The History of Rome, Book II - Theodor Mommsen
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16. II. IV. South Etruria Roman
17. II. V. League with the Hernici
18. 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 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.
19. 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. Mull.). The well-known derivation is doubtless
an invention.
20. 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
411, 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 completely 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 (412), 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 foe in opposition to orders from headquarters,
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
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 the Antiates waging war after the surrender of 377 (Liv.
vi. 33); the independent campaign of the Latins against the Paeligni,
in distinct contradiction 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 military insurrection of 412, and the story of
its forced leader, the lame Titus Quinctius, the Roman Gotz von
Berlichingen. Still more suspicious 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 425, which second conquest
alone is registered in the triumphal Fasti; such is the self-immolation
of Publius Decius, repeated, as is well known, 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
probably apocryphal, in Liv. i. 52, regarding the maniples of Romans
and Latins intermingled formed by the second Tarquin, is evidently a
second fragment, the erroneous view given of the treaty between Capua
and Rome (see my Rom. Munzwesen, p. 334, n. 122); the formularies of
self-devotion, the Campanian -denarius-, the Laurentine alliance,
and the -bina jugera- 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 concluded
with the death of Decius.
21. II. V. Isolation of the Later Latin Cities as Respected Private
Rights
22. II. V. Crises within the Romano-Latin League
23. II. IV. South Etruria Roman
CHAPTER VI
Struggle of the Italians against Rome
Wars between the Sabellians and Tarentines--
Archidamus--
Alexander the Molossian--
While the Romans were fighting on the Liris and Volturnus, other
conflicts agitated the south-east of the peninsula. The wealthy
merchant-republic of Tarentum, daily exposed to more serious peril
from the Lucanian and Messapian bands and justly distrusting its own
sword, gained by good words and better coin the help of -condottieri-
from the mother-country. The Spartan king, Archidamus, who with
a strong band had come to the assistance of his fellow-Dorians,
succumbed to the Lucanians on the same day on which Philip conquered
at Chaeronea (416); a 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, brother of Olympias the
mother of Alexander the Great. 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 the
existence of violent internal troubles in that confederacy. Thus he
soon found himself superior to the enemy. 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-eastern peninsula; 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 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; Croton for instance repulsed the Bruttii
about 430 with the help of the Syracusans. The Samnite tribes acquire
renewed ascendency, and were able, without troubling themselves
about the Greeks, once more to direct their eyes towards Campania
and Latium.
But there during the brief interval a prodigious change had occurred.
The Latin confederacy was broken and scattered, 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
dependency of Rome. While the Greeks and Samnites were contending
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.
Coalition of the Italians against Rome
After the fall of the Etruscan power and the weakening of the Greek
republics, the Samnite confederacy was beyond doubt, next to Rome, the
most considerable power 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 them to take
up arms in defence of their common possessions. 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 entanglement 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 Hernici 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 acknowledging
that they understood and performed their duty.
Outbreak of War between Samnium and Rome--
Pacification of Campania
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, and of which the founding of Fregellae
in 426 was the latest and most important. But it was the Greeks of
Campania that gave occasion to the outbreak of the contest. After
Cumae and Capua had become Roman, nothing so naturally suggested
itself to the Romans as the subjugation of the Greek city Neapolis,
which ruled also over the 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 anticipate 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 began the siege
of Neapolis. After it had lasted a while, the Campanian Greeks
became weary of the disturbance 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).
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 between the Romans and Lucanians
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 employment for the
Tarentines and thus left the whole power of Rome available
against Samnium.
War in Samnium--
The Caudine Pass and the Caudine Peace
Thus Samnium stood on all sides unsupported; excepting that some of
the eastern mountain districts sent their 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; everywhere 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 anticipated 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 people (432),
the Samnites, under their new general Gavius Pontius, prepared for the
utmost and most desperate resistance. The Roman army, which under the
two consuls of the following year (433) Spurius Postumius and Titus
Veturius was encamped near Calatia (between Caserta and Maddaloni),
received accounts, confirmed by the affirmation of numerous captives,
that the Samnites had closely invested Luceria, and that that
important town, on which depended the possession of Apulia, was
in great danger. They broke up in haste. If they wished to arrive in
good time, no other route could be taken than through the midst of the
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 perceived, when it was too
late, that they had suffered themselves 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 struggle. The Roman generals offered
to capitulate. It is only a foolish rhetoric that represents the
Samnite general as shut up to the simple alternatives of disbanding or
of slaughtering 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 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-officers 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 agreement, and contented
themselves with surrendering to the enemy those who had concluded it
as personally responsible for its fulfilment. Impartial history can
attach little importance 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 comparative 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 ratification by the burgesses. According to the spirit and
practice 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 concessions 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 adherence 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?
Victory of the Romans
Thus the convention of Caudium did not produce the rest which the
enthusiasts for peace in Samnium had foolishly expected from it, but
only led to war after war with exasperation aggravated on either side
by the opportunity forfeited, by the breach of a solemn engagement,
by military honour disgraced, and by 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
unfortunates, partly because they would thereby have admitted the
Roman plea that the agreement bound only those who swore to it, 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.
Luceria was occupied by them and Fregellae surprised and taken by
assault (434) before the Romans had reorganized their broken army;
the passing of the Satricans(2) 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 distinguished 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 equites 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, 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 next years (435-437)
the war was carried on(3) 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 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 disposed once more to turn against them.
The Samnites gained over the Nucerians (438), and soon afterwards
the Nolans, to their side; on the upper Liris the Sorani of themselves
expelled the Roman garrison (439); the 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 the Romans and recaptured after the defeat
of a Samnite relieving force (440). The movements among the 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 (440).
The Samnite army before Capua was defeated and compelled to retreat
from Campania; the Romans, following close at the heels of the enemy,
crossed the Matese and encamped in the winter of 440 before Bovianum,
the: 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 convention, similar to that concluded with
Neapolis (441). 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 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.