No More Learning

Dionysius givs it on occasion of the declaration of war by Latium against Rome in 256, and it was natural therefore to regard-as Niebuhr did-this list as derived from the well-known renewal of the league in 261. But, as in this list drawn up according to the Latin alphabet the letter gappears
. .
N“
443 SUBJUGATION OF THE LATINS k noox rr . fiy. ‘
VI‘
8B1. Tusculum was even compelled (in 373) to give up its
political independence, and to enter into the burgess-union of Rome as a subject community (a'vitas sine rufragr'o), so that the town retained its walls and an—although limited —self-administration, including magistrates and a burgess- assembly of its own, whereas its burgesses as Romans lacked the right of electing or being elected-the first instance of a whole burgess-body being incorporated as a dependent community with the Roman commonwealth.
The struggle with the Hernici was more severe 862-358. (392-396) ; the first consular commander-in-chief belong
ing to the plebs, Lucius Genucius, fell in it; but here too Renewal_of the Romans were victorious. The crisis terminated with $252? the renewal of the treaties between Rome and the Latin
358. and Hernican confederacies in 396. The precise contents of these treaties are not known, but it is evident that both confederacies submitted once more, and probably on harder terms, to the Roman hegemony. The institution which took place in the same year of two new tribes in the Pomptine territory shows clearly the mighty advances made by the Roman power.
between Rome and Latium stands the closing of the Latin __
confederation,1 which took place about the year 370,
CHAP- V AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
449
although we cannot precisely determine whether it was the effect or, as is more probable, the cause of the revolt of Latium against Rome which we have just described. As the law had hitherto stood, every sovereign city founded by Rome and Latium took its place among the communes entitled to participate in the federal festival and federal diet, whereas every community incorporated with another city and thereby politically annihilated was erased from the ranks of the members of the league. At the same time, however, according to Latin use and wont the number
in a position which it certainly had not at the time of the Twelve Tables and scarcely came to occupy before the fifth century (see my Unteritalirclu Dial. p. 33), it must be taken from a much more recent source; and it is by far the simplest hypothesis to recognize it as a list of those places which were afterwards regarded as the ordinary members of the Latin confederacy, and which Dionysius in accordance with his systematizing custom specifies as its original component elements. As was to be expected, the list presents not a single non-Latin community; it simply enumerates places originally Latin or occupied by Latin colonies-no one will lay stress on Corbio and Corioli as exceptions. Now if we compare with this list that of the Latin colonies, there had been founded down to
372 Suessa Pometia, Velitrae, Norba, Signia, Ardea, Circeii (361),
Satricum (369), Sutrium (371), Nepete (371), Setia (372). Of the last 386. 883. three founded at nearly the same time the two Etruscan ones may very 382.
well date somewhat later than Setia, since in fact the foundation of every
town claimed a certain amount of time, and our list cannot be free from
minor inaccuracies. If we assume this, then the list contains all the
colonies sent out up to the year 372, including the two soon afterwards 382. deleted from the list, Satricum destroyed in 377 and Velitrae divested of 377.
Latin rights in 416; there are wanting only Suessa Pometia, beyond 438.
doubt as having been destroyed before 372, and Signia, probably because 382.
in the text of Dionysius. who mentions only twenty-nine names,
ZII‘NINON has dropped out after ZHTINON. In entire harmony with
this view there are absent from this list all the Latin colonies founded
after 372 as well as all places, which like Ostia, Antemnae, Alba, were 382. incorporated with the Roman community before the year 370, whereas 384.
those incorporated subsequently, such as Tusculum, Lanuvium, Velitrae,
are retained in it.
As regards the list given by Pliny of thirty-two townships extinct in his time which had formerly participated in the Alban festival, after deduction of seven that also occur in Dionysius (for the Cusuetani of Pliny appear to be the Carventani of Dionysius), there remain twenty-five townships, most of them quite unknown, doubtless made up partly of those seventeen non-voting communities-most of which perhaps were just the oldest subsequently disqualified members of the Alban festal league-partly of a number of other decayed or ejected members of the league, to which latter class above all the ancient presiding township of Alba, also named by Pliny. belonged.
vol. r
29
382. 898.
45° SUBJ'UGATION OF THE LATINS BOOK r!
once fixed of thirty confederate communities was so adhered to, that of the participating cities never more and never less than thirty were entitled to vote, and a number of the communities that were of later admission, or were
for their slight importance or for the crimes they had committed, were without the right of voting. In 884. this way the confederacy was constituted about 370 as follows. Of old Latin townships there were-besides some which have now fallen into oblivion, or whose sites are
disqualified
‘18.
unknown-still autonomous and entitled to vote, Nomentum, between the Tiber and the Anio; Tibur, Gabii, Scaptia, Labici,1 Pedum, and Praeneste, between the Anio and the Alban range; Corbio, Tusculum, Bovillae, Aricia, Corioli, and Lanuvium on the Alban range; Cora in the Volscian mountains, and lastly, Laurentum in the plain along the coast. To these fell to be added the colonies instituted by Rome and the Latin league; Ardea in the former territory of the Rutuli, and Satricum, Velitrae, Norba,
Signia, Setia and Circeii in that of the Volsci. Besides, seventeen other townships, whose names are not known with certainty, had the privilege of participating in the Latin festival without the right of voting. On this footing —of forty-seven townships entitled to participate and thirty entitled to vote-the Latin confederacy continued henceforward unalterably fixed. The Latin communities founded subsequently, such as Sutrium, Nepete (p. 432), Antium, Tarracina (p. 446), and Cales, were not admitted into the confederacy, nor were the Latin communities
1 Livy certainly states (iv. 47) that Labici bemme a colony in 336. But-apart from the fact that Diodorus (xiii. 6) says nothing of it Labici cannot have been a burgess-colony, for the town did not lie on the coast and besides it appears subsequently as still in possession of autonomy; nor can it have been a Latin one, for there is not. nor can there be from the nature of these foundations, a single other example of a Latin colony established in the original Latium. Here as elsewhere it is most probable-especially as two jugmz are named as the portion of land allotted-that a public assignation to the burgesses has been con founded with a colonial assignation (p. 240).
CHAP- v AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
451
subsequently divested of their autonomy, such as Tusculum and Lanuvium, erased from the list.
With this closing of the confederacy was connected the Fixingd geographical settlement of the limits of Latium. So long
as the Latin confederacy continued open, the bounds of
Latium had advanced with the establishment of new federal
cities: but as the later Latin colonies had no share in the
Alban festival, they were not regarded geographically as
part of Latium. For this reason doubtless Ardea and
Circeii were reckoned as belonging to Latium, but not
Sutrium or Tarracina.
But not only were the places on which Latin privileges Isolation of were bestowed after 370 kept aloof from the federal 3,‘; 33:‘ association; they were isolated also from one another as cities” respected private rights. While each of them was allowed gig“ to have reciprocity of commercial dealings and probably rights‘
also of marriage (:ommera'um et conubium) with Rome, no
such reciprocity was permitted with the other Latin com
munities. The burgess of Satrium, for example, might
in full property a piece of ground in Rome, but not in Praeneste; and might have legitimate children with a. Roman, but not with a Tiburtine, wife. 1
If hitherto considerable freedom of movement had been Prevention allowed within the confederacy, and for example the six old 3322'? Latin communities, Aricia, Tusculum, Tibur, Lanuvium,
Cora, and Laurentum, and the two new Latin, Ardea and
Suessa Pometia, had been permitted to found in common a shrine for the Aricine Diana; it is doubtless not the mere result of accident that we find no further instance in later times of similar separate confederations fraught with danger to the hegemony of Rome.
| This restriction of the ancient full reciprocity of Latin rights first occurs in the renewal of the treaty in 416 (Liv. viii. 14); but as the 338, system of isolation, of which it was an essential part, first began in reference
to the Latin colonies settled after 370, and was only generalized in 416, it
is proper to mention this alteration here.
possess
Rcvlflonof
We may likewise assign to this epoch the further re modelling which the Latin municipal constitutions under
Domlnn-
‘gym’ exnspera-
848.
After the fall of Veii and the conquest of the Pomptine territory, Rome evidently felt herself powerful enough to tighten the reins of her hegemony and to reduce the whole of the Latin cities to a position so dependent that they became in fact completely subject. At this period (406) the Carthaginians, in a commercial treaty concluded with Rome, bound themselves to inflict no injury on the Latins who were subject to Rome, viz. the maritime towns of Ardea, Antium, Circeii, and Tarracina; however, any one of the Latin towns should fall away from the Roman alliance, the Phoenicians were to be allowed to attack but the event of conquering they were bound not to raze but to hand over to the Romans. This plainly shows by what chains the Roman community bound to itself the towns protected and how much town, which dared to withdraw from the native protectorate, sacrificed or risked by such course.
It true that even now the Latin confederacy at least
452 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS 800! u
nimiom. went, and their complete assimilation to the constitution of
1221;:
Rome. If in after times two aediles, intrusted with the police-supervision of markets and highways and the administration of justice in connection therewith, make their appearance side by side with the two praetors as necessary elements of the Latin magistracy, the institution of these urban police functionaries, which evidently took place at the same time and at the instigation of the leading power in all the federal communities, certainly cannot have preceded the establishment of the curule aedileship in
867. Rome, which occurred in 387; probably it took place about that very time. Beyond doubt this arrangement was only one of a series of measures curtailing the liberties and modifying the organization of the federal communities in the interest of aristocratic policy.
is
a
it
by it
it
a
it, it, in
if,
CHAP- v AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
453
-—if not also the Hernican-retained its formal title to a
third of the gains of war, and doubtless some other remnants of the former equality of rights; but what was
palpably lost was important enough to explain the exaspera
tion which at this period prevailed among the Latins
against Rome. Not only did numerous Latin volunteers
fight under foreign standards against the community at their
head, wherever they found armies in the field against
Rome ; but in 405 even the Latin federal assembly resolved 849.
to refuse to the Romans its contingent. To all appearance Collision a renewed rising of the whole Latin confederacy might be it? ” anticipated at no distant date ; and at that very moment a Roman: collision was imminent with another Italian nation, which 2:33;" was able to encounter on equal terms the united strength of
the Latin stock. After the overthrow of the northern Vol scians no considerable people in the first instance opposed
the Romans in the south ; their legions unchecked approached the Liris. As early as 397 they had contended 357, successfully with the Privernates ; and in 409 occupied 845. Sora on the upper Liris. Thus the Roman armies had reached the Samnite frontier; and the friendly alliance, which the two bravest and most powerful of the Italian nations concluded with each other in 400, was the sure s54. token of an approaching struggle for the supremacy of Italy
—a struggle which threatened to become interwoven with the crisis within the Latin nation.
The Samnite nation, which, at the time of the expulsion of conquests
the Tarquins from Rome, had doubtless already been for a considerable period in possession of the hill-country which
£2,213," in the south 0mm,‘
rises between the Apulian and Campanian plains and com- mands them both, had hitherto found its further advance impeded on the one side by the Daunians-the power and prosperity of Arpi fall within this period—on the other by
the Greeks and Etruscans. But the fall of the Etruscan power towards the end of the third, and the decline of the 450
454 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS BOOK u
‘60-850. Greek colonies in the course of the fourth century, made room for them towards the west and south ; and now one Samnite host after another marched down to, and even moved across, the south Italian seas. They first made their appearance in the plain adjoining the bay, with which the name of the Campanians has been associated from the beginning of the fourth century; the Etruscans there were suppressed, and the Greeks were confined within narrower
424. bounds ; Capua was wrested from the former (33o), Cumae from the latter (3 34). About the same time, perhaps even earlier, the Lucanians appeared in Magna Graecia: at the beginning of the fourth century they were involved in con flict with the people of Terina and Thurii ; and a consider
890. able time before 364 they had established themselves in the Greek Laus. About this period their levy amounted to 30,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry. Towards the end of the fourth century mention first occurs of the separate con federacy of the Bruttii,1 who had detached themselves from the Lucanians—not, like the other Sabellian stocks, as a colony, but through a quarrel-and had become mixed up with many foreign elements. The Greeks of Lower Italy tried to resist the pressure of the barbarians; the league of
898. the Achaean cities was reconstructed in 361 ; and it was determined that, if any of the allied towns should be assailed by the Lucanians, all should furnish contingents, and that the leaders of contingents which failed to appear should suffer the punishment of death. But even the union of Magna Graecia no longer availed; for the ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Elder, made common cause with the Italians against his countrymen. While Dionysius wrested from the fleets of Magna Graecia the mastery of the Italian seas, one Greek city after another was occupied
l The name itself is very ancient; in fact it is the most ancient indigenous name for the inhabitants of the present Calabria (Antiochus,
Fr. 5. Mllll. . The well-known derivation is doubtless an invention.
can. v AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
455
or annihilated by the Italians. In an incredibly short time the circle of flourishing cities was destroyed or laid desolate. Only a few Greek settlements, such as Neapolis, succeeded with difliculty, and more by means of treaties than by force of arms, in preserving at least their existence and their nationality. Tarentum alone remained thoroughly in dependent and powerful, maintaining its ground in con sequence of its more remote position and its preparation for war-the result of its constant conflicts with the Messapians. Even that city, however, had constantly to fight for its existence with the Lucanians, and was com pelled to seek for alliances and mercenaries in the mother country of Greece.
About the period when Veii and the Pomptine plain came into the hands of Rome, the Samnite hordes were already in possession of all Lower Italy, with the exception
of a few unconnected Greek colonies, and of the Apulo Messapian coast. The Greek Periplus, composed about 418, sets down the Samnites proper with their “five 336. tongues” as reaching from the one sea to the other ; and specifies the Campanians as adjoining them on the Tyrrhene sea to the north, and the Lucanians to the south, amongst whom in this instance, as often, the Bruttii are included, and who already had the whole coast apportioned among them from Paestum on the Tyrrhene, to Thurii on
the Ionic, sea. In fact to one who compares the achieve ments of the two great nations of Italy, the Latins and the Samnites, before they came into contact, the career of conquest on the part of the latter appears far wider and more splendid than that of the former. But the character
of their conquests was essentially different. From the fixed urban centre which Latium possessed in Rome the dominion
of the Latin stock spread slowly on all sides, and lay within limits comparatively narrow; but it planted its foot firmly
at every step, partly by founding fortified towns of the
Relations
giggle; nites and
Roman type with the rights of dependent allies, partly by Romanizing the territory which it conquered. It was otherwise with Samnium. There was in its case no single leading community and therefore no policy of conquest. While the conquest of the Veientine and Pomptine terri tories was for Rome a real enlargement of power, Samnium was weakened rather than strengthened by the rise of the Campanian cities and of the Lucanian and Bruttian con federacies ; for every swarm, which had sought and found new settlements, thenceforward pursued a path of its own.
The Samnite tribes filled a disproportionately large space, while yet they showed no disposition to make it thoroughly their own. The larger Greek cities, Tarentum,
456 SUBJUGATION
or THE LATINS 300: n
‘he Gmk“ Thurii, Croton, Metapontum, Heraclea, Rhegium, and Neapolis, although weakened and often dependent, con tinued to exist; and the Hellenes were tolerated even in the open country and in the smaller towns, so that Cumae for instance, Posidonia, Laus, and Hipponiurn, still re mained—as the Periplus already mentioned and coins show—Greek cities even under Samnite rule. Mixed populations thus arose; the bi-lingual Bruttii, in particular, included Hellenic as well as Samnite elements and even perhaps remains of the ancient autochthones; in Lucania and Campania also similar mixtures must to a lesser extent
Campanian Hellenism‘
.
have taken place.
The Samnite nation, moreover, could not resist the
dangerous charm of Hellenic culture; least of all in Campania, where Neapolis early entered into friendly intercourse with the immigrants, and where the sky itself humanized the barbarians. Nola, Nuceria, and Teanum, although having a purely Samnite population, adopted Greek manners and a Greek civic constitution ; in fact the indigenous cantonal form of constitution could not possibly subsist under these altered circumstances. The Samnite cities of Campania began to coin money, in part with
CHAP- V AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
457
Greek inscriptions; Capua became by its commerce and agriculture the second city in Italy in point of size—the first in point of wealth and luxury. The deep demoraliza tion, in which, according to the accounts of the ancients, that city surpassed all others in Italy, is especially reflected in the mercenary recruiting and in the gladiatorial sports, both of which pre-eminently flourished in Capua. No where did recruiting oflicers find so numerous a. concourse as in this metropolis of demoralized civilization; while Capua knew not how to save itself from the attacks of the aggressive Samnites, the warlike Campanian youth flocked forth in crowds under self-elected condotlieri, especially to Sicily. How deeply these soldiers of fortune influenced by their enterprises the destinies of Italy, we shall have after wards to show; they form as characteristic a feature of Campanian life as the gladiatorial sports which likewise, if they did not originate, were at any rate carried to perfection in Capua. There sets of gladiators made their appearance even during banquets; and their number was proportioned to the rank of the guests invited. This degeneracy of the most important Samnite city—a degeneracy which beyond doubt was closely connected with the Etruscan habits that lingered there—rnust have been fatal for the nation at large; although the Campanian nobility knew how to combine chivalrous valour and high mental culture with the deepest moral corruption, it could never become to its nation' what the Roman nobility was to the Latin. Hellenic influence had a similar, though less powerful, effect on the Lucanians and Bruttians as on the Campanians. The objects discovered in the tombs throughout all these
show how Greek art was cherished there in barbaric luxuriance ; the rich ornaments of gold and amber and the magnificent painted pottery, which are now dis interred from the abodes of the dead, enable us to con
jecture how extensive had been their departure from the
regions
‘Dre Sam nite con federacy.
ancient manners of their fathers. Other indications are preserved in their writing. The old national writing which they had brought with them from the north was abandoned by the Lucanians and Bruttians, and exchanged for Greek , while in Campania the national alphabet, and perhaps also the language, developed itself under the influence of the Greek model into greater clearness and delicacy. We meet even with isolated traces of the influence of Greek philosophy.
The Samnite land, properly so called, alone remained unaffected by these innovations, which, beautiful and natural as they may to some extent have been, powerfully contributed to relax still more the bond of national unity which even from the first was loose. Through the influence of Hellenic habits a deep schism took place in the Samnite stock. The civilized “Philhellenes” of Campania were accustomed to tremble like the Hellenes themselves before the ruder tribes of the mountains, who were continually penetrating into Campania and disturbing the degenerate earlier settlers. Rome was a compact state, having the strength of all Latium at its disposal; its subjects might murmur, but they obeyed. The Samnite stock was dispersed and divided; and, while the con federacy in Samnium proper had preserved unimpaired the manners and valour of their ancestors, they were on that very account completely at variance with the other
Samnite tribes and towns.
In fact, it was this variance between the Samnites of
the plain and the Samnites of the mountains that led the
iubmission If Capua
to Rome.
453 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS 8001‘ n
Romans over the Liris. The Sidicini in Teanum, and the B48. Campanians in Capua, sought aid from the Romans (411)
against their own countrymen, who in swarms ever renewed ravaged their territory and threatened to establish them‘ selves there. When the desired alliance was refused, the Campanian envoys made offer of the submission of their
CHAP- V AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
459
country to the supremacy of Rome: and the Romans were unable to resist the bait. Roman envoys were sent to the Samnites to inform them of the new acquisition, and to summon them to respect the territory of the friendly power. The further course of events can no longer be ascertained in detail ,1 we discover only that—whether after a campaign, or without the intervention of a war-Rome and Samnium came to an agreement, by which Capua was left at the disposal of the Romans, Teanum in the hands of the Samnites, and the upper Liris in those of the Volscians.
1 Perhaps no section of the Roman annals has been more disfigured than the narrative of the first Samnite-Latin war, as it stands or stood in Livy, Dionysius, and Appian. It runs somewhat to the following effect. After both consuls had marched into Campania in 41! , first the consul Marcus Valerius Corvus gained a severe and bloody victory over the Samnites at Mount Gaurus; then his colleague Aulus Cornelius Cossus gained another, after he had been rescued from annihilation in a narrow
pass by the self-devotion of a division led by the military tribune Publius Decius. The third and decisive battle was fought by both consuls at the entrance of the Caudine Pass near Suessula; the Samnites were com pletely vanquished-forty thousand of their shields were picked up on the field of battle—and they were compelled to make a peace, in which the Romans retained Capua. which had given itself over to their possession, while they left Teanum to the Samnites (413). Congratulations came from all sides, even from Carthage. The Latins, who had refused their contingent and seemed to be arming against Rome. turned their arms not against Rome but against the Paeligni, while the Romans were occupied
first with a military conspiracy of the garrison left behind in Campania (4m), then with the capture of Privernum (413) and the war against the Antiates. But now a sudden and singular change occurred in the position of parties. The Latins, who had demanded in vain Roman citizenship and a share in the consulate, rose against Rome in conjunction with the Sidicines, who had vainly offered to submit to the Romans and knew not how to save themselves from the Samnites, and with the Campanians, who were already tired of the Roman rule. Only the Laurentes in Latium and the equites of Campania adhered to the Romans, who on their part found support among the Paeligni and Samnites. The Latin army fell upon Samnium; the Romano-Samnite army, after it had marched to the Fucine lake and from thence, avoiding Latium, into Campania, fought the decisive battle against the combined Latins and Campanians at Vesuvius; the consul Titus Manlius Imperiosus, after he had himself restored the wavering discipline of the army by the execution of his own son who had slain a fee in opposition to orders from head quarters, and after his colleague Publius Decius Mus had appeased the gods by sacrificing his life, at length gained the victory by calling up the last reserves. But the war was only terminated by a second battle, in which the consul Manlius engaged the Latins and Campanians near
Rome and Samnium come to terms.
343.
460 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS I00! I!
The consent of the Samnites to treat is explained by the
energetic exertions made about this very period by the
Revolt of Tarentines to get quit of their Sabellian neighbours. But
the Latina and Cam panians against Rome.
the Romans also had good reason for coming to terms as quickly as possible with the Samnites; for the impending transition of the region bordering on the south of Latium into the possession of the Romans converted the ferment that had long existed among the Latins into open in surrection. All the original Latin towns, even the Tusculans who had been received into the burgess-union
Trifanum ; Latium and Capua submitted, and were mulcted in a portion of their territory.
The judicious and candid reader will not fail to observe that this report swarms with all sorts of impossibilities. Such are the statement of
877. the Antiates waging war after the surrender of 377 (Liv. vi. 33) ; the independent campaign of the Latins against the Paeligni, in distinct con tradiction to the stipulations of the treaties between Rome and Latium ; the unprecedented march of the Roman army through the Marsian and Samnite territory to Capua, while all Latium was in arms against Rome ; to say nothing of the equally confused and sentimental account of the
M2. military insurrection of 412, and the story of its forced leader, the lame Titus Quinctius, the Roman Gotz von Berlichingen. Still more suspiciousl perhaps, are the repetitions. Such is the story of the military tribune Publius Decius modelled on the courageous deed of Marcus Calpurnius Flamma, or whatever he was called, in the first Punic war; such is the recurrence of the conquest of Privernum by Gaius Plautius in the year
829. 425, which second conquest alone is registered in the triumphal Fasti; such is the self-immolation of Publius Decius, repeated, as is well known, 295. in the case of his son in 459. Throughout this section the whole representation betrays a different period and a different hand from the other more credible accounts of the annals. The narrative is full of detailed pictures of battles; of inwoven anecdotes, such as that of the
praetor of Setia, who breaks his neck on the steps of the senate-house because he had been audacious enough to solicit the consulship, and the various anecdotes concocted out of the surname of Titus Manlius; and of prolix and in part suspicious archaeological digressions. In this class we include the history of the legion-of which the notice, most probal. y apocryphal, in Liv. i. 52, regarding the maniples of Romans and Lati-s intermingled formed by the second Tarquin, is evidently a second fragment; the erroneous view given of the treaty between Capua and Rome (see my RM. Minx-warm, p. 334, n. 122); the formularies of self-devotion, the Campanian denariur, the Laurentine alliance, and the bina jugern in the assignation (p. 450, note). Under such circumstances it appears a fact of great weight that Diodorus, who follows other and often older accounts, knows absolutely nothing of any of these events except the last battle at Trifanum ; a battle in fact that ill accords with the rest of the narrative, which, in accordance with the rules of poetical justice, ought to have con cluded with the death of Decius.
can. v AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
461
of Rome, took up arms against Rome, with the exception of the Laurentes, whereas of the colonies founded beyond the bounds of Latium only the old Volscian towns Velitrae, Antium, and Tarracina adhered to the revolt. We can readily understand how the Capuans, notwithstand ing their very recent and voluntarily offered submission to
the Romans, should readily embrace the first opportunity
of again ridding themselves of the Roman rule and, in spite
of the opposition of the optimate party that adhered to
the treaty with Rome, should make common cause with
the Latin confederacy, whereas the still independent Volscian towns, such as Fundi and Formiae, and the Hernici abstained like the Campanian aristocracy from
taking part in this revolt. The position of the Romans
was critical; the legions which had crossed the Liris and occupied Campania were cut ofl~ by the revolt of the Latins
and Volsci from their home, and a victory alone could Victory save them.
The decisive battle was fought near Trifanum of the
single
Romans. (between Minturnae, Suessa, and Sinuessa) in 414 ; the 840.
consul Titus Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus achieved a complete victory over the united Latins and Campanians. In the two following years the individual towns, so far as they still offered resistance, were reduced by capitulation or assault, and the whole country was brought into subjection.
The effect of the victory was the dissolution of the Latin Dissolution
league. It was transformed from an independent political of the Latin
federation into a mere association for the purpose of a reli league. gious festival; the ancient stipulated rights of the confede~
racy as to a maximum for the levy of troops and a share of
the gains of war perished as such along with and assumed,
where they were recognized in future, the character of acts of grace. Instead of the one treaty between Rome on the one hand and the Latin confederacy on the other, there came at best perpetual alliances between Rome and the metal confederate towns. To this footing of treaty there
it,
384.
Coloniza tions in the land of the Volsci.
were admitted of the old-Latin places, besides Laurentum, also Tibur and Praeneste, which however were compelled to cede portions of their territory to Rome. Like terms were obtained by the communities of Latin rights founded outside of Latium, so far as they had not taken part in the war. The principle of isolating the communities from each other, which had already been established in regard to the places founded after 370 (p. 451), was thus extended to the whole Latin nation. In other respects the several places retained their former privileges and their autonomy. The other old-Latin communities as well as the colonies that had revolted lost—all of them—independ ence and entered in one form or another into the Roman burgess-union. The two important coast towns Antium
t6: SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS BOOK It
888. 829. (416) and Tarracina (425) were, after the model of Ostia, occupied with Roman full-burgesses and restricted to a communal independence confined within narrow limits, while the previous burgesses were deprived in great part of their landed property in favour of the Roman colonists and, so far as they retained likewise adopted into the full burgess-union. Lanuvium, Aricia, Nomentum, Pedum became Roman burgess-communities after the model of Tusculum 448). The walls of Velitrae were demolished, its senate was ejected en mass: and deported to the interior of Roman Etruria, and the town was probably constituted
dependent community with Caerite rights (p. 43 Of the land acquired portion—the estates, for instance, of the senators of Velitrae-was distributed to Roman
with these special assignations was connected 882. the erection of two new tribes in 42 2. The deep sense which prevailed Rome of the enormous importance of
the result achieved attested by the honorary column,
which was erected in the Roman Forum to the victorious 888. dictator of 416, Gaius Maenius, and by the decoration of
the orators’ platform in the same place with the beaks
burgesses:
J3"
is
in
a
a
3).
(p.
it,
CHAP- v AND CAMPANIANS BY ROME
463
taken from the galleys of Antium that were found un serviceable.
In like manner the dominion of Rome was established Complete
and confirmed in the south Volscian and Campanian submission of the
territories. Fundi, Formiae, Capua, Cumae, and a number Volscian
of smaller towns became dependent Roman communities
with self-administration. To secure the pre-eminently provincu. important city of Capua, the breach between the nobility
and commons was artfully widened, the communal con
stitution was revised in the Roman interest, and the adminis
tration of the town was controlled by Roman oflicials annually
sent to Campania. The same treatment was measured out
some years after to the Volscian Privernum, whose citizens, supported by Vitruvius Vaccus a bold partisan belonging
to Fundi, had the honour of fighting the last battle for the
freedom of this region ; the struggle ended with the storming
of the town (42 5) and the execution of Vaccus in a Roman
prison. In order to rear a population devoted to Rome in
these regions, they distributed, out of the lands won in
war particularly in the Privernate and Falernian territories,
so numerous allotments to Roman burgesses, that a few
years later (436) they were able to institute there also two 818. new tribes. The establishment of two fortresses as colonies with Latin rights finally secured the newly won land. These were Cales (420) in the middle of the 38L Campanian plain, whence the movements of Teanum and Capua could be observed, and Fregellae (426), which com 828. manded the passage of the Liris. Both colonies were unusually strong, and rapidly became flourishing, notwith standing the obstacles which the Sidicines interposed to
the founding of Cales and the Samnites to that of Fregellae. A Roman garrison was also despatched to Sora, a step of which the Samnites, to whom this district had been left by the treaty, complained with reason, but in vain. Rome
her purpose with undeviating steadfastness, and
Campanian
pursued
inaction gilt-Pam
displayed her energetic and far-reaching policy—more even than on the battlefield-in the securing of the territory which she gained by enveloping politically and militarily, in net whose meshes could not be broken.
As matter of course, the Samnites could not behold the threatening progress of the Romans with satisfaction, and they probably put obstacles in its way nevertheless they neglected to intercept the new career of conquest, while there was still perhaps time to do so, with that energy which the circumstances required. They appear indeed accordance with their treaty with Rome to have occupied and strongly garrisoned Teanum; for while in earlier times that city sought help against Samnium from Capua and
Rome, in the later struggles appears as the bulwark of the Samnite power on the west. They spread, conquering and destroying, on the upper Liris, but they neglected to establish themselves permanently in that quarter. They destroyed the Volscian town Fregellae—by which they simply facilitated the institution of the Roman colony there which we have just mentioned-and they so terrified two other Volscian towns, Fabrateria (Ceccano) and Luca (site unknown), that these, following the example of Capua,
464 SUBJUGATION
OF THE LATINS BOOK it
880. surrendered themselves to the Romans (424). The Sam nite confederacy allowed the Roman conquest of Campania to be completed before they in earnest opposed it; and the reason for their doing so to be sought partly in the contemporary hostilities between the Samnite nation and the Italian Hellenes, but principally in the remiss and dis tracted policy which the confederacy pursued.
is
it
in
;
a a
it,
CRAP. VI STRUGGLE OF THE ITALIANS
465
CHAPTER VI
mucous or THE ITALIANS scams-r Rom
WHILE the Romans were fighting on the Liris and Wmba Volturnus, other conflicts agitated the south-east of the peninsula. The wealthy merchant-republic of Tarentum, and Tam daily exposed to more serious peril from the Lucanian and an“ Messapian bands and justly distrusting its own sword,
gained by good words and better coin the help of wndottieri
from the mother-country. The Spartan king, Archidamus, Amhidg. who with a strong band had come to the assistance of his m“ fellow-Dorians, succumbed to the Lucanians on the same
day on which Philip conquered at Chaeronea (416) ; a 333. retribution, in the belief of the pious Greeks, for the share
which nineteen years previously he and his people had
taken in pillaging the sanctuary of Delphi. His place was
taken by an abler commander, Alexander the Molossian, Alexander brother of Olympias the mother of Alexander the Great. $210M In addition to the troops which he had brought along with
him he united under his banner the contingents of the
Greek cities, especially those of the Tarentines and Metapontines; the Poediculi (around Rubi, now Ruvo),
who like the Greeks found themselves in danger from the
Sabellian nation; and lastly, even the Lucanian exiles
themselves, whose considerable numbers point to existence of violent internal troubles in that confederacy. Thus he soon found himself superior to the enemy.
VOL I
the
3°
466 STRUGGLE OF THE ITALIANS I00: 1!
Consentia (Cosenza), which seems to have been the federal headquarters of the Sabellians settled in Magna Graecia, fell into his hands. In vain the Samnites came to the help of the Lucanians ; Alexander defeated their combined forces near Paestum. He subdued the Daunians around Sipontum, and the Messapians in the south-eastem penin sula; he already commanded from sea to sea, and was on the point of arranging with the Romans a joint attack on the Samnites in their native abodes. But successes so unexpected went beyond the desires of the Tarentine merchants, and filled them with alarm. War broke out between them and their captain, who had come amongst them a hired mercenary and now appeared desirous to found a Hellenic empire in the west like his nephew in the east. Alexander had at first the advantage ; he wrested
Heraclea from the Tarentines, restored Thurii, and seems to have called upon the other Italian Greeks to unite under his protection against the Tarentines, while he at the same time tried to bring about a peace between them and the Sabellian tribes. But his grand projects found only feeble support among the degenerate and desponding Greeks, and the forced change of sides alienated from him his former Lucanian adherents: he fell at Pandosia by the
882. hand of a Lucanian emigrant (422). 1 On his death matters substantially reverted to their old position. The Greek cities found themselves once more isolated and once more left to protect themselves as best they might by treaty or payment of tribute, or even by extraneous aid;
I24. Croton for instance repulsed the Bruttii about 430 with the help of the Syracusans. The Samnite tribes acquire
1 It may not be superfluous to mention that our knowledge Archidamus and Alexander is derived from Greek annals, and that the synchronism between these and the Roman is in reference to the present epoch only approximately established. We must beware, therefore. of pursuing too far into detail the unmistakable general connection between the events in the west and those in the east of Italy.
can. vr AGAINST ROME
457
renewed ascendency, and were able, without troubling themselves about the Greeks, once more to direct their
‘
had occurred. The Latin confederacy was broken and shattered, the last resistance of the Volsci was overcome, the province of Campania, the richest and finest in the peninsula, was in the undisputed and well-secured possession of the Romans, and the second city of Italy was a depend ency of Rome. While the Greeks and Samnites were
with each other, Rome had almost without a contest raised herself to a position of power which no single people in the peninsula possessed the means of shaking, and which threatened to render all of them subject to her yoke A joint exertion on the part of the peoples who were not severally a match for Rome might perhaps still burst the chains, ere they became fastened completely. But the clearness of perception, the courage, the self-sacrifice required for such a coalition of numerous peoples and cities that had hitherto been for the most part foes or at any rate strangers to each other, were not to be found at all, or were found only when it was already too late.
After the fall of the Etruscan power and the weakening Coalition
of the Greek republics, the Samnite confederacy was ofthe Italians
beyond doubt, next to Rome, the most considerable power against
eyes towards Campania and Latium.
But there during the brief interval a prodigious change
contending
in Italy, and at the same time that which was most closely and immediately endangered by Roman encroachments. To its lot therefore fell the foremost place and the heaviest burden in the struggle for freedom and nationality which the Italians had to wage against Rome. It might reckon upon the assistance of the small Sabellian tribes, the Vestini, Frentani, Marrucini, and other smaller cantons, who dwelt in rustic seclusion amidst their mountains, but were not deaf to the appeal of a kindred stock calling
Rome.
Outbreak of war between Samnium
ing that they understood and performed their duty. Differences had already for several years existed between Rome and Samnium in consequence of the continual aggressions in which the Romans indulged on the Liris,
468
STRUGGLE OF THE ITALIANS BOOK r1
them to take up arms in defence of their common posses sions. The assistance of the Campanian Greeks and those of Magna Graecia (especially the Tarentines), and of the, powerful Lucanians and Bruttians would have been of greater importance ; but the negligence and supineness of the demagogues ruling in Tarentum and the entangle ment of that city in the affairs of Sicily, the internal distractions of the Lucanian confederacy, and above all the deep hostility that had subsisted for centuries between the Greeks of Lower Italy and their Lucanian oppressors, scarcely permitted the hope that Tarentum and Lucania would make common cause with the Samnites. From the Sabines and the Marsi, who were the nearest neighbours of the Romans and had long lived in peaceful relations with Rome,‘ little more could be expected than lukewarm sympathy or neutrality. The Apulians, the ancient and bitter antagonists of the Sabellians, were the natural allies of the Romans. On the other hand it might be expected that the more remote Etruscans would join the league if a first success were gained ; and even a revolt in Latium and the land of the Volsci and Hemici was not impossible.
But the Samnites—the Aetolians of Italy, in whom national vigour still lived unimpaired—had mainly to rely on their own energies for such perseverance in the unequal struggle as would give the other peoples time for a generous sense of shame, for calm deliberation, and for the mustering of their forces; a single success might then kindle the flames of war and insurrection all around Rome.
History cannot but do the noble people the justice of acknowledg
and Rome. and of which the founding of Fregellae in 426 was the
328.
latest and most important. But it was the Greeks of
CHAP- VI AGAINST ROME
469
Campania that gave occasion to the outbreak of the con
test. After Cumae and Capua had become Roman, nothing Paclfica so naturally suggested itself to the Romans as the subjuga tion of tion of the Greek city Neapolis, which ruled also over the Campania. Greek islands in the bay—the only town not yet reduced
to subjection within the field of the Roman power. The Tarentines and Samnites, informed of the scheme of the
Romans to obtain possession of the town, resolved to an
ticipate them; and while the Tarentines were too remiss
perhaps rather than too distant for the execution of this
plan, the Samnites actually threw into it a strong garrison.
The Romans immediately declared war nominally against
the Neapolitans, really against the Samnites (427), and 327. began the siege of Neapolis. After it had lasted a while, the Campanian Greeks became weary of the dis turbance of their commerce and of the foreign garrison;
and the Romans, whose whole efforts were directed to keep states of the second and third rank by means of separate treaties aloof from the coalition which was about ‘to be formed, hastened, as soon as the Greeks consented to negotiate, to offer them the most favourable terms-full equality of rights and exemption from land service, equal alliance and perpetual peace. Upon these conditions,
after the Neapolitans had rid themselves of the garrison by stratagem, a treaty was concluded (428).
826. The Sabellian towns to the south of the Volturnus, Nola, Nuceria, Herculaneum, and Pompeii, took part with Samnium in the beginning of the war; but their greatly
exposed situation and the machinations of the Romans who endeavoured to bring over to their side the optimate party in these towns by all the levers of artifice and self interest, and found a powerful support to their endeavours in the precedent of Capua—induced these towns to declare themselves either in favour of Rome or neutral not long after the fall of Neapolis.
Alliance
Egg:
mans and humans‘
A still more important success befell the Romans in Lucania. There also the people with true instinct was in favour of joining the Samnites; but, as an alliance with the Samnites involved peace with Tarentum and a large portion of the governing lords of Lucania were not disposed to
suspend their profitable pillaging expeditions, the Romans succeeded in concluding an alliance with Lucania—an alliance which was invaluable, because it provided employ ment for the Tarentines and thus left the whole power of Rome available against Samnium.
War in sammum'
410
STRUGGLE OF THE ITALIANS BOOK [1
Thus Samnium stood on all sides unsupported; except ing that some of the eastern mountain districts sent their 826. contingents. In the year 428 the war began within the
Samnite land itself: some towns on the Campanian frontier, Rufrae (between Venafrum and Teanum) and Allifae, were occupied by the Romans. In the following years the Roman armies penetrated Samnium, fighting and pillaging, as far as the territory of the Vestini, and even as far as Apulia, where they were received with open arms; every where they had very decidedly the advantage. The courage of the Samnites was broken; they sent back the Roman prisoners, and along with them the dead body of the leader of the war party, Brutulus Papius, who had an ticipated the Roman executioners, when the Samnite national assembly determined to ask the enemy for peace and to procure for themselves more tolerable terms by the surrender of their bravest general. But when the humble, almost suppliant, request was not listened to by the Roman
822- people (432), the Samnites, under their new general Gavius Pontius, prepared for the utmost and most desperate re sistance. The Roman army, which under the two consuls
821. of the following year (433) Spurius Postumius and Titus Veturius was encamped near Calatia (between Caserta and Maddaloni), received accounts, confirmed by the aflirrnation of numerous captives, that the Samnites had closely invested
can. VI AGAINST ROME
471
Luceria, and that that important town, on which depended The the possession of Apulia, was in great danger. They broke gzgsdine up in haste. If they wished to arrive in good time, no and the other route could be taken than through the midst of the 521i“ enemy’s territory-where afterwards, in continuation of
the Appian Way, the Roman road was constructed from
Capua by way of Beneventum to Apulia. This route led, between the present villages of Arpaja and Montesarchio (Caudium), through a watery meadow, which was wholly enclosed by high and steep wooded hills and was only accessible through deep defiles at the entrance and outlet.
Here the Samnites had posted themselves in ambush. The Romans, who had entered the valley unopposed, found its
outlet obstructed by abattis and strongly occupied; on marching back they saw that the entrance was similarly
closed, while at the same time the crests of the surrounding mountains were crowned by Samnite cohorts. They per
ceived, when it was too late, that they had suffered them
selves to be misled by a stratagem, and that the Samnites awaited them, not at Luceria, but in the fatal pass of Caudium. They fought, but without hope of success and without earnest aim; the Roman army was totally unable
to manoeuvre and was completely vanquished without a
The Roman generals offered to capitulate. It is only a foolish rhetoric that represents the Samnite general as shut up tothe simple alternatives of disbanding or of
the Roman army; he could not have done better than accept the offered capitulation and make prisoners of the hostile army-the whole force which for the moment the Roman community could bring into action —with both its commanders-in-chief. In that case the way to Campania and Latium would have stood open; and in the then existing state of feeling, when the Volsci and Hernici and the larger portion of the Latins would have received him with open arms, the political existence of
struggle.
slaughtering
472
STRUGGLE OF THE ITALIANS BOOK n
Rome would have been in serious danger. But instead of taking this course and concluding a military convention, Gavius Pontius thought that he could at once terminate the whole quarrel by an equitable peace; whether it was that he shared that foolish longing of the confederates for peace, to which Brutulus Papius had fallen a victim in the previous year, or whether it was that he was unable to prevent the party which was tired of the war from spoiling his unexampled victory. The terms laid down were moderate enough; Rome was to raze the fortresses which she had constructed in defiance of the treaty—Cales and Fregellae-and to renew her equal alliance with Samnium. After the Roman generals had agreed to these terms and had given six hundred hostages chosen from the cavalry for their faithful execution—besides pledging their own word and that of all their staff-oflicers on oath to the same effect —the Roman army was dismissed uninjured, but disgraced; for the Samnite army, drunk with victory, could not resist the desire to subject their hated enemies to the disgraceful formality of laying down their arms and passing under the yoke.
But the Roman senate, regardless of the oath of their officers and of the fate of the hostages, cancelled the agree ment, and contented themselves with surrendering to the enemy those who had concluded it as personally responsible for its fulfilment Impartial history can attach little im portance to the question whether in so doing the casuistry of Roman advocates and priests kept the letter of the law, or whether the decree of the Roman senate violated it ; under a human and political point of view no blame in this matter rests upon the Romans. It was a question of com parative indifference whether, according to the formal state law of the Romans, the general in command was or was not entitled to conclude peace without reserving its ratifica tion by the burgesses. According to the spirit and practice
CHAP- V! AGAINST ROME
473
of the constitution it was quite an established principle that in Rome every state-agreement, not purely military, pertained to the province of the civil authorities, and a general who concluded peace without the instructions of the senate and the burgesses exceeded his powers. It was a greater error on the part of the Samnite general to give the Roman generals the choice between saving their army and exceeding their powers, than it was on the part of the latter that they had not the magnanimity absolutely to repel such a suggestion ; and it was right and necessary that the Roman senate should reject such an agreement. A great nation does not surrender what it possesses except under the pressure of extreme necessity: all treaties making con cessions are acknowledgments of such a necessity, not moral obligations. If every people justly reckons it a point of honour to tear to pieces by force of arms treaties that are disgraceful, how could honour enjoin a patient ad herence to a convention like the Caudine to which an unfortunate general was morally compelled, while the sting of the recent disgrace was keenly felt and the vigour of the nation subsisted unimpaired?
Thus the convention of Caudium did not produce the rest which the enthusiasts for peace in Samnium had foolishly expected from but only led to war after war with exasperation aggravated on either side by the oppor tunity forfeited, by the breach of a solemn engagement, by military honour disgraced, and comrades that had been abandoned. The Roman officers given up were not received by the Samnites, partly because they were too magnanimous to wreak their vengeance on those unfor tunates, partly because they would thereby have admitted the Roman plea that the agreement bound only those who swore to not the Roman state. Magnanimously they spared even the hostages whose lives had been forfeited by the rules of war, and preferred to resort at once to arms.
Victory of the Romans.
it,
it, by
474
STRUGGLE OF THE ITALIANS BOOK II
Luceria was occupied by them and Fregellae surprised and 320. taken by assault (434) before the Romans had reorganized their broken army; the passing of the Satricans1 over to the Samnites shows what they might have accomplished, had they not allowed their advantage to slip through their hands. But Rome was only momentarily paralyzed, not
weakened; full of shame and indignation the Romans raised all the men and means they could, and placed the highly experienced Lucius Papirius Cursor, equally distin guished as a soldier and as a general, at the head of the newly formed army. The army divided; the one-half marched by Sabina and the Adriatic coast to appear before Luceria, the other proceeded to the same destination through Samnium itself, successfully engaging and driving before it the Samnite army. They formed a junction again under the walls of Luceria, the siege of which was prosecuted with the greater zeal, because the Roman quites lay in captivity there; the Apulians, particularly the Arpani, lent the Romans important assistance in the siege,
especially by procuring supplies. After the Samnites had
given battle for the relief of the town and been defeated, 819. Luceria surrendered to the Romans (435). Papirius enjoyed the double satisfaction of liberating his comrades who had been given up for lost, and of requiting the yoke of Caudium on the Samnite garrison of Luceria. In the
819-817. next years (435-437) the war was carried on2 not so much in Samnium itself as in the adjoining districts In the first place the Romans chastised the allies of the Samnites in the Apulian and Frentanian territories, and concluded new conventions with the Teanenses of Apulia and the Canusini. At the same time Satricum was again reduced
1 These were not the inhabitants of Satricum near Antium (p. 446), but those of another Volscian town constituted at that time as a Roman burgess-community without right of voting, near Arpinum.
' That a formal armistice for two years subsisted between the Roman; ‘18-817. and Samnite in 436-437 is more than improbable.
cunr. vi AGAINST ROME
475
to subjection and severely punished for its revolt. Then the war turned to Campania, where the Romans conquered the frontier town towards Samnium, Saticula (perhaps S.
Agata de’ Goti) (438). But now the fortune of war seemed 310. disposed once more to turn against them. The Samnites gained over the Nucerians (438), and soon afterwards 316. the Nolans, to their side; on the upper Liris the Sorani
of themselves expelled the Roman garrison (439); the 815. Ausonians were preparing to rise, and threatened the important Cales; even in Capua the party opposed to Rome was vigorously stirring. A Samnite army advanced
into Campania and encamped before the city, in the hope
that its vicinity might place the national party in the ascendant (440). But Sora was immediately attacked by 814. the Romans and recaptured after the defeat of a Samnite relieving force (440). The movements among the 314. Ausonians were suppressed with cruel rigour ere the insurrection fairly broke out, and at the same time a special dictator was nominated to institute and decide political processes against the leaders of the Samnite party
in Capua, so that the most illustrious of them died a voluntary death to escape from the Roman executioner
The Samnite army before Capua was defeated and 314. compelled to retreat from Campania ; the Romans, follow
ing close at the heels of the enemy, crossed the Matese
and encamped in the winter of 440 before Bovianum, the 314. capital of Samnium. Nola was abandoned by its allies;
and the Romans had the Sagacity to detach the town for
ever from the Samnite party by a very favourable con vention, similar to that concluded with Neapolis (441). 313. Fregellae, which after the catastrophe of Caudium had fallen into the hands of the party adverse to Rome and
had been their chief stronghold in the district on the Liris, finally fell in the eighth year after its occupation by the Samnites (441); two hundred of the citizens, the chief 818
(440).
476
STRUGGLE OF THE ITALIANS I00! 11
members of the national party, were conveyed to Rome, and there openly beheaded in the Forum as an example and a warning to the patriots who were everywhere bestirring themselves.
Apulia and Campania were thus in the hands of the Romans. In order finally to secure and permanently to
New for
trvsses in
Apulia and
Campania. command the conquered territory, several new fortresses
314-312. were founded in it during the years 440-442 : Luceria in Apulia, to which on account of its isolated and exposed situation half a legion was sent as a permanent garrison; Pontiae (the Ponza islands) for the securing of the Campanian waters; Saticula on the Campano-Samnite frontier, as a bulwark against Samnium; and lastly Interamna (near Monte Cassino) and Suessa Aurunca
on the road from Rome to Capua. Garrisons moreover were sent to Caiatia (Cajazzo), Sora, and other stations of military importance. The great military road from Rome to Capua, which with the necessary embank ment for it across the Pomptine marshes the censor Appius
812. Claudius caused to be constructed in 442, completed the securing of Campania. The designs of the Romans were more and more fully developed; their object was the subjugation of Italy, which was enveloped more closely from year to year in a network of Roman fortresses and roads. The Samnites were already on both sides surrounded by the Roman meshes; already the line from Rome to Luceria severed north and south Italy from each other, as the fortresses of Norba and Signia had formerly severed the Volsci and Aequi ; and Rome now rested on the Arpani, as it formerly rested on the Hernici. The Italians could not but see that the freedom of all of them was gone if Samnium succumbed, and that it was
(Sessa)
high time at length to hasten with all their might to the help of
the brave mountain people which had now for fifteen years singly sustained the unequal struggle with the Romans.
CHAP- vl AGAINST ROME
477
The most natural allies of the Samnites would have Imm
been the Tarentines; but it was part of that fatality that hung over Samnium and over Italy in general, that at this moment so fraught with the destinies of the future the decision lay in the hands of these Athenians of Italy. Since the constitution of Tarentum, which was originally after the old Doric fashion strictly aristocratic, had become changed to a complete democracy, a life of singular activity
had sprung up in that city, which was inhabited chiefly by mariners, fishermen, and artisans The sentiments and conduct of the population, more wealthy than noble, dis carded all earnestness amidst the giddy hustle and witty brilliance of their daily life, and oscillated between the grandest boldness of enterprise and elevation of spirit on the one band, and a shameful frivolity and childish whim on the other. It may not be out of place, in connection with a crisis wherein the existence or destruction of nations of noble gifts and ancient renown was at stake, to mention
$22835“. time.
that Plato, who came to Tarentum some sixty years before
this time, according to his own statement saw the whole 889. city drunk at the Dionysia, and that the burlesque farce,
or “merry tragedy” as it was called, was created in Tarentum about the very time of the great Samnite war.
This licentious life and buffoon poetry of the Tarentine
fashionables and literati had a fitting counterpart in the inconstant, arrogant, and short-sighted policy of the Tarentine demagogues, who regularly meddled in matters with which they had nothing to do, and kept aloof where their immediate interests called for action. After the Caudine catastrophe, when the Romans and Samnites stood opposed in Apulia, they had sent envoys thither to
both parties to lay down their arms (434). This 320, diplomatic intervention in the decisive struggle of the Italians could not rationally have any other meaning than
that of an announcement that Tarentum had at length
enjoin
478 STRUGGLE OF THE ITALIANS 500! n
resolved to abandon the neutrality which it had hitherto maintained. It had in fact suflicient reason to do so. It was no doubt a diflicult and dangerous thing for Tarentum to be entangled in such a war; for the democratic develop ment of the state had directed its energies entirely to the fleet, and while that fleet, resting upon the strong com mercial marine of Tarentum, held the first rank among the maritime powers of Magna Graecia, the land force, on which they were in the present case dependent, consisted mainly of hired soldiers and was sadly disorganized. Under these circumstances it was no light undertaking for the Tarentine republic to take part in the conflict between Rome and Samnium, even apart from the-at least trouble some-—feud in which Roman policy had contrived to in volve them with the Lucanians. But these obstacles might be surmounted by an energetic will; and both the con tending parties construed the summons of the Tarentine envoys that they should desist from the strife as meant in earnest. The Samnites, as the weaker, showed themselves ready to comply with it; the Romans replied by hoisting the signal for battle. Reason and honour dictated to the Tarentines the propriety of now following up the haughty injunction of their envoys by a declaration of war against Rome; but in Tarentum neither reason nor honour characterized the government, and they had simply been trifling in a very childish fashion with very serious matters. No declaration of war against Rome took place; in its stead they preferred to support the oligarchical party in the Sicilian towns against Agathocles of Syracuse who had at a former period been in the Tarentine service and had been dismissed in disgrace, and following the example of Sparta, they sent a fleet to the island-a fleet which would
‘14. have rendered better service in the Campanian seas (440). The peoples of northern and central Italy, who seem to have been roused especially by the establishment of the
CHAP- v1 AGAINST ROME
479
fortress of Luceria, acted with more energy. The Accession Etruscans first drew the sword (443), the armistice of “a”
' Etrusmns having already expired some years before. The to the
403
Roman frontier-fortress of Sutrium had to sustain a two gifilfmg'm‘
years’ siege, and in the vehement conflicts which took place under its walls the Romans as a rule were worsted,
till the consul of the year 444 Quintus Fabius Rullianus, 810. a leader who had gained experience in the Samnite wars,
not only restored the ascendency of the Roman arms in Roman Etruria, but boldly penetrated into the land of the Etruscans proper, which had hitherto from diversity of language and scanty means of communication remained almost unknown to the Romans.