The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

FROM THE END OF THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR TO THE SUBJUGATION OF
ALL ITALY BY THE ROMANS.

ome was for a time at rest; but its repose was broken by the alarm-bell of war still ringing in its ears, while dissension, hanging over it like a nightmare, placed a weight upon its chest, and became a constant burden on its resources. As if the Romans had not enough troubles of their own, they became involved with the disputes of their foreign relations, who were, most of them, very poor relations indeed—a sort of connexion which nations, as well as individuals, are apt to find extremely burdensome.

A number of petty states began urging each other to do something that would embarrass Rome, and many who had not the courage to strike were desirous of seeing others display their valour. The Tarentines and the Volsinians being anxious to fight their own battles with other people's arms, succeeded in making cats'-paws of the Gauls, who were induced to pounce upon Arretium. The Romans were appealed to for assistance, and they immediately sent an army just large enough to be too little. Defeat ensued, as a matter of course; and L. Cæcilius, the leader, being slain, M. Curius was despatched to head the troops; but on his arrival, he found there was no body to which he could serve as a head, for the army had been either killed or captured.

In this disagreeable dilemma, he sent ambassadors to know the terms on which the prisoners would be given up; but the ambassadors—like good money sent after bad—never came back again. The Romans perceiving at last that they were only cutting their army into convenient pieces for the enemy to swallow up, despatched, at length, a force large enough to put a stop to any further consumption of such valuable material. The Romans were now decidedly successful, and the Senones were, according to certain authorities, "just annihilated;" [36] but as the Senones are frequently met with again, it must be presumed that the assertion, ex nihilo nihil fit—"nothing can come of nothing"—is unacknowledged by the writers of classical history.

Foreign intervention seems to have been quite the order of the day; for the Boians rushed forward to show their sympathy at the fate of the Senones, which, if it consisted of annihilation, must have been nothing to the parties themselves, and should have been, à fortiori, nothing to others. Touched with a similar infection, the Etrurians began to sympathise with the Boians, and having met the Romans near Lake Vadimo, the sympathisers were "cut to pieces," if we are to believe report; but we know not whether to the scissors of the reporters or the shears of fate, the cutting to pieces in question may be attributed. The Etruscans, at all events, were able to return to Etruria[37] in sufficient force to render them a still formidable foe to the Romans, who were eventually glad to grant a peace on very favourable terms; and, putting all things together, we are inclined to believe that the Etruscans were not in that very piecemeal state to which tradition is fond of reducing them.

A quarrel between the Lucanians and the Thurii caused another call on the intervention of Rome, who was a thorough polygamist in espousing the quarrels of others. C. Fabricius was sent to the relief of Thurii with an army so small, that it began to shrink from the encounter, and thus increase, as it were, its own littleness. The spirit of the Romans had something, however, of the caoutchouc in its composition; for it could be drawn out as easily as it gave in, and a trifling circumstance showed its elasticity on the occasion of the attack on Thurii. A gigantic lad, with a ladder in his hand, was seen approaching the ramparts, which he proceeded to mount, and by this simple act of scaling the wall, he turned the scale of victory.

The opposing general was taken prisoner, and numbers were left dead on the field, including several of the Samnites, who in devoting themselves to glut the appetite of war, appear to have formed the great pièce de résistance of the period. The feast of carnage seems never to have been complete in these days, without this very substantial dish, which seems to have formed literally an instance of "cut and come again," for we find a supply of Samnites always ready for fate's relentless carving-knife. The treasure taken by Fabricius, the Roman general, was immense, and much of it was derived from the inexhaustible Samnites, who, though constantly being cut up like the goose with the golden eggs, possessed one extraordinary advantage over that auriferous bird, for they could bear the operation as often as avarice itself could require. The booty was wonderful in amount; but the mode in which it was disposed of, was more marvellous still; for the general, instead of following the general custom, by pocketing all he could, distributed a large portion of it among the soldiers, reimbursed the amount of a year's taxes to the citizens, and sent a handsome surplus to the treasury. It is to be regretted that we have no such examples of justice and generosity in the present age; for if every man were to return as conscience money to the Exchequer all that he did not fairly earn, the National Debt might soon figure—without any figures at all—as a myth in our financial annals.