Ancient States and Empires / For Colleges and Schools

by John Lord

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE CONQUEST OF ITALY.

Hitherto, the Romans, after the expulsion of the kings, were involved in wars with their immediate neighbors, and exposed to great calamities. All they could do for one hundred and fifty years was to recover the possessions they had lost. During this period great prodigies of valor were performed, and great virtues were generated. It was the heroic period of their history, when adversity taught them patience, endurance, and public virtue.

The period of conquest begins.

But a new period opens, when the plebeians had obtained political power, and the immediate enemies were subdued. This was a period of conquest over the various Italian States. The period is still heroic, but historical. Great men arose, of talent and patriotism. The ambition of the Romans now prominently appears. They had been struggling for existence—they now fought for conquest. “The great achievement of the regal period was the establishment,” says Mommsen, “of the sovereignty of Rome over Latium.” That was shaken by the expulsion of Tarquin, but was re-established in the wars which subsequently followed. After the fall of Veii, all the Latin cities became subject to the Romans. On the overthrow of the Volscians, the Roman armies reached the Samnite territory.

Samnium.

The next memorable struggle of Rome was with Samnium, for the supremacy of Italy. Samnium was a hilly country on the east of the Volscians, and its people were brave and hardy. The Samnites had, at the fall of Veii, an ascendency over Lower Italy, with the exception of the Grecian colonies. Tarentum, Croton, Metapontum, [pg 423] Heraclea, Neapolis, and other Grecian cities, maintained a precarious independence, but were weakened by the successes of the Samnites. Capua, the capital of Campania, where the Etruscan influence predominated, was taken by them, and Cumæ was wrested from the Greeks.

But in the year B.C. 343, the Samnites came in collision with Rome, from an application of Capua to Rome for assistance against them. The victories of Valerius Corvus, and Cornelius Cossus gave Campania to the Romans.

The Latins throw off the Roman yoke.