B.O. 298.]

*

THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR.

299

an equal league could ever have existed between the Romans and other peoples, says that the old alliance was restored to the Samnites; but Dionysius more correctly represents the Samnites as submitting to become the dependent allies of Rome. The other Sabellian tribes were admitted to an equal alliance, some of them ceding portions of their territory. The chief acquisitions were from the forfeited domain of the Hernican cities, and from the incorporation of the territory of the Equians, who were finally subdued, after a brief but fierce struggle, in B.C. 302. Their lands formed two new tribes, the Aniensis and Terentina (B.c. 299). But the real gain of Rome was far greater than that of any territory. The whole power of the Samnites and their Sabellian allies had been arrayed against her in vain. The Etruscans had mingled in the conflict, only to prove that Rome need no longer fear their rivalry. The Lucanians, who might have turned the scale by a hearty co-operation with the Samnites, had divided the force of that people by needing garrisons to overawe them; and the removal of those garrisons gave the Romans an ascendancy in Lucania which helped them to secure an advantageous peace with Tarentum. Thus the republic assumed her place as the leading power of Italy.

The defeated nations would not, however, submit to Rome's supremacy without one last struggle, for which they called in the aid of the common enemy, the Gauls. A desultory warfare had continued in Etruria and Umbria after the peace with the Samnites; and the fortress of Nequinum, on the Nar, was only taken after an obstinate resistance. A colony, planted on its site, under the name of Narnia, formed the key of the position where the Nar was crossed by the great military road (Via Flaminia) which was constructed through Umbria, severing the Samnites from the Etruscans (B.C. 299). Just at this time, new hordes of Gauls crossed the Alps, and, passing through Etruria, unopposed and probably aided by the people, fell upon the Roman territory. They speedily recrossed the Apennines with their plunder, and almost destroyed each other in a quarrel about its division; but meanwhile the Samnites had seized the opportunity to invade Lucania, an act which the Romans resented by a declaration of war. Thus began the Third Samnite War, which lasted nine years (B.c. 298-290).

*"Fœdus antiquum Samnitibus redditum."

We shall have occasion to review the relations of Tarentum with Rome in the next chapter.

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 the first sun-dial was set up at Rome in this year.

B.C. 291.]

FATE OF CAIUS PONTIUS.

301

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. Pon tius was taken prisoner with 4000 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 confiues 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.

STATE OF ITALY AT THIS EPOCH.

303

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 NORTHTHE 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 LUCINIA-TARENTUM-ITS INFLUENCE IN ITALY-CALLS IN AID FROM GREECE-ARCHIDAMUS-ALEXANDER OF EPIRUS-CLEONYMUS-ALLIANCE WITH ROMETHE TARENTINES ATTACK A ROMAN FLEET AND SEIZE THURII-OUTRAGE ON THE ROMAN AMBASSADOR POSTUMIUS-PYRRHUS INVITED TO ITALY-HE 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 PRÆNESTE-THE ETRUSCANS MAKE A SEPARATE PEACEPYRRHUS RETREATS TO TARENTUM-EMBASSY OF FABRICIUS-CAMPAIGN IN APULIABATTLE 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.