The appointment of the first dictator is placed in the tenth year after the first consuls; and by the oldest annalists T. Larcius is named as the person. Among a variety of contradictory statements, one invented by the vanity of the Valerian house assigned this honour to a nephew of Publicola. According to the date just mentioned Larcius was consul at the time, and so would only have received an enlargement of his previous power: another account related as the occasion of the appointment, what sounds probable enough, that the republic had been placed by an unfortunate choice in the hands of two consuls of the Tarquinian faction, whose names were subsequently rendered dubious by indulgence or by calumny.

That the name of dictator was of Latin origin, is acknowledged; and assuredly the character of his office, as invested with regal power for a limited period, was no less so: the existence of a dictator at Tusculum in early, at Lavinium in very late times, is matter of history; and from Latin ritual books, which referred to Alban traditions, Macer was enabled to assert that this magistracy had subsisted at Alba; though it is true that the preservation of any historical record concerning Alba is still more out of the question than that of any concerning Rome before Tullus Hostilius.