The Roman soldiers were themselves anxious to retrieve their defeat. Encouraged by the presence of the general, who had so often led them to victory, they fought fiercely and defeated the Samnites, taking Pontius, their leader, captive.
When young Fabius returned to Rome, his former defeat was forgotten in the joy of this great victory, and he enjoyed a triumph.
Some histories tell that the leader of the Samnites, whom Fabius had captured, was the same Pontius who thirty years before had spared the lives of the Roman soldiers at Caudium.
If that was so the generous treatment of the Samnite chief was now cruelly requited. For as Fabius drove in his chariot through the streets of Rome, Pontius, loaded with chains, walked in the procession. At the foot of the Capitol he was taken, with other captives, to the prison beneath the Capitoline hill and beheaded.
A year or two later, in 290 B.C. the third Samnite war drew to a close. The last battle was won by a famous Consul, named Dentatus.
The Samnites, hoping to bribe the Roman, sought for him in his country home. They found him, like Cincinnati, living quietly on his farm, cooking for his dinner turnips which he had himself sown in his fields.
Dentatus had little to say to the Samnite ambassadors, when they offered him bribes to desert his country, save to tell them that he did not consider it a great thing to possess gold. ‘To rule those who have it, is what I value,’ he added sternly. And as the ambassadors withdrew they saw, as in a picture, their own army defeated, and the Romans, with Dentatus at their head, marching home victorious.
The Consul did indeed defeat the Samnites, so that they were forced to sue for peace and retire once again to their mountain strongholds.
Yet even now their hardy spirits were not subdued, and again and again you will read of them coming down from their fastnesses to strike a blow at Rome. And they were wise in their warfare, choosing always the time when Rome was already surrounded by other foes.