The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 05

by Unknown

CHAPTER VIII. THE CONQUEST OF CENTRAL ITALY

THE SAMNITES

The fifth century is the most beautiful century of Rome. The plebeians had conquered the consulship and are succeeding in conquering their admission to other magistracies which the patricians wished to reserve; they free themselves from the servitude which, under the name of Nexus, weighed on the debtors. They arrive at political equality and individual independence; at the same time the old aristocracy still dominates in the senate and maintains there the inflexibility of its resolves and the persistence of its designs. It was thanks to this interior condition that the Roman people was able to survive the strongest tests from without over which it had triumphed, and to make that progress which cost it most dear. We see the peoples fight, one by one, and often all together; the Latin people, the Etruscans, the Goths, the Samnites, the other Sabellic peoples of the Apennines; and the end is always victory. The beginnings of this history were sombre. Rome was afflicted by one of those pestilences which one finds in all the epochs of the history of this unsanitary city. Thence was the origin of those scenic pieces imported by the Etruscans and giving origin to comedy—a means devised to appease the gods; so that Roman comedy had an origin religious and dismal. The fifth century is for Rome the age of great devotions and of grand sacrifices.[d]

We must now carry our eyes beyond the plain of Latium, and penetrate into Campania and the valleys of the Apennines.

The Sabines are a people connected with the earliest legends of Rome. But the Sabines of Cures and the country between the Anio and the Tiber are those who have hitherto engaged our attention. It is in the highlands of Reate and Amiternum that we must search for the cradle of the race. The valleys of this high district afford but scanty subsistence; and the hardy mountaineers ever and anon cast off swarms of emigrants, who sought other homes, and made good their claim by arms. It was a custom of the Sabellian tribes, when famine threatened and population became dense, to devote the whole produce of one spring-time to the gods. Among other produce, the youth born in that year were dedicated to the god Mamers (Mars), and went forth to seek their fortunes abroad. On one such occasion the emigrants, pressing southward from the Sabine highlands, occupied the broad mountainous district which lies northward of Campania, and took the name of Samnites. The Picenians and Frentanians, on the north coast, with the four allied cantons of the Vestinians, Marrucinians, Pelignians, and Marsians, who were interposed between the Samnites and their ancestral Sabines, claimed kin with both nations. The Samnites themselves also formed four cantons—the Caracenians, Pentrians, Caudinians, and Hirpinians. Of these the Pentrians were far the most considerable; they occupied the rugged mountain district between the upper valleys of the Vulturnus and the Calor. Here a great mass of mountains, now known by the name of Mount Matese, rises boldly from the central chain to the height of more than six thousand feet; and its steep defiles offer defences of great natural strength. But the remains of massive polygonal masonry, which are still seen on the rocky heights occupied by their towns of Æsernia and Bovianum (Isernia and Bojano), showed that the Samnites used art to strengthen their natural defences. Below Mount Matese, in the valley of the Calor, lay the canton of the Caudinians, whose town of Beneventum (anciently called Maleventum or Maliessa) was also made strong by art. It is within these limits, from Æsernia to Beneventum, that the scenes of the chief campaigns of the Samnite wars were laid.

[423-354 B.C.]

From the nature of their country the Samnites were a pastoral people. Their mountains break into numberless valleys, sloping both north and south, well watered, and fresh even in the summer heats. Into these valleys, as is still the practice of the country, the flocks were driven from the lower lands, ascending higher as the heats increased, and descending towards the plain as autumn inclined towards winter.

But the Samnites were not contented with these mountain homes. As they had themselves been sent forth from a central hive, so in time they cast forth new swarms of emigrants. In early times a Samnite tribe, under the name of Frentanians, had taken possession of the coast lands north of Apulia. Other bands of adventurous settlers pushed down the Vulturnus and Calor into the rich plain that lay beneath their mountains, to which they gave the name of Campania, or the champagne land. In earlier times this fair plain had attracted Etruscan conquerors; and its chief city, anciently called Vulturnum, is said from them to have received the lasting name of Capua. But about the year 423 B.C., nearly a century before the time of which we are presently to speak, a band of Samnites seized the famous city, and reduced the ancient Oscan inhabitants to the condition of clients. Soon after, the great Greek city of Cumæ, which then gave name to the Bay of Naples, was conquered by the new lords of Capua, who from this time forth, under the name of Campanians, became the dominant power of the country. In course of time, however, the Samnites of Capua, or the Campanians, adopted the language and customs of their Oscan subjects. Hence the Campanian Samnites broke off their connection with the old Samnites of the mountains, just as the Roman Sabines lost all sympathy with the old Sabines of Cures, and as in England the Anglo-Normans became the national enemies of the French.

It may be added that the Lucanians and Apulians, who stretched across the breadth of Italy below Campania, were formed by a mixture of Samnite invaders with the ancient population, themselves a compound of Oscan and Pelasgian races; while the Bruttians, who occupied the mountainous district south of the Gulf of Tarentum, were a similar offcast from the Lucanians. But these half-Sabellian tribes, like the old races from whom the Samnites came, lent uncertain aid to their kinsmen in the struggle with Rome.

[354-343 B.C.]

These remarks will prepare us for the great conflict which in fact determined the sovereignty of Italy to be the right of the Roman, and not of the Samnite people.[38] The first war arose out of a quarrel such as we have just alluded to between the Campanians and the old Samnites of the Matese. In the year 354 B.C. a league had been concluded with the Romans and the Samnites. Since that time, Samnite adventurers had been pressing down the valley of the Liris, and had taken the Volscian cities of Sora and Fregellæ, while the Romans, combined with the Latins again since the year 358 B.C., were forcing back the Volscians from the west. In 343 B.C., the Samnites pursued their encroachments so far as to assail Teanum, the chief city of the Sidicines, an Oscan tribe, who occupied the lower hills in the north of Campania. The Sidicines demanded the aid of Capua against their assailants; and the Campanians, venturing to give this aid, drew upon their own heads the wrath of the mountaineers. The Samnites took possession of Mount Tifata, a bare hill which overhangs Capua on the north, and plundered at will the rich plain below. Unable to meet the enemy in the field, the degenerate Campanians entreated the assistance of the Roman and Latin league. There was some difficulty in listening to this application; for a treaty of peace had been concluded eleven years before, and no aggression against Rome was chargeable upon the Samnites. But it is probable that their progress in the valleys of the Liris and Vulturnus had alarmed the senate; and all scruples were removed when the Campanians offered to surrender their city absolutely, so that in defending them Rome would be defending her own subjects. This quibbling bargain was struck, and war was declared against the Samnites.[b]

THE FIRST SAMNITE WAR

[343-342 B.C.]

The consuls were ordered to take the field. The consul M. Valerius Corvus led his legions into Campania, where, probably in consequence of some reverses of which we are not informed, he encamped on the side of Mount Gaurus over Cumæ. The Samnite army came full of confidence; the consul led out his troops, and a battle commenced, highly important in the history of the world, as the prelude of those which were to decide whether the empire of Italy and of the world was reserved for Rome or for Samnium.

The two armies were equal in courage, and similarly armed and arrayed; that of the Samnites consisted entirely of infantry, and the cavalry, which the consul sent first into action, could make no impression on its firm ranks. He then ordered the cavalry to fall aside to the wings, and led on the legions in person. The fight was most obstinate: each seemed resolved to die rather than yield: at length, a desperate effort of despair on the part of the Romans drove the Samnites back; they wavered, broke, and fled to their entrenched camp, which they abandoned in the night, and fell back to Suessula. They declared to those who asked why they had fled, that the eyes of the Romans seemed to be on fire and their gestures those of madmen, so that they could not stand before them.

The other consul, A. Cornelius Cossus, having been directed to invade Samnium, led his army to Saticula, the nearest Samnite town to Capua. The Apennines in this part run from north to south, in parallel ranges, enclosing fertile valleys, and the road to Beneventum passes over them. The consul, advancing carelessly, had crossed the first range, and his line of march had reached the valley, when on looking back the Romans saw the wooded heights behind them occupied by a Samnite army. To advance was dangerous, retreat seemed impossible. In this perplexity a tribune named P. Decius proposed to occupy with the hastats and principes of one legion (that is, sixteen hundred men,) an eminence over the way along which the Samnites were coming. The consul gave permission; Decius seized the height, which he maintained against all the efforts of the enemy till the favourable moment was lost, and the consul had led back his army and gained the ridge. When night came, the Samnites remained about the hill and went to sleep; in the second watch Decius led down his men in silence, and they took their way through the midst of the slumbering foes. They had got halfway through, when one of the Romans in stepping over the Samnites struck against a shield; the noise awoke those at hand; the alarm spread; the Romans then raised a shout, fell on all they met, and got off without loss. They reached their own camp while it was yet night, but they halted outside of it till the day was come. At dawn, when their presence was announced, all poured forth to greet them, and Decius was led in triumph through the camp to the consul, who began to extol his deeds; but Decius interrupted him, saying that now was the time to take the enemy by surprise. The army was then led out, and the scattered Samnites were fallen on and routed with great slaughter. After the victory the consul gave Decius a golden crown and a hundred oxen, one of which was white with gilded horns; this Decius offered in sacrifice to Father Mars, the rest he gave to his comrades in peril, and each soldier presented them with a pound of corn and a pint (sextarius) of wine, while the consul, giving them each an ox and two garments, assured them of a double allowance of corn in future. The army further wove the obsidional crown of grass and placed it on the brows of Decius, and a similar crown was bestowed on him by his own men. Such were the generous arts by which Rome fostered the heroic spirit in her sons!

Meantime the Samnites at Suessula had been largely reinforced, and they spread their ravages over Campania. The two consular armies being united under Valerius, came and encamped hard by them, and as Valerius had left all the baggage and camp-followers behind, the Roman army occupied a much smaller camp than was usual to their numbers. Deceived by the size of their camp the Samnites clamoured to storm it, but the caution of their leaders withheld them. Necessity soon compelled them to scour the country in quest of provisions, and emboldened by the consul’s inactivity they went to greater and greater distances. This was what Valerius waited for; he suddenly assailed and took their camp, which was but slightly guarded; then leaving two legions to keep it, he divided the rest of the army, and falling on the scattered Samnites cut them everywhere to pieces. The shields of the slain and fugitives amounted, we are told, to forty thousand, the captured standards to one hundred and seventy. Both consuls triumphed.

While the Roman arms were thus engaged in Campania, the Latins invaded the territory of the Pelignians, the kinsmen and allies of the Samnites.

No military events are recorded of the year 342, but a strange tale of an insurrection of the Roman army has been handed down. The tale runs thus: The Roman soldiers, who at the end of the last campaign, had been left to winter in Capua, corrupted by the luxury which they there witnessed and enjoyed, formed the nefarious plan of massacring the inhabitants and seizing the town. Their projects had not ripened, when C. Marcius Rutilus, the consul for 342, came to take the command. He first, to keep them quiet, gave out that the troops were to be quartered in Capua the following winter also; then noting the ringleaders, he sent them home under various pretexts and gave furloughs to any that asked for them; his colleague, Q. Servilius Ahala, meantime taking care to detain all who came to Rome. The stratagem succeeded for some time; but at length the soldiers perceived that none of their comrades came back; and a cohort that was going home on furlough halted at Lautulæ, a narrow pass between the sea and the mountains east of Tarracina; it was there joined by all who were going home singly on leave, and the whole number soon equalled that of an army. They soon after broke up, and marching for Rome encamped under Alba Longa. Feeling their want of a leader, and learning that T. Quinctius, a distinguished patrician, who being lame of one leg from a wound had retired from the city, was living on his farm in the Tusculan district, they sent a party by night, who seized him in his bed, and gave him the option of death or becoming their commander. He therefore came to the camp, where he was saluted as general, and desired to lead them to Rome. Eight miles from the city they were met by an army led by the dictator M. Valerius Corvus. Each side shuddered at the thought of civil war, and readily agreed to a conference. The mutineers consented to entrust their cause to the dictator, whose name was a sufficient security. He rode back to the city, and at his desire the senate and curies decreed that none should be punished for, or even reproached with, their share in the mutiny, that no soldier’s name should be struck out of the roll without his own consent, that no one who had been a tribune should be made a centurion, and that the pay of the knights (as they had refused to join in the mutiny) should be reduced. And thus this formidable mutiny commenced in crime and ended in—nothing!

Another and a far more probable account says that the insurrection broke out in the city, where the plebeians took arms, and having seized C. Manlius in the night, and forced him to be their leader, went out and encamped four miles from the city, where, as it would seem, they were joined by the army from Campania. The consuls raised an army and advanced against them; but when the two armies met, that of the consuls saluted the insurgents, and the soldiers embraced one another. The consuls then advised the senate to comply with the desires of the people, and peace was effected.

The still existing weight of debt seems to have been the cause of this secession also, and a cancel of debts to have been a condition of the peace. Lending on interest at all is said to have been prohibited at this time by a plebiscitum, or decree of the tribes; and others were passed forbidding any one to hold the same office till after an interval of ten years, or to hold two offices at the same time. It was also decreed that both the consuls might be plebeians. The name of the tribune L. Genucius being mentioned, it is probable that he was the author of the new laws.

[341-340 B.C.]

The following year (341) peace was made with the Samnites on the light condition of their giving a year’s pay and three months’ provisions to the Roman army; and they were allowed to make war on the Sidicinians. This moderation on the side of the Romans might cause surprise, were it not that we know they now apprehended a conflict with their ancient allies the Latins; for the original terms of their federation could not remain in force, and one or other must become the dominant state.

The Sidicinians and Campanians, on being thus abandoned, put themselves under the protection of the Latins, with whom the Volscians also formed an alliance. The Hernicans adhered to the Romans, and the Samnites also became their allies. As war between Rome and Latium seemed inevitable, T. Manlius Torquatus, and P. Decius Mus were made consuls for the ensuing year with a view to it. But the Latins would first try the path of peace and accommodation; and at the call, it is said, of the Roman senate, their two prætors and ten principal senators repaired to Rome. Audience was given to them on the Capitol, and nothing could be more reasonable than their demands. Though the Latins were now the more numerous people of the two, they only required a union of perfect equality,—one of the consuls and one-half of the senate to be Latins, while Rome should be the seat of government, and Romans the name of the united nation.[39] But the senate exclaimed against the unheard-of extravagance of these demands, the gods were invoked as witnesses of this scandalous breach of faith, and the consul Manlius vowed that if they consented to be thus dictated to, he would come girt with his sword into the senate-house and slay the first Latin he saw there. Tradition said, that when the gods were appealed to, and the Latin prætor L. Annius spoke with contempt of the Roman Jupiter, loud claps of thunder and a sudden storm of wind and rain told the anger of the deity, and that as Annius went off full of rage, he tumbled down the flight of steps and lay lifeless at the bottom. It was with difficulty that the magistrates saved the other envoys from the fury of the people. War was forthwith declared, and the consular armies were levied.

THE LATIN WAR

[340 B.C.]

As the Latin legions were now in Campania (340), the Romans, instead of taking the direct route through Latium, made a circuit through the country of the Sabines, Marsians, and Pelignians, and being joined by the Samnites, and probably the Hernicans, came and encamped before the Latins near Capua. Here a dream presented itself to the consuls: the form of a man, of size more than human, appeared to each, and announced that the general on one side, the army on the other, was due to the Manes and Mother Earth; of whichever people the general should devote himself and the adverse legions, theirs would be the victory. The victims when slain portending the same, the consuls announced, in presence of their officers, that he of them whose forces first began to yield would devote himself for Rome.

To restore strict discipline and to prevent any treachery, the consuls forbade, under pain of death, any single combats with the enemy. One day the son of the consul Manlius chanced with his troop of horse to come near to where the Tusculan horse was stationed, whose commander, Geminus Metius, knowing young Manlius, challenged him to a single combat. Shame and indignation overpowered the sense of duty in the mind of the Roman; they ran against each other, and the Tusculan fell; the victor, bearing the bloody spoils, returned to the camp and came with them to his father. The consul said nothing, but forthwith called an assembly of the army; then reproaching his son with his breach of discipline, he ordered the lictor to lay hold of him and bind him to the stake. The assembly stood mute with horror; but when the axe fell, and the blood of the gallant youth gushed forth, bitter lamentation, mingled with curses on the ruthless sire, arose. They took up the body of the slain, and buried it without the camp, covered with the spoils he had won; and when after the war Manlius entered Rome in triumph, the young men would not go forth to receive him, and throughout life he was to them an object of hatred and aversion.

Manlius condemning his Son to Death

The war between Rome and Latium was little less than civil; the soldiers and officers had for years served together in the same companies and they were all acquainted. They now stood in battle-array opposite each other at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, the Samnites and Hernicans being opposed to the Oscan allies of the Latins. Both the consuls sacrificed before the battle; the entrails of the victim offered by Decius portended misfortune, but hearing that the signs boded well to Manlius, “’Tis well,” said he, “if my colleague has good signs.” In the battle, the left wing, led by Decius, was giving way; the consul saw that his hour was come; he called aloud for M. Valerius, the pontifex maximus, and standing on a naked weapon, clad in his consular robe, his head veiled, and his hand on his chin, he repeated after the pontiff the form of devotion. He then sent the lictors to announce to Manlius what he had done, and girding his robe tightly round him, and mounting his horse, he rushed into the midst of the enemies. He seemed a destructive spirit sent from heaven; wherever he came he carried dismay and death; at length he fell covered with wounds. The ardour of the Roman soldiers revived, and the skill of Manlius secured the victory. When the front ranks (antesignani) of both armies were wearied, he ordered the accensi to advance; the Latins then sent forward their triarians; and when these were wearied, the consul ordered the Roman triarians to rise and advance. The Latins having no fresh troops to oppose to them were speedily defeated, and so great was the slaughter that but one-fourth of their army escaped. Next day the body of the consul Decius was found amidst heaps of slain, and magnificently interred.

[340-338 B.C.]

The Latins fled to the town of Vescia, and by the advice of their prætor Numisius a general levy was made in Latium, with which, in reliance on the reduced state of the Roman army, he ventured to give the consul battle at a place named Trifanum, between Sinuessa and Minturnæ, on the other side of the Liris. The rout of the Latins, however, was so complete, that few of the towns even thought of resistance when the consul entered Latium. The Latin public land, two-thirds of that of Privernum, and the Falernian district of Campania, were seized for the Roman people, and assignments of 2¾ jugera on this side, 3¼ on the other side of the Liris, were made to the poor plebeians, who murmured greatly at the large quantity that was reserved as domain. As the Campanian knights (sixteen hundred in number) had remained faithful to Rome, they were given the Roman municipium, and each assigned a rent charge of 350 denarii a year on the state of Capua.

The Latin and Volscian towns continued singly to resist, and the conquest was not completed till the year 338. Prudence and some moderation were requisite on the part of Rome, in order not to have rebellious subjects in the Latins. Citizenship therefore, in different degrees, was conferred on them; but they were forbidden to hold national diets, and commerce and intermarriage between the people of their different towns were prohibited. The principal families of Velitræ were forced to go and live beyond the Tiber, and their lands were given to Roman colonists. Their ships of war were taken from the Antiates, who were forbidden to possess any in future. Some of them were brought to Rome; the beaks (rostra) of others were cut off, and the pulpit (suggestum) in the Forum was adorned with them, whence it was named the “rostra.” The municipium, such as the Latins had formerly had, was given to the people of Capua, Cumæ, Suessula, Fundi, and Formiæ. The Latin contingents in war were henceforth to serve under their own officers apart from the legions.

While the Roman dominion was thus extended without, wise and patriotic men of both orders saw the necessity of internal concord, and of abolishing antiquated and now mischievous claims and pretensions. In 339, therefore, the patrician consul Tib. Æmilius named his plebeian colleague Q. Publilius Philo dictator, who then brought forward the following laws to complete the constitution. (1) The patricians should give a previous consent to any law that was to be brought before the centuries; for as such a law must previously have passed the senate, and the centuries could make no alteration in it, their opposition, it would seem, could hardly have any ground but prejudice and spite. (2) The Plebiscita should be binding on all Quirites. (3) One of the censors should of necessity be a plebeian. The curies were induced, we know not how, to give their assent to these laws.[40] Internal discord was now at an end, and the golden age of Roman heroism and virtue began.

THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR

[338-325 B.C.]

The affairs for the ten succeeding years are of comparative unimportance. The Romans and Samnites both knew that another war was inevitable, and they made the necessary preparations for it. In the year 327 the people of the Greek town of Palæopolis (Old Town) being in alliance with the Samnites, began to exercise hostilities against the Roman colonists in Campania. As they refused to give satisfaction, the consul Q. Publilius Philo was sent against them, while his colleague, L. Cornelius Lentulus, watched the motions of the Samnites. Publilius encamped between Palæopolis and its kindred town of Neapolis (New Town), and on his sending word home that there was a large body of Samnite and Nolan troops in them, envoys were sent to Samnium to complain of this breach of treaty. The Samnites replied that those were volunteers, over whom the state had no control; that moreover they had not, as the Romans had alleged, excited the people of Fundi and Formiæ to revolt, while the Romans had sent a colony to Fregellæ, in a district which of right was theirs; that, in fine, there was no use in arguing or complaining when the plain between Capua and Suessula offered a space on which they might decide whose should be the empire of Italy. The Roman fetial then veiled his head, and with hands raised to heaven prayed the gods to prosper the arms and counsels of Rome if right was on her side; if not, to blast and confound them. Right certainly was not on the side of Rome, for she had first violated the treaty; but war was not to be averted, and it was now to begin.

A Roman army entered Samnium on the Volscian side, ravaged the country, and took some towns. Publilius’ year having expired, his command was continued to him (326) under the new title of proconsul; and soon a party in Neapolis, weary of the insolence of the foreign soldiers, began to plot a surrender. While Nymphius, one of the leading men, induced the Samnites to go out of the town, to embark in the ships in the port, and make a descent on the coast of Latium, Charilaus, another of the party, closed the gate after them, and admitted the Romans at another. The Samnites instantly dispersed and fled home; the Nolans retired from the town unmolested.

A chief ally of the Samnites were the people of the Greek city of Tarentum; on the other hand, their kinsmen, the Apulians and Lucanians, were in alliance with Rome. But in this year, a revolution took place in Lucania, in consequence of which the country became subject to Samnium. A similar fate menaced the Apulians, if not aided; but to reach Apulia it was necessary to pass through the Vestinian country, the people of which (one of the Marsian confederacy) refused a passage. It was apprehended at Rome, that if the Vestinians were attacked, the other three states, who were now neutral, would take arms, and throw their weight into the Samnite scale, and their valour was well known; but, on the other hand, the importance of Apulia, in a military point of view, was too great to allow it to be lost. The consul D. Junius Brutus accordingly led his army (325) into the Vestinian country: a hard-fought victory, and the capture of two of their towns, reduced the Vestinians to submission, and the other members of the league remained at peace.

The other consul, L. Camillus, fell sick as he was about to invade Samnium and L. Papirius Cursor was made dictator;[41] but as there was said to have been some error in the auspices, he was obliged to return to Rome to renew them. As he was departing, he strictly charged Q. Fabius Rullianus, the master of the horse, whom he left in command, not to risk an action on any account during his absence. But, heedless of his orders, Fabius seized the first occasion of engaging the enemy, over whom he gained a complete victory. As soon as the dictator learned what had occurred, he hastened to the camp, breathing fury. Fabius, warned of his approach, besought the soldiers to protect him. Papirius came, ascended his tribunal, summoned the master of the horse before him, and demanded why he had disobeyed orders, and thus weakened the military discipline. His defence but irritated his judge the more; the lictors approached and began to strip him for death; he broke from them, and sought refuge among the triarians: confusion arose; those nearest the tribunal prayed, the more remote menaced, the dictator: the legates came round him, entreating him to defer his judgment till the next day; but he would not hear them. Night at length ended the contest.

[325-322 B.C.]

During the night Fabius fled to Rome, and by his father’s advice made his complaint of the dictator to the assembled senate; but while he was speaking, Papirius, who had followed him from the camp with the utmost rapidity, entered, and ordered his lictors to seize him. The senate implored; but he was inexorable: the elder Fabius then appealed to the people, before whom he enlarged on the cruelty of the dictator. Every heart beat in unison with that of the time-honoured father; but when Papirius showed the rigorous necessity of upholding military discipline, by which the state was maintained, all were silent, from conviction. At length the people and their tribunes united with Fabius and the senate in supplication, and the dictator, deeming his authority sufficiently vindicated, granted life to his master of the horse.

Papirius, when he returned to his army, gave the Samnites a decisive defeat; and having divided the spoil among his soldiers to regain their favour, and granted a truce for a year to the enemy, on condition of their giving each soldier a garment and a year’s pay, he returned to Rome and triumphed.

The events of the next year (323) are dubious; but in 322 the camp of the dictator, A. Cornelius Arvina, who had entered Samnium without sufficient caution, was surprised by a superior force of the enemy. The day closed before an attack could be made, and in the night the dictator, leaving a number of fires burning in the camp, led away his legions in silence. But the enemy were on the alert, and their cavalry hung on the retiring army, to slacken its pace. With daybreak the Samnite infantry came up, and the dictator, finding further retreat impossible, drew his forces up in order of battle. A desperate conflict commenced; during five hours neither side gave way an inch; the Samnite horse, seeing the baggage of the Romans but slightly guarded, made for it, and began to plunder: while thus engaged, they were fallen on and cut to pieces by the Roman horse, who then turned and assailed the now unprotected rear of the Samnite infantry. The dictator urged his legions to new exertions; the Samnites wavered, broke, and fled; their general and thousands fell, and thousands were made captives.

[322-321 B.C.]

Meantime, on the side of Apulia an equally glorious victory was gained by the consul Q. Fabius; and the spirit of the Samnites being now quite broken, they were anxious for peace on almost any terms. As it is usual with a people, when measures to which they have given their full and eager consent have failed, to throw the entire blame on their leaders, so now the Samnites cast all their misfortunes on Papius Brutulus, one of their principal men, and resolved to deliver him up to the Romans as the cause of the war. The noble Samnite saved himself from disgrace by a voluntary death; his lifeless corpse was carried to Rome; the Roman prisoners, of whom there was a large number, were released, and gold was sent to ransom the Samnites. The utmost readiness to yield to all reasonable terms was evinced; but nothing would content the haughty senate but the supremacy, and sooner than thus resign their national independence the Samnites resolved to dare and endure the uttermost.

In the spring (321) the Roman legions, led by the consuls T. Veturius and Sp. Postumius, encamped at Calatia in Campania, with the intention of directing their entire force against central Samnium. But the Samnite general, C. Pontius, having spread a false report that Luceria, in Apulia, was hard pressed by a Samnite army, and on the point of surrender, the consuls resolved to attempt its relief without delay. They entered the Samnite country, and advanced heedlessly and incautiously. In the vicinity of the town of Caudium they reached the Caudine Forks, as a pass was named consisting of a deep valley between two wooded mountains; a hollow way led into it at one end, and a narrow path over a mountain, which closed it up, led out of it at the other end. Into these toils the consuls conducted their army; they saw nothing to alarm them till the head of the column came to the further end, and found the passage stopped with rocks and trunks of trees, and on looking round they beheld the hills occupied by soldiery. To advance or to retreat was now equally impossible; they therefore threw up entrenchments in the valley, and remained there, the Samnites not attacking them, in reliance on the aid of famine. At length, when their food was spent and hunger began to be felt, they sent deputies to learn the will of the Samnite leaders. It is said that Pontius, on this occasion, sent for his father to advise him: this venerable old man, who, in high repute for wisdom, dwelt at Caudium, was conveyed to the camp in a wain, and his advice was either to let the Romans go free and uninjured, or totally to destroy the army. Pontius preferred a middle course, and the old man retired, shedding tears at the misery he saw thence to come on his country. The terms accorded by Pontius were the restoration of the ancient alliance between Rome and Samnium, the withdrawal of Roman colonies from places belonging to the Samnites, and the giving back of all places to which they had a right. The arms and baggage of the vanquished army, were, as a matter of course, to be given up to the conquerors. How rarely has Rome ever granted a vanquished enemy terms so mild as these! Yet the Roman historians had the audacity to talk of the insolence of the victorious Samnites, and the Roman senate and people the baseness and barbarity to put to an ignominous death the noble Pontius twenty-seven years after!

These terms were sworn to by the consuls and their principal officers, and six hundred knights were given as hostages till they should have been ratified by the senate and people. A passage wide enough for one person to pass was made in the paling with which the Samnites had enclosed them, and one of the pales laid across it, and through this door the consuls, followed by their officers and men, each in a single garment, came forth. Pontius gave beasts of burden to convey the sick and wounded, and provisions enough to take the army to Rome. They then departed and reached Capua before nightfall; but shame, or doubt of the reception they might meet with, kept them from entering. Next morning, however, all the people came out to meet and console them. Refreshments and aid of every kind were given them, and they thence pursued their way to Rome.

When the news of their calamity had first reached Rome, a total cessation of business (justitium) had taken place, and a general levy, either to attempt their relief or to defend the city, had been made, and all orders of people went into mourning. In this state of things the disgraced army reached the gates. It there dispersed; those who lived in the country went away; those who dwelt in the city slank with night to their houses. The consuls, having named a dictator for the consular elections, laid down their office; and Q. Publilius Philo and L. Papirius Cursor were appointed to be their successors.[c]

Triumph of Papirius

“If other nations delight in remembering the days of national triumphs,” says Wilhelm Ihne, “and in celebrating the memory of victories by which they feel their strength was increased and their pride gratified, the greatness of the Roman people is shown much more by their keeping continually before their eyes the evil days when the god of battles was unfavourable to them, and by celebrating the anniversaries of their defeats, in a certain degree, as days of national humiliation. The day of the Allia and the day of Cannæ stood before the eye of the Roman in more burning colours than the day of the victory of Zama. But by the side of those names there was yet a third in the list of evil days—a name which was more painful than any other to the proud Roman, because the feeling of national disgrace and humiliation could not be separated from it; it was the name of the Caudine Pass. At the Allia and at Cannæ thousands fell in open battle; at Caudium four legions agreed to purchase life and freedom by the sacrifice of military honour, and the Roman people, when they refused to ratify the agreement, covered themselves with a load of infamy, from which no sophistry could free them, even in their own conscience.”[f]

[321-315 B.C.]

The senate having met to consider of the peace, the consul Publilius called on Sp. Postumius to give his opinion. He rose with downcast looks, and advised that himself and all who had sworn to the treaty should be delivered up to the Samnites, as having deceived them, by making a treaty without the consent of the Roman people, and a fresh army be levied, and the war renewed; and though there was hardly a senator who had not a son or some other relative among the hostages, it was resolved to do as he advised. Postumius and his companions were taken bound to Caudium; the fetial led them before the tribunal of Pontius, and made the surrender of them in the solemn form. Postumius, as he concluded, struck his knee against the fetial’s thigh, and drove him off, crying, “I am now a Samnite, thou an ambassador: I thus violate the law of nations; ye may justly now resume the war.”

Pontius replied with dignity: he treated this act of religious hypocrisy as a childish manœuvre; he told the Romans that if they wished to renounce the treaty with any show of justice, they should place their legions as they were when it was made; but their present conduct he said was base and unworthy, and he would not accept such a surrender as this, or let them thus hope to avert the anger of the gods. He then ordered Postumius and the other Romans to be unbound and dismissed.

The war therefore was renewed, and the Romans returning to their original plan of carrying it on simultaneously in Apulia and on the western frontier of Samnium, sent (319) the consul Papirius to lay siege to Luceria, which was now in the hands of the Samnites, while his colleague Publilius led his army into Samnium. Papirius sat down before Luceria; but a Samnite army came and encamped at hand, and rendered his communication with Arpi, whence he drew his supplies, so difficult, that it was only by the knights’ going and fetching corn in little bags on their horses that any food could be had in the camp. They were at length relieved by the arrival of Publilius, who having defeated a Samnite army marched to their aid; and after a fruitless attempt of the Tarentines to mediate a peace, the Romans attacked and stormed the Samnite camp with great slaughter, which, though they were unable to retain it, had the effect of making the Samnite army retire, and leave Luceria to its fate. Its garrison of seven thousand men then capitulated, on condition of a free passage, without arms or baggage.

The two following years were years of truce, in consequence of exhaustion on both sides; and during the truce the Romans so extended and consolidated their dominion in Apulia that no attempt was ever after made to shake it off. The war was resumed in 316, and the Romans laid siege to Saticula, an Oscan town not far from Capua and in alliance with the Samnites. Meantime the Samnites reduced the colonial town of Plistia; and the Volscians of Sora, having slain their Roman garrison, revolted to them. They then made an attack on the Roman army before Saticula, but were defeated with great loss, and the town immediately surrendered. The Roman armies forthwith entered and ravaged Samnium, and the seat of war was transferred to Apulia. While the consular armies were thus distant, the Samnites made a general levy, and came and took a position at Lautulæ, in order to cut off the communication between Rome and Campania. The dictator, Q. Fabius, instantly levied an army, and hastened to give them battle. The Romans were utterly defeated, and fled from the field; the master of the horse, Q. Aulius, unable to outlive the disgrace of flight, maintained his ground, and fell fighting bravely. Revolt spread far and wide among the Roman subjects in the vicinity; the danger was great and imminent, but the fortune of Rome prevailed, and the menacing storm dispersed.

[314-311 B.C.]

In 314 the Samnites sustained a great defeat near a town named Cinna, whose site is unknown. The Campanians, who were in the act of revolting at this time, submitted on the appearance of the dictator, C. Mænius, and the most guilty withdrew themselves from punishment by a voluntary death. The Ausonian towns, Ausona, Minturnæ, and Vescia, were taken by treachery and stratagem, and their population massacred or enslaved, as a fearful lesson to the subjects of Rome against wavering in their allegiance.

The united armies of the consuls, M. Pœtelius and C. Sulpicius, entered Samnium on the side of Caudium; but while they were advancing timidly and cautiously through that formidable region, they learned that the Samnite army was wasting the plain of Campania. They immediately led back their forces, and ere long the two armies encountered. The tactics of the Romans were new on this occasion; the left wing, under Pœtelius, was made dense and deep, while the right was expanded more than usual. Pœtelius, adding the reserve to his wing, made a steady charge with the whole mass: the Samnites gave way; their horse hastened to their aid, but Sulpicius coming up with his body of horse, and charging them with the whole Roman cavalry, put them to the rout. He then hastened to his own wing, which now was yielding; the timely reinforcement turned the scale, and the Samnites were routed on all sides with great slaughter.

The following year (313) was marked by the capture of Nola and some other towns, and by the founding of colonies, to secure the dominion which had been acquired. In 312 Sora was taken in the following manner: A deserter came to the consuls, and offered to lead some Roman soldiers by a secret path up to the Arx, or citadel, which was a precipitous eminence over the town. His offer was accepted; the legions were withdrawn to a distance of six miles from the town; some cohorts were concealed in a wood at hand, and ten men accompanied the Soran traitor. They clambered in the night up through the stones and bushes, and at length reached the area of the citadel. Their guide, showing them the narrow, steep path that led thence to the town, desired them to guard it while he went down and gave the alarm. He then ran through the town crying that the enemy was on the citadel; and when the truth of his report was ascertained, the people prepared to fly from the town; but in the confusion, the Roman cohorts broke in and commenced a massacre. At daybreak the consuls came; they granted their lives to the surviving inhabitants, with the exception of 225, who, as the authors of the revolt, were brought bound to Rome, and scourged and beheaded in the Forum.

[311-310 B.C.]

The tide of war had turned so decidedly against the Samnites, that one or two campaigns more of the whole force of Rome would have sufficed for their subjugation. But just now a new enemy was about to appear, who was likely to give ample employment to the Roman arms for some time. The Etruscans, who, probably owing to their contests with and fears of the Gauls, had for many years abstained from war with the Romans, either moved by the instances of the Samnites or aware of the danger of suffering Rome to grow too powerful, began to make such hostile manifestations that great alarm prevailed at Rome. Various circumstances, however, kept off the war for nearly two years longer; at length in 311 all the peoples of Etruria, except the Arretines, having sent their troops, a Tuscan army prepared to lay siege to the frontier town of Sutrium. The consul Q. Æmilius came to cover it, and the two armies met before it. At daybreak of the second day, the Tuscans drew out in order of battle; the consul, having made his men take their breakfast, led them out also. The armies stood opposite each other, each hesitating to begin, till after noon; the Tuscans then fell on: night terminated a bloody and indecisive action, each retired to their camp, and neither felt themselves strong enough to renew the conflict next day.

The next year (310) a Tuscan army having laid siege to Sutrium, the consul Q. Fabius hastened from Rome to its relief. As his troops were far inferior to the Etruscans in number, he led them cautiously along the hills. The enemy drew out his forces in the plain to give him battle; but the consul, fearing to descend, formed his array on the hillside in a part covered with loose stones. Relying on their numbers the Tuscans charged up hill; the Romans hurled stones and missile weapons on them, and then charging, with the advantage of the ground, drove them back, and the horse getting between them and their camp forced them to take refuge in the adjacent Ciminian wood. Their camp became the prize of the victors.

Like so many others in the early Roman history, this battle has probably been given a magnitude and an importance which does not belong to it, and the truth would seem to be, that the consul only repulsed the advanced guard of the enemy, and not feeling himself strong enough to engage their main army, resolved to create a diversion by invading their country.

To the north of Sutrium, between it and the modern city of Viterbo, extends a range of high ground, which at that time formed the boundary between Roman and independent Etruria. It was covered with natural wood, and was thence named the Ciminian wood. Over this barrier Fabius resolved to lead his troops. He sent to inform the senate of his plan, in order that measures might be taken for the defence of the country during his absence. Meantime he directed one of his brothers, who spoke the Tuscan language, to penetrate in disguise to the Umbrians, and to form alliances with any of them that were hostile to the Etruscans. The only people however whom the envoy found so disposed were the Camertes, who agreed to join the Romans if they penetrated to their country.

The senate, daunted at the boldness of Fabius’ plan, sent five deputies accompanied by two tribunes of the people to forbid him to enter the wood, perhaps to arrest him if he should hesitate to obey. But they came too late: in the first watch of the night Fabius sent forward his baggage, the infantry followed; he himself a little before sunrise led the horse up to the enemy’s camp, as it were to reconnoitre. In the evening he returned to his own camp, and then set out and came up with his infantry before night. At daybreak they reached the summit of the mountain, and beheld the cultured vales and plains of Etruria stretched out before them. They hastened to seize the offered prey: the Etruscan nobles assembled their vassals to oppose them, but they could offer no effectual resistance to the disciplined troops of Rome. The Roman army spread their ravages as far as Perusia, where they encountered and totally defeated a combined army of Etruscans and Umbrians; and Perusia, Cortona, and Arretium, three of the leading cities of Etruria, sent forthwith to sue for peace, which was granted for a term of thirty years. As the Romans were returning to the relief of Sutrium they encountered at the lake of Vadimo another Etruscan army, of select troops bound by a solemn oath (lege sacrata) to fight to their uttermost. The two armies engaged hand to hand at once; the first ranks fought till they were exhausted; the reserve then advanced, and the victory was only decided by the Roman knights dismounting and taking their place in the front of the line.

While Fabius was conducting the war in Etruria, his colleague C. Marcius had entered Samnium and taken Allifæ and some other strongholds. The Samnites collected their forces and gave him battle, and the Romans were defeated; several of their officers slain, the consul himself wounded, and their communication with Rome cut off. When the news reached Rome, the senate at once resolved to create a dictator, and to send him off to the relief of Marcius with the reserve which had been levied on account of the Etruscan War. Their hopes lay in L. Papirius Cursor; but the dictator could only be named by the consul; there was no way of reaching Marcius, and Fabius had not yet forgiven the man who had thirsted after his blood. The resolve of the senate was borne to Fabius by consulars; they urged him to sacrifice his private feelings to the good of his country: he heard them in silence, his eyes fixed on the ground, and they retired in uncertainty. In the stillness of the night he arose, and, as was the usage, named L. Papirius dictator, and in the morning he again listened in silence to the thanks and praises of the deputies. The dictator immediately set forth and relieved the army of Marcius, but, impetuous as he was, he contented himself for some time with merely observing the enemy.

[310-304 B.C.]

At length the time arrived for a decisive action. The Samnite army was divided into two corps, the one clad in purple, the other in white linen tunics, the former having their brazen shields adorned with gold, the latter with silver: the shields were broad above, narrow below. Each soldier wore a crested helmet, a large sponge to protect his breast, and a greave on his left leg. In the battle the Roman dictator led the right wing against the gold-shielded, the master of the horse, C. Junius, the left against the silver-shielded Samnites. Junius made the first impression on the enemy; the dictator urged his men to emulation, and the Roman horse by a charge on both flanks completed the victory. The Samnites fled to their camp, but were unable to retain it, and ere night it was sacked and burned. The golden shields adorned the dictator’s triumph, and they were then given to the money dealers to ornament their shops in the Forum.

Q. Fabius was continued in the consulate for 309 and P. Decius given to him as his colleague; the former had the Samnite, the latter the Etruscan War. Fabius routed the Marsians and Pelignians, who had now joined against Rome, and he then led his legions into Umbria, whose people had taken arms, and with little difficulty reduced them to submission. Decius meantime had forced the Etruscans to sue for peace, and a year’s truce was granted them on their giving each soldier two tunics, and a year’s pay for the army.

In the remaining years of the war, the exhausted powers of the Samnites could offer but a feeble resistance to the legions of Rome. On the occasion of a defeat which they sustained in 308, the proconsul, Q. Fabius, adopted the novel course of dismissing the Samnite prisoners, and selling for slaves those of their allies. Among these there were several Hernicans, whom he sent to Rome; the senate having instituted an inquiry into the conduct of the Hernican people in this affair, those who had urged them to give aid to the Samnites now engaged them to take arms openly. All the Hernican peoples but three shared in the war; but they made a stand little worthy of their old renown; one short campaign sufficed for their reduction, and they were placed (307) on nearly the same footing as the Latins had been thirty years before.

The Samnites at length (304) sued for peace, and obtained it on the condition they had so often spurned, that of acknowledging Rome’s supremacy, in other words, of yielding up their independence; but peace on any terms was now necessary, that they might recruit their strength for future efforts. The Romans then turned their arms against the Æquians who had joined the Hernicans in aiding the Samnites, and in fifty days the consuls reduced and destroyed forty-one of their Cyclopean-walled towns. The Marsian league sought and obtained peace from Rome.

THE THIRD SAMNITE AND ETRUSCAN WARS

[304-297 B.C.]

A few years passed away in tolerable tranquillity; in 298 Lucanian envoys appeared at Rome, praying for aid against the Samnites who had entered their country in arms, given them various defeats, and taken several of their towns. The Romans, in right of their supremacy, sent orders to the Samnites to withdraw their troops from Lucania: the pride of the Samnites was roused at being thus reminded of their subjection; they ordered the fetials off their territory, and war was once more declared against them by the Romans. As the Etruscans were now also in arms, the consul L. Cornelius Scipio went against them, while his colleague Cn. Fulvius invaded Samnium.

Scipio engaged a numerous Etruscan army near Volaterræ. Night ended a hard-fought battle, leaving it undecided. The morn however revealed that the advantage was on the side of the Romans, as the enemy had abandoned their camp during the night. Having placed his baggage and stores at Falerii, Scipio spread his ravages over the country, burning the villages and hamlets; and no army appeared to oppose him. Fulvius meantime carried on the war with credit in Samnium. Near Bovianum he defeated a Samnite army, and took that town and another named Aufidena.

Etruscan Warrior

(From a statuette)

[297-295 B.C.]

The rumour of the great preparations which the Samnites and the Etruscans were said to be making caused the people to elect Q. Fabius to the consulate, against his will; and at his own request they joined with him P. Decius. As the Etruscans remained quiet, both the consuls invaded Samnium (297), Fabius entering from Sora, Decius from Sidicinum. The Samnites gave Fabius battle near Tifernum, their infantry stood firm against that of the Romans, and the charge of the Roman cavalry had as little effect. At length, when the reserve had come to the front, and the contest was most obstinate, the legate Scipio, whom the consul had sent away during the action with the hastats of the first legion, appeared on the neighbouring hills. Both armies took them for the legions of Decius; the Samnites’ courage fell, that of the Romans rose, and evening closed on their victory. Decius had meantime defeated the Apulians at Maleventum. During five months both armies ravaged Samnium with impunity; the traces of five-and-forty camps of Decius, of eighty-six of Fabius, bore witness to the sufferings of the ill-fated country.

The next year (296) the Samnites put into execution a daring plan which they had formed in the preceding war, namely, sending an army, to be paid and supported out of their own funds, into Etruria, leaving Samnium meantime at the mercy of the enemy. The Samnite army, under Gellius Egnatius, on arriving there, was joined by the troops of most of the Tuscan states; the Umbrians also shared in the war, and it was proposed to take Gallic mercenaries into pay. The consul App. Claudius entered Etruria with his two legions and twelve thousand of the allies, but he did not feel himself strong enough to give the confederates battle. His colleague L. Volumnius, probably by command of the senate, led his army to join him; but Appius gave him so ungracious a reception that he was preparing to retire, when the officers of the other army implored him not to abandon them for their general’s fault. Volumnius then agreed to remain and fight: a victory was speedily gained over the Etruscans and Samnites, whose general Egnatius was unfortunately absent; 7300 were slain, 2120 taken, and their camp was stormed and plundered.

As Volumnius was returning by rapid marches to Samnium, he learned that the Samnites had taken advantage of his absence to make a descent on Campania, where they had collected an immense booty. He forthwith directed his course thither: at Cales he heard that they were encamped on the Vulturnus, with the intention of carrying their prey into Samnium to secure it. He came and encamped near them, but out of view; and when the Samnites had before day sent forward their captives and booty under an escort, and were getting out of their camp to follow them, they were suddenly fallen on by the Romans: the camp was stormed with great slaughter; the captives, hearing the tumult, unbound themselves, and fell on their escort; the Samnites were routed on all sides—six thousand were slain, twenty-five hundred were taken, seventy-four hundred captives, with all their property, were recovered.

The union of the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls, which had now been formed, caused the greatest apprehension at Rome, and the people insisted on again electing Q. Fabius consul, to which he would only consent on condition of his approved mate in arms P. Decius being given him for colleague. His wish was complied with. The four legions of the former year were kept on foot and completed, two new ones were raised, and two armies of reserve formed. The number of troops furnished by the allies was considerable: among them were one thousand Campanian horse; for as the Gauls were strong in this arm, it was necessary to augment its force.

[295-293 B.C.]

During the winter, Fabius set out, with four thousand foot and six hundred horse, to take the command in Etruria. As he drew nigh to the camp of App. Claudius he met a party sent out for firewood; he ordered them to go back and use the palisades of their camp for the purpose. This gave confidence to the soldiers; and to keep up their spirits, he never let them remain stationary, but moved about from place to place. In the spring (295) he returned to Rome to arrange the campaign, leaving the command in Etruria with L. Scipio.

The consuls led their main force to join the troops left with Scipio; one army of reserve, under the proprætor Cn. Fulvius, was stationed in the Faliscan; another, under the proprætor L. Postumius, in the Vatican district. But the Gauls, pouring in by the pass of Camerinum, had annihilated a Roman legion left to defend it; their numerous cavalry spread over Umbria and got between Scipio and Rome; and as they rode up to the consular army, the heads of the slain Romans which they carried on spears and hung at their horses’ breasts, made the Romans believe that Scipio’s whole army had been destroyed. A junction however was formed with him, and the proconsul L. Volumnius, who commanded in Samnium, was directed to lead his legions to reinforce those of the consuls. The three united armies then crossed the Apennines, and took a position in the Sentine country to menace the possessions of the Senonian Gauls; and the two armies of reserve advanced in proportion, the one to Clusium, the other to the Faliscan country. The confederates came and encamped before the Romans; but they avoided an action, probably waiting for reinforcements. The consuls, learning by deserters that the plan of the enemy was for the Gauls and Samnites to give them battle, and the Etruscans and Umbrians to fall on their camp during the action, sent orders to Fulvius to ravage Etruria: this called a large part of the Etruscans home, and the consuls endeavoured to bring on an engagement during their absence. For two entire days they sought in vain to draw the confederates to the field; on the third their challenge was accepted.

Fabius commanded on the right, opposed to the Samnites and the remaining Etruscans and Umbrians; Decius led the left wing against the Gauls. Ere the fight began, a wolf chased a hind from the mountains down between the two armies; the hind sought refuge among the Gauls, by whom she was killed; the wolf ran among the Romans, who made way for him to pass; and this appearance of the favourite of Mars was regarded as an omen of victory.

In the hope of tiring the Samnites, Fabius made his men act rather on the defensive, and he refrained from bringing his reserve into action. Decius, on the other hand, knowing how impetuous the first attack of the Gauls always was, resolved not to await it; he therefore charged with both foot and horse, and twice drove back the numerous Gallic cavalry; but when his horse charged a third time, the Gauls sent forward their war-chariots, which spread confusion and dismay among them; they fled back among their infantry; the victorious Gauls followed hard upon them. The battle, and with it possibly the hopes of Rome, was on the point of being lost, when Decius, who had resolved, if defeat impended, to devote himself like his father at Vesuvius, desired the pontiff M. Livius, whom he had kept near him for the purpose, to repeat the form of devotion; then adding to it these words, “I drive before me dismay and flight, slaughter and blood, the anger of the powers above and below; with funereal terrors I touch the arms, weapons, and ensigns of the foe; the same place shall be that of my end and of the Gauls and Samnites,” he spurred his horse, rushed into the thick of the enemies, and fell covered with wounds.

The pontiff to whom Decius had given his lictors, encouraged the Romans; a part of Fabius’ reserve came to their support: the Gauls stood in a dense mass covered with their shields; the Romans, collecting the pila that lay on the ground, hurled them on them; but the Gauls stood unmoved, till Fabius, who by bringing forward his reserve, and causing his cavalry to fall on their flank, had driven the Samnites to their camp, sent five hundred of the Campanian horse, followed by the principes of the third legion, to attack them in the rear; they then at length broke and fled. Fabius again assailed the Samnites under their rampart; their general, Gellius Egnatius, fell, and the camp was taken. The confederates lost twenty-five thousand men slain and eight thousand taken; seven thousand was the loss in the wing led by Decius, twelve hundred in that of Fabius. Such was the victory at Sentinum, one of the most important ever achieved by the arms of Rome.

The following year (294) the war was continued in Etruria and Samnium, and a bloody but indecisive battle was fought at Nuceria. The next year (293) the consuls, L. Papirius Cursor and Sp. Carvilius, took the field against a Samnite army, which all the aids of superstition had been employed to render formidable.

All the fighting men of Samnium were ordered to appear at the town of Aquilonia. A tabernacle, two hundred feet square, and covered with linen, was erected in the midst of the camp. Within it a venerable man named Ovius Pacctius offered sacrifice after an ancient ritual contained in an old linen book. The imperator or general then ordered the nobles to be called in separately: each as he entered beheld through the gloom of the tabernacle the altar in the centre, about which lay the bodies of the victims, and around which stood centurions with drawn swords. He was required to swear, imprecating curses on himself, his family, and his race, if he did not in the battle go whithersoever the imperator ordered him; if he fled himself, or did not slay any one whom he saw flying. Some of the first summoned, refusing to swear, were slain, and their bodies lying among those of the victims served as a warning to others. The general selected ten of those who had thus sworn, each of whom was directed to choose a man till the number of sixteen thousand was completed, which was named from the tabernacle the Linen legion. Crested helmets and superior arms were given them for distinction. The rest of the army, upwards of twenty thousand men, was little inferior in any respect to the Linen legion.

The Roman armies entered Samnium; and while Papirius advanced to Aquilonia, Carvilius sat down before a fortress named Cominium, about twenty miles from that place. The ardour for battle is said to have been shared to such an extent by all the Roman army, that the pullarius, or keeper of the sacred fowl, made a false report of favourable signs. The truth was told to the consul as he was going into battle; but he said the signs reported to him were good, and only ordered the pullarii to be placed in the front rank; and when the guilty one fell by the chance blow of a pilum, he cried that the gods were present, the guilty was punished. A crow was heard to give a loud cry as he spoke; the gods, he then declared, had never shown themselves more propitious, and he ordered the trumpets to sound and the war-cry to be raised.

The Samnites had sent off twenty cohorts to the relief of Cominium; their spirits were depressed, but they kept their ground, till a great cloud of dust, as if raised by an army, was seen on one side. For the consul had sent off before the action Sp. Nautius, with the mules and their drivers, and some cohorts of the allies, with directions to advance during the engagement, raising all the dust they could. Nautius now came in view, the horseboys having boughs in their hands, which they dragged along the ground; and the arms and banners appearing through the dust, made both Romans and Samnites think that an army was approaching. The consul then gave the sign for the horse to charge; the Samnites broke and fled, some to Aquilonia, some to Bovianum. The number of their slain is said to have been 30,340, and 3870 men and 97 banners were captured. Aquilonia and Cominium were both taken on the same day. Carvilius then led his army into Etruria; his colleague remained in Samnium, ravaging the country, till the falling of the snow obliged him to leave it for the winter.

[293-290 B.C.]

In the next campaign (292), the Samnite general C. Pontius gave the Roman consul Q. Fabius Gurges, son of the great Fabius, a complete defeat. A strong party in the senate, the enemies of the Fabian house, were for depriving the consul of his command; but the people yielded to the prayers of his father, who implored them to spare him this disgrace in his old age; and he himself went into Samnium as legate to his son. At a place whose name is unknown the battle was fought, which decided the fate of Samnium. Fabius gained the victory by his usual tactics, of keeping his reserve for the proper time. The Samnites had twenty thousand slain and four thousand taken, among whom was their great general C. Pontius. In the triumph of Fabius Gurges, his renowned father humbly followed his car on horseback; and C. Pontius was led in bonds, and then, to Rome’s disgrace, beheaded. Q. Fabius Maximus, one of the greatest men that Rome ever produced, died, it is probable, shortly afterwards.

The Samnite War, which had lasted with little intermission for nine-and-forty years, was now terminated by a peace, of the exact terms of which we are not informed (290). The Sabines, who, after a cessation of 150 years, foolishly took up arms against Rome, were easily reduced by the consul M. Curius Dentatus, and a large quantity of their land was taken from them. Much larger assignments than the usual seven jugera might now be made, but Curius deemed it unwise to pass that limit; and when the people murmured, he replied that he was a pernicious citizen whom the land which sufficed to support him did not satisfy. He refused for himself five hundred jugera and a house at Tifata which the senate offered him, and contented himself with a farm of seven jugera in the Sabine country.

The Samnite War caused considerable distress at Rome, and it even came to a secession. The people posted themselves on the Janiculum; but the dictator, Q. Hortensius, induced them to submit, either by an abolition or a considerable reduction of the amount of their debts. This is the last secession we read of in Roman history.

On this occasion the Hortensian law, which made the plebiscits binding on the whole nation, was passed;[42] a measure probably caused by the obstinacy and caprice of the patricians, but pregnant with evil, from which however the good fortune of Rome long preserved her. It was as if in England a measure which had passed the Commons were to become at once the law of the land.

Among the events of this period, the introduction of the worship of the Grecian god Æsculapius deserves to be noticed. In the year 293 an epidemic prevailed at Rome, and the Sibylline books being consulted, it was directed to fetch Æsculapius to Rome. A trireme with ten deputies was sent to Epidaurus for that purpose. The legend relates, that the senate of that place agreed that the Romans should take whatever the god should give them; and that as they were praying at the temple, a huge snake came out of the sanctuary, went on to the town five miles off, through the streets, to the harbour, thence on board the Roman trireme, and into the cabin of Q. Ogulnius. The envoys having been instructed in the worship of the god, departed, and a prosperous wind brought them to Antium. Here they took shelter from a storm; the snake swam ashore, and remained twined round a palm-tree at the temple of Apollo while they stayed. When they reached Rome he left the ship again, and swimming to the island, disappeared in the spot where the temple of the god was afterwards built.

LUCANIAN, GALLIC, AND ETRUSCAN WARS

[290-282 B.C.]

Rome now rested from war for some years. At length (284) the Tarentines, who had been the chief agents in exciting the last Samnite War, succeeded in inducing the Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls in the north, and the Lucanians, Bruttians, and Samnites in the south, to take arms simultaneously against her. The commencement was the hostility exercised by the Lucanians against the people of the Greek town of Thurii, who, despairing of aid from any other quarter, applied to the Romans.

[282-280 B.C.]

In 282, a Roman army under C. Fabricius Luscinus came to the relief of Thurii. The spirits of the Romans sank as they viewed their own inferiority of force; when, lo! a youth of gigantic stature, wearing a double-crested helm, like those on the statues of Mars, was seen to seize a scaling-ladder, and mount the rampart of the enemies’ camp. The courage of the Romans rose, that of the foes declined, and a signal victory crowned the arms of Rome. When next day the consul sought that valiant youth, to bestow on him the suitable meed, he was nowhere to be found. Fabricius then directed a thanksgiving to Father Mars (as it must have been he) to be held throughout the army. Many other victories succeeded; and no Roman general had as yet acquired so much booty as Fabricius did in this campaign.

When the Roman army retired, a garrison was left for the defence of Thurii. As it was only by sea that a communication could be conveniently kept up with it, a squadron of ten triremes, under the duumvir L. Valerius, was now in these waters. Some years before, it had been an article in a treaty with the Tarentines, that no Roman ship of war should sail to the north of the Lacinian Cape; but as they had taken no notice of it now, and there was as yet no open hostility between them and the Romans, Valerius appeared off the port of Tarentum. The people unluckily happened at that moment to be assembled in the theatre, which commanded a view of the sea; a demagogue named Philocharis, a man of the vilest character,[43] pointing to the Roman ships, reminded them of the treaty; the infuriated populace rushed on shipboard, attacked and sank four, and took one of the Roman vessels. The Tarentines then sent a force against Thurii, where they plundered the town and banished the principal citizens: the Roman garrison was dismissed unmolested.

The Romans, as they had an Etruscan war on their hands, were anxious to accommodate matters amicably in the south. Their demands were therefore very moderate: they only required the release of those taken in the trireme; the restoration of the Thurians, and restitution of their property; and the surrender of the authors of the outrage. Audience was given to the envoys in the theatre. When they entered, the people laughed at the sight of their purple-bordered prætextæ, and the faults of language committed by L. Postumius, the chief of the embassy, redoubled their merriment. As the envoys were leaving the theatre, a drunken buffoon came and befouled the robe of Postumius in the most abominable manner: the peals of laughter were redoubled; but Postumius, holding up his robe, cried out, “Ay, laugh, laugh while ye may; ye will weep long enough when ye have to wash this out in blood.” He displayed at Rome his unwashed garment; and the senate, after anxious deliberation, declared war against Tarentum (281). The consul L. Æmilius Barbula was ordered to lead his army thither, to offer anew the former terms, and if they were refused, to carry on the war with vigour. The Tarentines, however, would listen to no terms; they resorted to their usual system of seeking aid from the mother country, and sent an embassy to invite over Pyrrhus, the renowned king of Epirus. Meantime Æmilius laid waste their country, took several strong places, and defeated them in the field.

We will now turn our view northwards. In 283 a combined army of Etruscans and Senonian Gauls having laid siege to Arretium, the prætor L. Metellus hastened to its relief; but his army was totally defeated, thirteen thousand men being slain, and nearly all the remainder made prisoners. When an embassy was sent to the Gauls to complain of breach of treaty, and to redeem the prisoners, the Gallic prince Britomaris, to avenge his father, who had fallen at Arretium, caused the fetiales to be murdered. The consul P. Cornelius Dolabella instantly marched through the Sabine and Picentian country into that of the Senonians, whom he defeated when they met him in the field: he then wasted the lands, burned the open villages, put all the men to death, and reduced the women and children to slavery. Britomaris, who was taken alive, was reserved to grace the consul’s triumph.

The Boians, who dwelt between the Senonians and the Po, were filled with rage and apprehension at the fate of their brethren, and assembling all their forces they entered Etruria, where being joined by the Etruscans and the remnant of the Senonians, they pressed on for Rome; but at the Lake Vadimo the consular armies met and nearly annihilated their whole army; the Senonians, it is said, in frenzy of despair put an end to themselves when they saw the battle lost. The Gauls appeared again the next year (284) in Etruria; but a signal defeat near Populonia (282) forced them to sue for peace, which on account of the war in the south, the Romans readily granted.

The war with the Etruscans continued till the year 280, when, in consequence of that with Pyrrhus, the Romans concluded a peace with them on most favourable terms. This peace terminated the conflict, which had now lasted for thirty years, and converted Etruria into Rome’s steadiest and most faithful ally.[c]