History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

On the southern coast, among the Greek towns devoted to commerce, Tarentum passed for the most powerful; but these colonies, already in decline, were obliged to have recourse to mercenary troops, to resist the native inhabitants. They disputed with the Samnites and the Romans the preponderance over the people of Magna Græcia. The Samnites, indeed, a manly and independent race, aimed at seizing the whole of Southern Italy; their cities formed a confederacy, redoubtable on account of its close union in time of war. The mountain tribes gave themselves up to brigandage, and it is worthy of attention that recent events show that in our days manners have not much changed in that country. The Samnites had amassed considerable riches; their arms displayed excessive extravagance, and, if we believe Cæsar,[163 - Speech of Cæsar to the Senate, reported by Sallust. (Conspiracy of Catilina, li.)] they served as models for those of the Romans.

A jealous rivalry had long prevailed between the Romans and the Samnites. The moment these two peoples found themselves in presence of each other, it was evident that they would be at war; the struggle was long and terrible, and, during the fifth century, it was round Samnium that they disputed the empire of Italy. The position of the Samnites was very advantageous. Entrenched in their mountains, they could, at their will, either descend into the valley of the Liris, thence reach the country of the Aurunci, always ready to revolt, and cut off the communications of Rome with Campania; or follow the course of the upper Liris into the country of the Marsi, raise these latter, and hold out the hand to the Etruscans, turning Rome; or, lastly, penetrate into Campania by the valley of the Vulturnus, and fall upon the Sidicini, whose territory they coveted.

In the midst of so many hostile peoples, for a little state to succeed in raising itself above the others, and in subjugating them, it must have possessed peculiar elements of superiority. The peoples who surrounded Rome, warlike and proud of their independence, had neither the same unity, nor the same incentives to action, nor the same powerful aristocratic organisation, nor the same blind confidence in their destinies. They displayed more selfishness than ambition. When they fought, it was much more to increase their riches by pillage than to augment the number of their subjects. Rome triumphed, because alone, in prospect of a future, she made war not to destroy, but to conserve, and, after the material conquest, always set herself to accomplish the moral conquest of the vanquished.

During four hundred years her institutions had formed a race animated with the love of country and with the sentiment of duty; but, in their turn, the men, incessantly re-tempered in intestine struggles, had successively introduced manners and traditions stronger even than the institutions themselves. During three centuries, in fact, Rome presented, in spite of the annual renewal of powers, such a perseverance in the same policy, such a practice of the same virtues, that it might have been supposed that the government had but a single head, a single thought, and one might have believed that all its generals were great warriors, all its senators experienced statesmen, and all its citizens valiant soldiers.

The geographical position of Rome contributed no less to the rapid increase of its power. Situated in the middle of the only great fertile plain of Latium, on the banks of the only important river of Central Italy, which united it with the sea, it could be at the same time agricultural and maritime, conditions then indispensable for the capital of a new empire. The rich countries which bordered the coasts of the Mediterranean were sure to fall easily under her dominion; and as for the countries which surrounded her, it was possible to become mistress of them by occupying gradually the openings from all the valleys. The town of the seven hills, favoured by her natural situation as well as by her political constitution, carried thus in herself the germs of her future greatness.

Treatment of the Vanquished Peoples.

III. From the commencement of the fifth century Rome prepares with energy to subject and assimilate to herself the peoples who dwelt from the Rubicon to the Strait of Messina. Nothing will prevent her from surmounting all obstacles, neither the coalition of her neighbours conspiring against her, nor the new incursions of the Gauls, nor the invasion of Pyrrhus. She will know how to raise herself from her partial defeats, and establish the unity of Italy, not by subduing at once all these peoples to the same laws and the same rule, but by causing them to enter, by little and little and in different degrees, into the great Roman family. “Of one city she makes her ally; on another she confers the honour of living under the Quiritary law, to this one with the right of suffrage, to that with the permission to retain its own government. Municipia of different degrees, maritime colonies, Latin colonies, Roman colonies, prefectures, allied towns, free towns, all isolated by the difference of their condition, all united by their equal dependence on the Senate, they will form, as it were, a vast network which will entangle the Italian peoples, until the day when, without new struggles, they will awake subjects of Rome.”[164 - This paragraph, expressing with great clearness the policy of the Roman Senate, is extracted from the excellent Hist. Romaine of M. Duruy, t. I., c. xi.]

Let us examine the conditions of these various categories:

The right of city, in its plenitude (jus civitatis optimo jure), comprised the political privileges peculiar to the Romans, and assured for civil life certain advantages, of which the concession might be made separately and by degrees. First came the commercium, that is, the right of possessing and transmitting according to the Roman law; next the connubium, or the right of contracting marriage with the advantages established by Roman legislation.[165 - As, for example, to put the wife in complete obedience to her husband; to give the father absolute authority over his children, etc.] The commercium and connubium united formed the Quiritary law (jus quiritium).

There were three sorts of municipia:[166 - In the origin, the municipia were the allied towns preserving their autonomy, but engaging to render to Rome certain services (munus); whence the name of municipia. (Aulus Gellius, XVI. 13.)] first, the municipia of which the inhabitants, inscribed in the tribes, exercised all the rights and were subjected to all the obligations of the Roman citizens; secondly, the municipia sine suffragio, the inhabitants of which enjoyed in totality or in part the Quiritary law, and might obtain the complete right of Roman citizens on certain conditions;[167 - To be able to enjoy the right of city, it was necessary to be domiciliated at Rome, to have left a son in his majority in the municipium, or to have exercised there a magistracy.] it is what constituted the jus Latii; these first two categories preserved their autonomy and their magistrates; third, the towns which had lost all independence in exchange for the civil laws of Rome, but without enjoyment, for the inhabitants, of the most important political rights; it was the law of the Cærites, because Cære was the first town which had been thus treated.[168 - Aul. Gellius, XVI. xiii. – Paulus Diaconus, on the word Municipium, p. 127.]

Below the municipia, which had their own magistrates, came, in this social hierarchy, the prefectures,[169 - In this category were sometimes found municipia of the third degree, such as Cære. (See Festus, under the word Præfecturæ, p. 233.) – Several of these towns, such as Fundi, Formiæ, and Arpinum, obtained in the sequel the right of suffrage; they continued, however, by an ancient usage, to be called by the name of præfecturæ, which was also applied by abuse to the colonies.] so called because a prefect was sent there every year to administer justice.

The dediticii were still worse treated. Delivered by victory to the discretion of the Senate, they had been obliged to surrender their arms and give hostages, to throw down their walls or receive a garrison within them, to pay a tax, and to furnish a determinate contingent. With the exclusion of these last, the towns which had not obtained for their inhabitants the complete rights of Roman citizens belonged to the class of allies (fœderati socii). Their condition differed according to the nature of their engagements. Simple treaties of friendship,[170 - Socius et amicus (Titus Livius, XXXI. 11). – Compare Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 95; X. 21.] or of commerce,[171 - With Carthage, for example. (Polybius, III. 22. – Titus Livius, VII. 27; IX. 19, 43.)] or of offensive alliance, or offensive and defensive,[172 - Thus with the Latins. “Ut eosdem quos populus Romanus amicos atque hostes habeant.” (Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 8.)] concluded on the footing of equality, were called fœdera æqua. On the contrary, when one of the contracting parties (and it was never the Romans) submitted to onerous obligations from which the other was exempted, these treaties were called fœdera non æqua. They consisted almost always in the cession of a part of the territory of the vanquished, and in the obligation to undertake no war of their own. A certain independence, it is true, was left to them; they received the right of exchange and free establishment in the capital, but they were bound to the interests of Rome by an alliance offensive and defensive. The only clause establishing the preponderance of Rome was conceived in these terms: Majestatem populi Romani comiter conservanto;[173 - Cicero, Oration for Balbus, xvi.] that is, “They shall loyally acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman people.” It is a remarkable circumstance that, dating from the reign of Augustus, the freedmen were divided in categories similar to those which existed for the inhabitants of Italy.[174 - The freedmen were, in fact, either Roman citizens, or Latins, or ranged in the number of the dediticii; slaves who had, while they were in servitude, undergone a grave chastisement, if they arrived at freedom, obtained only the assimilation to the dediticii. If, on the contrary, the slave had undergone no punishment, if he was more than thirty years of age, if, at the same time, he belonged to his master according to the law of the quirites, and if the formalities of manumission or affranchisement exacted by the Roman law had been observed, he was a Roman citizen. He was only Latin if one of these circumstances failed. (Institutes of Gaius, I. § 12, 13, 15, 16, 17.)]

As to the colonies, they were established for the purpose of preserving the possessions acquired, of securing the new frontiers, and of guarding the important passes; and even for the sake of getting rid of the turbulent class.[175 - “Valerius sent upon the lands conquered from the Volsci a colony of a certain number of citizens chosen from among the poor, both to serve as a garrison against the enemies, and to diminish at Rome the party of the seditious.” (Year of Rome 260.) (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 43.) – This great number of colonies, by clearing the population of Rome of a multitude of indigent citizens, had maintained tranquillity (452). (Titus Livius, X. 6.)] They were of two sorts: the Roman colonies and the Latin colonies. The former differed little from the municipia of the first degree, the others from the municipia of the second degree. The first were formed of Roman citizens, taken with their families from the classes subjected to military service, and even, in their origin, solely among the patricians. The coloni preserved the privileges attached to the title of citizen,[176 - Modern authors are not agreed on this point, which would require a long discussion; but we may consider the question as solved in the sense of our text by Madvig, Opuscula, I. pp. 244-254.] and were bound by the same obligations, and the interior administration of the colony was an image of that of Rome.[177 - “There the people (populus) named their magistrates; the duumviri performed the functions of consuls or prætors, whose title they sometimes took (Corpus Inscriptionum Latin., passim); the quinquennales corresponded to the censors. Finally, there were questors and ediles. The Senate, as at Rome, was composed of members, elected for life, to the number of a hundred; the number was filled up every five years (lectio senatus).” (Tabula Heracleensis, cap. x. et seq.)]

The Latin colonies differed from the others in having been founded by the confederacy of the Latins on different points of Latium. Emanating from a league of independent cities, they were not, like the Roman colonies, tied by close bonds to the metropolis.[178 - A certain number of colonies figure in the list given by Dionysius of Halicarnassus of the members of the confederacy (V. 61).] But the confederacy once dissolved, these colonies were placed in the rank of allied towns (socii Latini). The act (formula) which instituted them was a sort of treaty guaranteeing their franchise.[179 - Pliny, Natural History, III. iv. § 7.]

Peopled at first by Latins, it was not long before these colonies received Roman citizens who were induced by their poverty to exchange their title and rights for the advantages assured to the colonists. These did not figure on the lists of the censors. The formula fixed simply the tribute to pay and the number of soldiers to furnish. What the colony lost in privileges it gained in independence.[180 - Because it named its magistrates, struck money (Mommsen, Münzwesen, p. 317), privileges refused to the Roman colonies, and preserved its own peculiar laws according to the principle: “Nulla populi Romani lege adstricti, nisi in quam populus eorum fundus factus est.” (Aulus Gellius, XVI. xiii. 6. – Compare Cicero, Oration for Balbus, viii. 21.)]

The isolation of the Latin colonies, placed in the middle of the enemy’s territory, obliged them to remain faithful to Rome, and to keep watch on the neighbouring peoples. Their military importance was at least equal to that of the Roman colonies; they merited as well as these latter the name of propugnacula imperii and of specula,[181 - Cicero, Oration on the Agrarian Law, ii. 27.] that is, bulwarks and watch-towers of the conquest. In a political point of view they rendered services of a similar kind. If the Roman colonies announced to the conquered people the majesty of the Roman name, their Latin sisters gave an ever-increasing extension to the nomen Latinum,[182 - Titus Livius, XXVII. 9.] that is, to the language, manners, and whole civilisation of that race of which Rome was but the first representative. The Latin colonies were ordinarily founded to economise the colonies of Roman citizens, which were charged principally with the defence of the coasts and the maintenance of commercial relations with foreign people.

In making the privileges of the Roman citizen an advantage which every one was happy and proud to acquire, the Senate held out a bait to all ambitions; and this general desire, not to destroy the privilege, but to gain a place among the privileged, is a characteristic trait of the manners of antiquity. In the city not less than in the State, the insurgents or discontented did not seek, as in our modern societies, to overthrow, but to attain to. So every one, according to his position, aspired to a legitimate object: the plebeians to enter into the aristocracy, not to destroy it; the Italic peoples, to have a part in the sovereignty of Rome, not to contest it; the Roman provinces to be declared allies and friends of Rome, and not to recover their independence.

The peoples could judge, according to their conduct, what lot was reserved for them. The paltry interests of city were replaced by an effectual protection, and by new rights often more precious, in the eyes of the vanquished, than independence itself. This explains the facility with which the Roman domination was established. In fact, that only is destroyed entirely which may be replaced advantageously.

A rapid glance at the wars which effected the conquest of Italy will show how the Senate made application of the principles stated above; how it was skilful in profiting by the divisions of its adversaries, in collecting its whole strength to overwhelm one of them; after the victory in making it an ally; in using the aims and resources of that ally to subjugate another people; in crushing the confederacies which united the vanquished against it; in attaching them to Rome by new bonds; in establishing military posts on all the points of strategic importance; and, lastly, in spreading everywhere the Latin race by distributing to Roman citizens a part of the lands taken from the enemy.

But, before entering upon the recital of events, we must cast a glance upon the years which immediately preceded the pacification of Latium.

Submission of Latium after the first Samnite War.

IV. During a hundred and sixty-seven years, Rome had been satisfied with struggling against her neighbours to re-conquer a supremacy lost since the fall of her kings. She held herself almost always on the defensive; but, with the fifth century, she took the offensive, and inaugurated the system of conquests continued to the moment when she herself succumbed.

In 411, she had, in concert with the Latins, combated the Samnites for the first time, and commenced against that redoubtable people a struggle which lasted seventy-two years, and which brought twenty-four triumphs to the Roman generals.[183 - Florus, I. 16.] Proud of having contributed to the two great victories of Mount Gaurus and Suessula, the Latins, with an exaggerated belief in their own strength and a pretension to equality with Rome, went so far as to require that one of the two consuls, and half of the senators, should be chosen from their nation. War was immediately declared. The Senate was willing enough to have allies and subjects, but it could not suffer equals; it accepted without scruple the services of those who had just been enemies, and the Romans, united with the Samnites, the Hernici, and the Sabellian peoples, were seen in the fields of the Veseris and Trifanum, fighting against the Latins and Volsci. Latium once reduced, it remained to determine the lot of the vanquished. Livy reports a speech of Camillus which explains clearly the policy recommended by that great citizen. “Will you,” he exclaims, addressing the members of the assembly, “use the utmost rigour of the rights of victory? You are masters to destroy all Latium, and to make a vast desert of it, after having often drawn from it powerful succours. Will you, on the contrary, after the example of your fathers, augment the resources of Rome? Admit the vanquished among the number of your citizens; it is a fruitful means of increasing at the same time your power and your glory.”[184 - Titus Livius, VIII. 13, 14.] This last counsel prevailed.

The first step was to break the bonds which made of the Latin people a sort of confederacy. All political communalty, all war on their own account, all rights of commercium and connubium, between the different cities, were taken from them.[185 - Titus Livius, VIII. 14. These towns had the right of city without suffrage; of this number were Capua (in consideration of its knights, who had refused to take part in the revolt), Cumæ, Fundi, and Formiæ.]

The towns nearest Rome received the rights of city and suffrage.[186 - Velleius Paterculus, I. 15.] Others received the title of allies and the privilege of preserving their own institutions, but they lost a part of their territory.[187 - Titus Livius, VIII. 14.] As to the Latin colonies founded before in the old country of the Volsci, they formed the nucleus of the Latin allies (socii nominis Latini). Velitræ, alone, having already revolted several times, was treated with great rigour; Antium was compelled to surrender its ships, and become a maritime colony.

These severe, but equitable measures, had pacified Latium; applied to the rest of Italy, and even to foreign countries, they will facilitate everywhere the progress of Roman domination.

The momentary alliance with the Samnites had permitted Rome to reduce the Latins; nevertheless the Senate, without hesitation, turned against the former again as soon as the moment appeared convenient. It concluded, in 422, a treaty with the Gauls and Alexander Molossus, who, having landed near Pæstum, attacked the Lucanians and the Samnites. This King of Epirus, the uncle of Alexander the Great, had been called into Italy by the Tarentines; but his premature death disappointed the hopes to which his co-operation had given rise, and the Samnites recommenced their incursions on the lands of their neighbours. The intervention of Rome put a stop to the war. All the forces of the Republic were employed in reducing the revolt of the Volscian towns of Fundi and Privernum.[188 - Titus Livius, VIII. 14, et seq.– Valerius Maximus, VI. ii. 1.] In 425, Anxur (Terracina) was declared a Roman colony, and, in 426, Fregellæ (Ceprano?), a Latin colony.

The establishment of these fortresses, and of those of Cales and Antium, secured the communications with Campania; the Liris and the Vulturnus became in that direction the principal lines of defence of the Romans. The cities situated on the shores of that magnificent gulf called Crater by the ancients, and in our days the Gulf of Naples, perceived then the dangers which threatened them. They turned their eyes towards the population of the interior, who were no less alarmed for their independence.

Second Samnite War.

V. The fertile countries which bordered the western shore of the peninsula were destined to excite the covetousness of the Romans and the Samnites, and become the prey of the conqueror. “Campania, indeed,” says Florus,[189 - Florus, I. 16.] “is the finest country of Italy, and even of the whole world. There is nothing milder than its climate. Spring flourishes there twice every year. There can be nothing more fertile than its soil. It is called the garden of Ceres and Bacchus. There is not a more hospitable sea than that which bathes its shores.” In 427, the two peoples disputed the possession of it, as they had done in 411. The inhabitants of Palæopolis having attacked the Roman colonists of the ager Campanus, the consuls marched against that place, which soon received succour from the Samnites and the inhabitants of Nola, while Rome formed an alliance with the Apulians and the Lucanians. The siege dragged on, and the necessity of continuing the campaign beyond the ordinary limit led to the prolongation of the command of Publilius Philo with the title of proconsul, which appeared for the first time in the military annals. The Samnites were soon driven from Campania; the Palæopolitans submitted; their town was demolished; but they formed close to it a new establishment, at Naples (Neapolis), where a new treaty guaranteed them an almost absolute independence, on the condition of furnishing a certain number of vessels to Rome. After that, nearly all the Greek towns, reduced one after another, obtained the same favourable conditions, and formed the class of the socii navales.[190 - Titus Livius, VIII. 26; XXI. 49; XXII. 11.]

Yet the war was protracted in the mountains of the Apennine. Tarentum united with the Samnites, the only people who were still to be feared,[191 - “Eam solam gentem restare.” (Titus Livius, VIII. 27.)] and the Lucanians abandoned the alliance of the Romans; but, in 429, the two most celebrated captains of the time, Q. Fabius Rullianus and Papirius Cursor, penetrated into the country of Samnium, and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity for the war and accept a year’s truce.

At this epoch, an unforeseen event, which changed the destinies of the world, came to demonstrate the difference between the rapid creation of a man of genius and the patient work of an intelligent aristocracy. Alexander the Great, after having shone like a meteor, and brought into subjection the most powerful kingdoms of Asia, died at Babylon. His fruitful and decisive influence, which carried the civilization of Greece into the East, survived him, but at his death, the empire he founded became in a few years dismembered (431); the Roman aristocracy, on the contrary, perpetuating itself from age to age, pursued more slowly, but without interruption, the system which, binding again the peoples about a common centre, was destined by little and little to secure her domination over Italy first, and then over the universe.

The defection of a part of the Apulians, in 431, encouraged the Samnites to take arms again; defeated in the following years, they asked for the restoration of friendly relations, but the haughty refusal of Rome led, in 433, to the famous defeat of the Furcæ Caudinæ. The generosity of the Samnite general, Pontus Herennius, who granted their lives to so many thousands of prisoners on condition of restoring to force the old treaties, had no effect upon the Senate. Four legions had passed under the yoke – a circumstance in which the Senate only saw a new affront to revenge. The treaty of Caudium was not ratified, and subterfuges little excusable, although approved at a later period by Cicero,[192 - Cicero, de Officiis, iii. 30.] gave to the refusal an appearance of justice.

Meanwhile the Senate exerted itself vigorously to repair this check, and soon Publilius Philo defeated the enemies in Samnium, and, in Apulia, Papirius, in his turn, caused seven thousand Samnites to pass under the yoke. The vanquished solicited peace, but in vain; they only obtained a truce for two years (436), and it had hardly expired, when, penetrating into the country of the Volsci, as far as the neighbourhood of Terracina, and taking a position at Lautulæ, they defeated a Roman army raised hastily and commanded by Q. Fabius (439). Capua deserted, and Nola, Nuceria, the Aurunci, and the Volsci of the Liris took part openly with the Samnites. The spirit of rebellion spread as far as Præneste. Rome was in danger. The Senate required its utmost energy to restrain populations whose fidelity was always doubtful. Fortune seconded its efforts, and the allies, who had proved traitors, received a cruel chastisement, explained by the terror they had inspired. In 440,[193 - Titus Livius, IX. 24, 28.] not far from Caudium, a numerous army encountered the Samnites, who lost 30,000 men, and were driven back into the Apennine territory. The Roman legions proceeded to encamp before their capital, Bovianum, and there took up their winter quarters.

The year following (441), Rome, less occupied in fighting, profited by this circumstance to seize upon advantageous positions, establishing in Campania and Apulia colonies which surrounded the territory of Samnium. At the same epoch, Appius Claudius transformed into a regular causeway the road which has preserved his name.[194 - Diodorus Siculus, XX. 36. – Titus Livius, IX. 29.] The Romans turned their attention to the defence of the coasts and communication by sea; a colony was sent to the isle of Pontia,[195 - Diodorus Siculus, XIX. 101.] opposite Tarracina, and the armament of a fleet was commenced, which was placed under the command of duumviri navales.[196 - Titus Livius, IX. 31.] The war had lasted fifteen years, and, although Rome had only succeeded in driving back the Samnites into their own territory, she had conquered two provinces, Apulia and Campania.

Third Samnite war. Coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Hernici (443-449).

VI. A struggle so desperate had produced its effect even in Etruria, and the old league was formed again. Inured to war by their daily combats with the Gauls, and emboldened by the reports of the defeat of Lautulæ, the Etruscans believed that the moment had arrived for recovering their ancient territory to the south of the Ciminian forest; they were further encouraged by the attitude of the peoples of Central Italy, who were weary of the continual passing of legions. From 443 to 449, the armies of the Republic were obliged to face different enemies at the same time. In Etruria, Fabius Rullianus relieved Sutrium, a rampart of Rome on the north;[197 - Diodorus Siculus, XX. 35.] he passed through the Ciminian forest, and by the victories of Lake Vadimo (445)[198 - Now Lago di Vadimone or Bagnaccio, situated on the right bank and three miles from the Tiber, between that river and the Lake Ciminius, about the latitude of Narni.] and Perusia compelled all the Etruscan towns to ask for peace. At the same time, an army laid waste the country of the Samnites; and a Roman fleet, composed of vessels furnished by the maritime allies, took the offensive for the first time. Its attempt near Nuceria Alfaterna (Nocera, a town of Campania) was unfortunate.

War next breaks out again in Apulia, Samnium, and Etruria, where the aged Papirius Cursor, named dictator anew, gains a brilliant victory at Langula (445). The year following Fabius penetrates again into Samnium, and the other consul, Decius, maintains Etruria. Suddenly the Umbrians conceive the project of seizing Rome by surprise. The consuls are recalled for the defence of the town. Fabius meets the Etruscans at Mevania (on the confines of Etruria and Umbria), and, the year following, at Allifæ (447). Among the prisoners were some Æqui and Hernici. Their towns, feeling themselves thus compromised, declared open war against the Romans (448). The Samnites recovered courage; but the prompt reduction of the Hernici allowed the Senate to concentrate its forces. Two armies, penetrating into Samnium by way of Apulia and Campania, re-established the old frontiers. Bovianum was taken for the third time, and during six months the country was delivered up to devastation. In vain Tarentum tried to raise new quarrels for the Republic, and to force the Lucanians to embrace the cause of the Samnites. The successes of the Roman arms led to the conclusion of treaties of peace with all the peoples of Southern Italy, constrained thenceforward to acknowledge the majesty of the Roman people. The Æqui remained alone exposed to the wrath of Rome; the Senate did not forget that at Allifæ they had fought in the ranks of the enemy, and, once freed from its more serious embarrassments, it inflicted on this people a terrible chastisement: forty-one places were taken and burnt in fifty days. This period of six years thus terminated with the submission of the Hernici and Æqui.

Five years less agitated left Rome time to regulate the position of its new subjects, and to establish colonies and ways of communication.

The Hernici were treated in the same manner as the Latins, in 416, and deprived of commercium and connubium. Prefects and the law of the Cærites were imposed on Anagnia, Frusino, and other towns guilty of desertion. The cities which had remained faithful preserved their independence and the title of allies (448);[199 - Titus Livius, IX. 43. – Cicero, Oration for Balbus, 13. – Festus, under the word Præfecturæ, p. 233.] the Æqui lost a part of their territory and received the right of city without suffrage (450). The Samnites, sufficiently humiliated, obtained at last the renewal of their ancient conventions (450).[200 - Titus Livius, IX. 45. – Diodorus Siculus, XX. 101.]Fœdera non æqua were concluded with the Marsi, the Peligni, the Marrucini, the Frentani (450), the Vestini (452), and the Picentini (455).[201 - Titus Livius, IX. 45; X. 3, 10.] Rome treated with Tarentum on a footing of equality, and engaged not to let her fleet pass the Lacinian Promontory to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum.[202 - Appian, Samnite Wars, § vii., p. 56, edit. Schweighæuser.]

Thus, on the one hand, the territories shared among the Roman citizens; on the other, the number of the municipia were considerably augmented. Further, the Republic had acquired new allies; she possessed at length the passages of the Apennines and commanded both seas.[203 - Diodorus Siculus, XIX. 10.] A girdle of Latin fortresses protected Rome and broke the communications between the north and south of Italy; among the Marsi and the Æqui, there were Alba and Carseoli; Sora, towards the sources of the Liris; and Narnia, in Umbria. Military roads connected the colonies with the metropolis.

Fourth Samnite War. Second coalition of the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls (456-464).

VII. Peace could not last long: between Rome and the Samnites it was a duel to death. In 456, these latter had already sufficiently recovered from their disasters to attempt once more the fortune of arms.[204 - Titus Livius, X. 11, et seq.] Rome sends to the succour of the Lucanians, suddenly attacked, two consular armies. Vanquished at Tifernum by Fabius, at Maleventum by Decius, the Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country. Still they do not lose courage; their chief, Gellius Egnatius, conceives a plan which places Rome in great danger. He divides the Samnite army into three bodies: the first remains to defend the country; the second takes the offensive in Campania; the third, which he commands in person, throws itself into Etruria, and, increased by the junction of the Etruscans, the Gauls, and the Umbrians, soon forms a numerous army.[205 - Titus Livius, X. 22, et seq.– Polybius, II. 19. – Florus, I. 17.] The storm roared on all sides, and, while the Roman generals were occupied some in Samnium and others in Campania, despatches arrived from Appius, placed at the head of the army of Etruria, announcing a terrible coalition formed in silence by the peoples of the north, who were concentrating all their forces in Umbria for the purpose of marching upon Rome.

The terror was extreme, but the energy of the Romans was equal to the danger. All able men, even to the freedmen, were enrolled, and ninety thousand soldiers were raised. Under these grave circumstances (458), Fabius and Decius were, once again, raised to the supreme magistracy, and gained, under the walls of Sentinum, a brilliant victory, long disputed. During the battle, Decius devoted himself, as his father had done before. The coalition once dissolved, Fabius defeated another army which had issued from Perusia, and then came to receive the honour of a triumph in Rome. Etruria was subdued (460), and obtained a truce of forty years.[206 - Volsiniæ, Perusia, and Arretium. (Titus Livius, X. 37.)]

The Samnites still maintained an obstinate struggle of mingled successes and reverses. In 461, after having taken an oath to conquer or die, thirty thousand of them were left on the field of battle of Aquilonia. A few months later, the celebrated Pontius, the hero of Furcæ Caudinæ, re-appeared, at the end of twenty-nine years, at the head of his fellow-citizens, and inflicted upon the son of Fabius a check, which the latter soon retrieved with the assistance of his father.[207 - Orosius, III. 22. – Zonaras, VII. 2. – Eutropius, II. 9.] Finally, in 464, two Roman armies re-commenced, in Samnium, a war of extermination, which led for the fourth time to the renewal of the ancient treaties and the cession of a certain extent of territory. At the same epoch, an insurrection which broke out in the Sabine territory was put down by Curius Dentatus. Central Italy was conquered.

The peace with the Samnites lasted five years (464-469). Rome extended her frontiers, and fortified those of the peoples placed under her protectorate; and at the same time established new military forts.

The right of city without suffrage was accorded to the Sabines, and prefects were given to some of the towns of the valley of the Vulturnus (Venafrum and Allifæ).[208 - Velleius Paterculus, I. 14. – Festus, under the word Præfecturæ, p. 233.] A Latin colony, of twenty thousand men, was sent to Venusia to watch over Southern Italy.[209 - Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Excerpta, p. 2335, edit. Schweighæuser.] It commanded at the same time Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania. If, owing to the treaty concluded with the Greek towns, the Roman supremacy extended over the south of the peninsula, to the north the Etruscans could not be reckoned as allies, since nothing more than truces had been concluded with them. In Umbria, the small tribe of the Sarsinates remained independent, and all the coast district from the Rubicon to the Æsis was in the power of the Senones; on their southern frontier the Roman colony of Sena Gallica (Sinigaglia) was founded; the coast of Picenum was watched by that of Castrum Novum and by the Latin fortress of Hatria (465).[210 - Polybius, II. 19, 24.]

Third coalition of the Etruscans, Gauls, Lucanians, and Tarentines (469-474).

VIII. The power of Rome had increased considerably. The Samnites, who hitherto had played the first part, were no longer in a condition to plan further coalitions, and one people alone could hardly be rash enough to provoke the Republic. Yet the Lucanians, always hesitating, gave this time the signal for a general revolt.

The attack on Thurium, by the Lucanians and Bruttians, became the occasion of a new league, into which entered successively the Tarentines, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and even the Gauls. The north was soon in flames, and Etruria again became the battle-field. A Roman army, which had hastened to relieve Arretium, was put to rout by the Etruscans united with Gaulish mercenaries. The Senones, to whom these belonged, having massacred the Roman ambassadors sent to expostulate on their violation of the treaty with the Republic, the Senate sent against them two legions who drove them back beyond the Rubicon. The Gaulish tribe of the Boians, alarmed by the fate of the Senones, descended immediately into Umbria, and, rallying the Etruscans, prepared to march to renew the sack of Rome; but their march was arrested, and two successive victories, at Lake Vadimo, (471) and Populonia (472), enabled the Senate to conclude a convention which drove back the Boians into their old territory. Hostilities continued with the Etruscans during two years, after which their submission completed the conquest of Northern Italy.