,

through the well-tended farms and vineyards,

and up into the hills.

Their retainers came with them,

dozens of hard-faced men who knew their way

around spears and swords, servants of the aristocratic Ghentis that

...