In the first and second campaigns, one Roman army marched through Samnium, gained a victory at Bovianum, and pacified Lucania; while another army defeated the Etruscans at Volaterræ. Separate negociations had already been commenced between Etruria and Rome, when the Samnite general, Gellius Egnatius, induced the Etruscans to hold out by offering to come to their aid in their own country. While leaving one army to continue the war in Samnium, and raising another for an invasion of Campania, he led the main body of his forces through the Marsian and Umbrian territories, and formed a junction with his allies in Etruria (B.c. 296). Thus the Romans saw their plans for severing northern and southern Italy frustrated; and they were threatened by a new invasion of the Gauls, whom the Etruscans had taken into their pay. To join the invaders before they crossed the Apennines, the forces of the coalition were directed towards Umbria, and thither the Romans marched to meet them with 60,000 men, partly recalled from Campania, and partly raised by great efforts at Rome. Two armies of reserve were formed, the one under the walls of the city, the other at Falerii, to occupy the Etruscans with a diversion, which succeeded in drawing away the bulk of their forces from the decisive battle. The consuls were the veteran Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus, and P. Decius Mus, who, already rivalling his colleague in military reputation, repeated the self-devotion of his father, and so decided the great victory of Sentinum over the confederates. The Roman left, which had been disordered by the war-chariots of the Gauls, rallied at seeing the self-sacrifice of the consul; the Campanian cavalry completed the defeat of the Gauls; and the Samnites on the other wing, already weakened by the defection of the Etruscans, gave way after a resistance so determined that 9000 Romans were left upon the field. Umbria at once submitted: the Gauls dispersed: the Samnites retreated in good order; but they were unable to prevent the Romans from recovering Campania (B.c. 295). The chief Etruscan cities made a truce with Rome for 400 months (B.c. 294). The Samnites, resisting with the courage of despair, gained some successes in Campania; but they were again defeated with great loss by the consul, L. Papirius Cursor (B.c. 293).* Their general, Gellius Egnatius, had fallen in the battle of Sentinum; and the veteran Caius Pontius (or, as some suppose, his son) cast a last ray of glory over the Samnite arms by the total defeat of the consul, Q. Fabius Maximus Gurges, who made a rash advance from Cam

It is recorded that first sun-dial was set up at Rome in this year.

*

pania into Samnium. Public indignation at Rome suggested the unprecedented course of deposing Fabius from the consulship; but his aged father Rullianus interposed his authority by offering to serve as lieutenant under his son, whose life he saved, as well as his reputation, in the decisive battle that ensued. Pontius was taken prisoner with 4,000 Samnites, and 20,000 more were slain (B.c. 292).

Quintus Fabius was continued in his command, as proconsul, for another year, during which the Samnites prolonged a hopeless resistance; and the first Roman colony was founded in their territory, at Venusia, on the borders of Apulia (B.c. 291). Before the close of the summer, the proconsul returned to Rome, and sullied his splendid triumph by the cruel revenge he took for his former defeat by the great Samnite. The act cannot be better told, or more justly judged, than in the words of Dr. Arnold:

"While he was borne along in his chariot, according to custom, his old father rode on horseback behind him as one of his lieutenants, delighting himself with the honours of his son. But at the moment when the consul and his father, having arrived at the end of the Sacred Way, turned to the left to ascend the hill of the Capitol, C. Pontius, the Samnite general, who with the other prisoners of rank had thus far followed the procession, was led aside to the right hand to the prison beneath the Capitoline hill, and there was thrust down into the underground dungeon of the prison, and beheaded. One year had passed since his last battle; nearly thirty since he had spared the lives and liberty of two Roman armies, and, unprovoked by the treachery of his enemies, had afterwards set at liberty the generals who were given up into his power as a pretended expiation of their country's perfidy. Such a murder, committed or sanctioned by such a man as Q. Fabius, is peculiarly a national crime, and proves but too clearly that in their dealings with foreigners the Romans had neither magnanimity, nor humanity, nor justice."†

The war, now virtually at an end, was formally concluded in the following year, when both the consuls invaded Samnium. The Samnites sued for peace, and were again made the dependent allies of Rome. They were subjected to no harsh or humiliating terms, nor was their last renewal of the war punished by any loss. of territory. Too politic to exasperate a brave nation, which ought

The only example of such a deposition in the whole course of Roman history is the case of Cinna, in the Marian civil wars (B. C. 87).

+ Arnold's History of Rome, vol. ii. p. 365.

henceforward to be an element of their strength, the Romans pursued the wiser course of securing the coasts of both seas, by fortresses, such as those of Minturnæ and Sinuessa in Campania and Hatria on the Adriatic, while the strongholds of the Apennines were penetrated by their great military roads.* The western shore of Italy, from the Ciminian forest to Capua, was now added to the territory of Rome, and the eastern and southern plains were commanded by the outposts of Luceria and Venusia. The latter, especially, placed on the confines of Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania, and on the high road to Tarentum, served to command the south. About this time, too, the Sabines were finally conquered, and their lands included in the Roman territory. It is not enough to say that Rome was now the first of the Italian states; she already held the supremacy of the peninsula.

* It was no doubt at this time that the Via Appia was continued to Venusia.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WAR WITH PYRRHUS, AND THE CONQUEST OF ITALY. B.C. 290 TO B.C. 266.

"He left a name, at which the world grew pale,

To point a moral, or adorn a tale."-JOHNSON.

STATE OF ITALY AFTER THE SAMNITE WARS-THE ETRUSCANS AND GAULS IN THE NORTH -THE LUCANIANS AND BRUTTIANS IN THE SOUTH-LUCANIA AND THE GREEK CITIES -THE ROMANS PROTECT THURII-NEW ITALIAN COALITION-WAR IN ETRURIA-IRRUPTION OF THE GAULS-A ROMAN ARMY DESTROYED BEFORE ARRETIUM-DEFEAT AND EXTINCTION OF THE SENONES-DEFEAT OF THE ETRUSCANS AT THE VADIMONIAN LAKE SUCCESSES OF FABRICIUS IN LUCANIA-TARENTUM-ITS INFLUENCE IN ITALY -CALLS IN AID FROM GREECE-ARCHIDAMUS-ALEXANDER OF EPIRUS-CLEONYMUS—— ALLIANCE WITH ROME-THE TARENTINES ATTACK A ROMAN FLEET AND SEIZE THURII -OUTRAGE ON THE ROMAN AMBASSADOR POSTUMIUS-PYRRHUS INVITED TO ITALYHE BECOMES MASTER OF TARENTUM-MARCH OF THE ROMANS TO MEET HIM-THEIR DEFEAT AT HERACLEA-MISSION OF CINEAS TO ROME-APPIUS CLAUDIUS CÆCUS IN THE SENATE-IMPRESSION MADE ON CINEAS-ADVANCE OF PYRRHUS TO PRÆNESTETHE ETRUSCANS MAKE A SEPARATE PEACE-PYRRHUS RETREATS TO TARENTUM-EMBASSY OF FABRICIUS-CAMPAIGN IN APULIA-BATTLE OF ASCULUM-STATE OF THE SICILIAN GREEKS-LEAGUE OF ROME AND CARTHAGE-SIEGE OF SYRACUSE-PYRRHUS PASSES INTO SICILY-HIS FIRST SUCCESSES AND REPULSE AT LILYBEUM-HIS RETURN TO ITALY-HIS DEFEAT AT BENEVENTUM AND FINAL DEPARTURE-CAPTURE OF TARENTUM, RHEGIUM, AND BRUNDISIUM-SUBMISSION OF PICENUM, LUCANIA, AND THE BRUTTII-CONQUEST OF ITALY COMPLETED-NAVAL AFFAIRS-POLITICAL AND SOCIAL STATE OF ITALY AND ROME.

THE last act in Rome's long contest for the supremacy of Italy is also the first in the great drama of her conflict with the world. "Towards the end of the fifth century of the city, those nations which had been raised to supremacy in their respective lands began to come into contact in council and on the battle field; and, as at Olympia the preliminary victors girt themselves for a second and more serious struggle, so on the larger arena of the nations, Carthage, Macedonia, and Rome now prepared for the final and decisive contest."* The conquest of the Samnites had left two great Italian nations still unsubdued, the Etruscans in the north and the Lucanians in the south. In each quarter, too, there were other races which had obtained a footing on the Italian soil. At one extremity of the peninsula, the Gauls were ever ready to pour down, not only in predatory incursions on their own account, but at the instigation of the Etruscans; and, at the other, the Greek

* Mommsen's History of Rome, vol. i. p. 393.

cities, which might have fallen like ripe fruit into the lap of Rome, were too inviting a prey to others not to precipitate a conflict for their possession. It was from this source that Rome became involved in fresh wars, first against a new Italian coalition, and then with her powerful antagonist, Pyrrhus, King of Epirus.

The whole of the southern extremity of Italy,―below those branches of the Apennines which diverge from the knot formed near Venusia, to the promontory of Minerva (C. Campanella) on the west coast, and the Iapygian promontory (C. di Leuca) at the "heel" of the peninsula-the whole of this region, except the possessions of the Greek cities along the coast, was now in the possession of two kindred peoples of Samnite origin, the Lucanians and Bruttians. Their settlement in these regions was the consequence of the great and continued movement of the Sabellian races to the south, and the Bruttians are said to have separated from the Lucanians by an act of rebellion, which obtained for them their distinctive name. The country of the Bruttians extended from the straits of Messina to the little river Laüs (Lao), being formed throughout by the last chain of the Apennines; and the people were a wild race of mountain shepherds, whose character and habits have been handed down to the Calabrians. The limits of Lucania along the west coast were from the Laus to the Silarus, which divided it from Campania. On this side it was a highland country, like Bruttium, but east of the Apennines it embraced the great plain which lies at the head of the gulf of Tarentum. It was thus an agricultural as well as a pastoral region, and it was rich in the vine,† the olive, and other fruittrees. The vicinity of the Greek cities, while tending greatly to civilize the Lucanians, held out to them a prize, to grasp which became the leading object of their policy.

The aid which the Lucanians rendered to Rome in the Samnite wars appears to have been purchased by leaving those cities at their disposal. But when, on the restoration of peace, they began to take possession of the prize, and laid siege to Thurii, the Greeks applied for aid to Rome, just as the Campanians of Teanum and Capua had asked her help against the Samnites. As in that case, so in this, the temptation proved irresistible. The Romans set

* Bruttii or Brettii is explained by the Roman antiquarians to mean rebels in the Lucanian language.

The luxuriance of the vine in this whole southern region is supposed to have given origin to its Greek name Enotria, that is, the land of wine.