Chapter XXI: Part 21

In this rich country, the Romans had their lust of plunder sated to the full, no enemy having been there for a hundred years, not even the Gauls. The Etruscans now raised the siege of Sutrium, and marched to Perusia, where Fabius won a decisive battle against them. Perusia, Cortona, and Arretium immediately negociated, making peace for a term of years: thus the western towns, Tarquinii, Vulsinii, Volaterræ, were left to themselves, and they tried to get a treaty on tolerable conditions.[147] The Romans did not perhaps wish to enter into a formal peace: on both sides, they were well pleased to drag on from year to year with the help of armistices. Vulsinii alone held out for thirty years, always drawing in single towns along with it; but the war was constantly interrupted by truces. At Vulsinii, the clients had gained a voice in the government: but the proud Vulsinians afterwards wished, by a counter revolution, to bring back the new _Plebes_ to their old state of dependence; and as they did not succeed, they chose rather to let their city be destroyed by the Romans, than to share its honours with their former vassals. It was by raising their subjects, that they had been enabled to resist so long, whilst the other places, which were much better off, had already yielded in the first campaign: these had an enemy in their own subjects.[148]

The Romans had begun to form connexions also with Umbria; they had concluded a treaty with Camers, and had taken Nequinum, a very strong place on the Nera, near the northern frontier of the old Sabine country: the latter they changed into a Latin colony under the name of Narnia. They extended their colonial system thus far already, and by this means cut off the communication between Etruria and Samnium: at the same time, they had built strongholds like these at the mouth of the Liris, in Minturnæ and Suessa. In Narni, there seems to have been a garrison of Samnite auxiliaries; for it is said in the Fasti, that Q. Fabius, in his fifth, and P. Decius, in his fourth consulship, triumphed over the Umbrians and Samnites. With Samnium, there was peace by this time; but marauding was common among the Samnites.

A visible consequence of the peace with the Samnites, is shown in the relation between the Tarentines and Lucanians. During the war, there is no trace of any unfriendliness between these two peoples; but from the moment that the peace was concluded, there is hostility between them, and the Tarentines have to seek for assistance. This is to be accounted for by the fact, that until then the Samnites had ruled over the Lucanians, and had also made use of them against the Romans. The Tarentines called in Cleonymus, because, as the Greek accounts inform us, they were at war with the Lucanians and Romans: these two nations therefore must have been leagued together. Cleonymus was a prince of Sparta, son of the old king Cleomenes; yet as the succession to the throne there was not fixed, and he might be excluded, he readily listened to the invitation of the Tarentines: he was no common-place man; from that time, however, he became an adventurer, and entered the service of several nations. He brought over with him five thousand men, engaged a still stronger body, and forced the Lucanians to make peace. Hereupon, he got possession of Metapontum, in his own name, or in that of Tarentum; but he oppressed it with contributions, which could not possibly be paid, and he showed himself there to be a true tyrant. To the Tarentines he behaved so ill, that they broke off their connexion with him. They got rid of him; for he was taken into pay by one of the parties against Agathocles of Syracuse. The undertaking miscarried; and as Cleonymus on his return found the territory of the Tarentines closed against him, he seized upon Corcyra, and made it his chief arsenal for further expeditions. From thence he went against the Sallentines, and was defeated by a Roman general; then he marched into Venetia, and through the lagunes, against Padua; but he got on the mudbanks, and was obliged to retreat with some loss. After having roved about for more than twenty years, he returned to Sparta, and accommodated himself to the state of things there: but he was bitterly offended. He then beguiled Pyrrhus into his ill-fated expedition against Sparta, and must have died soon afterwards at an advanced age.

From these notices, circumstances may be gathered which the Roman annals pass over in silence. Not long before this, the Romans had carried on war in Apulia against the Sallentines, who were staunch friends of Tarentum. We now find the Romans allied with the Sallentines against Cleonymus; and hence it is likely that the Tarentines, throughout the Samnite war, were hostile to Rome, and that they made peace with her at the same time as the Lucanians. That a treaty afterwards existed between Rome and Tarentum, is certain; as the violation of a compact, twenty years later, is given as a cause of the war between the two states. One of its conditions was this, that no Roman ship of war was to show itself north of the Lacinian promontory. This treaty is indeed called an ancient one in Livy; but to an historical writer who weighs his words so little, a treaty of twenty years standing may already seem an old one. There cannot have been any concluded earlier, as the Tarentines until then appear to have been always hostile to the Romans.

Besides the eminent men of that age already spoken of, we have to mention Appius Claudius, who on account of the misfortune which befell him, of losing his eyesight, has become celebrated under the name of the Blind. He is quite a strange character, and his acts seem to be most inconsistent, unless we call to mind the times in which he lived. Born and bred in the pride of the patrician party, he goes to such lengths as to refuse as _interrex_ to take any votes for the election of a plebeian consul, a fact which we know from Cicero; and yet he is the first to bring the sons of freedmen into the senate, passing over distinguished men: contrary to usage and custom, he tries, when censor to arrogate to himself extensive powers which had long since been curtailed by the constitutional laws; and in his old age, he again appears as the saviour of the state, who in the day of trouble, by his eloquence upholds the drooping courage of the fainthearted senate. This character is therefore quite a puzzle. If with Dionysius and the modern writers, we were to believe that the struggle at Rome, like that at Athens, was between the rich and the ὄχλος we should think it indeed strange that Appius admitted the children of freedmen into all the tribes, and even placed them in the senate. We must therefore look deeper into the matter, and have before our mind the temper of the parties and classes which existed at the time. During the fifty years which followed the passing of the Licinian law, nobility had already become the attribute of a considerable number of plebeian families, many of which had even then the _jus imaginum_. Among the patricians, the number of the ennobled families was now very limited; and it is a question, whether the plebeian clans of noble rank were not quite as many as the patrician ones, most of the latter having either become extinct or impoverished: we commonly find over and over again the Claudii, Cornelii, Sulpicii, Furii. The plebeians stood in the same relation to the patricians, as the _nobili_ of the _Terra Firma_ to the city nobles of Venice; had these _notables_ become a corporation, as Maffei proposed, they would have formed a _Plebes_: but the nobles of Venice hated nothing so much as that very nobility of Padua, Verona, &c., whilst on the contrary they were friendly and kind towards the native low Venetian. This was the relation of the Roman patrician to his client, in contradistinction to the free plebeian order: a proud patrician, like Appius Claudius, looked upon Licinius, Genucius, and others, as most hateful rivals. Such an aristocracy, looking with a most jealous eye on clans whose equal rank it cannot gainsay, seeks for allies from among the very opposites to aristocracy. Such alliances have been most often seen in the South of Europe: the Santafedists at Naples were Lazzaroni; the royalist volunteers in Spain were from the very lowest of the people. Appius appears, on the one hand, as a man of great name in history; on the other, he is spoken of by Livy as a _homo vafer_, a trickster: this perhaps was not quite an unfounded opinion of him. Appius Claudius, and others of his fellow-patricians, seem to have still entertained the idea of depriving the plebeian nobles of their influence, by calling in a party which of itself could make no claim to honour. Principles like these were fatal in every respect, and hindered the onward march of the constitution. Notwithstanding all this, Appius Claudius was a most distinguished man; and reasons may even be brought forward for his innovations, which would in some measure justify them. He received the children of freedmen into the senate, and distributed the freedmen themselves among the tribes. From this latter point, we must go on again.

It was the distinguishing character of the plebeian order, that its members were landowners, and had their livelihood free and independent, the very reverse of the condition of the clients. The plebeian, like the patrician, was to be well-born, εὐγενής, _ingenuus_; and therefore, as well as his rival, he added to his name those of his father and grandfather. The _libertinus_ could not thus show proof of his ancestors: if he was a freedman himself, he could not name any father at all; if his father was a freedman, he could but mention him alone; but if his grandfather already had been free, then the wall of partition fell to the ground,--he was perfectly _ingenuus_, and could be admitted into the tribes. Now in the course of so long a war, the numbers of those who were bound to serve, had very much fallen off, and the conscription was felt to be a heavy burthen. It is a remark of Aristotle, that the character of the Athenian _Demos_ had been much changed in the Peloponnesian war; for its numbers had lessened, and the gaps had been filled up by freedmen and others. If then the Roman people kept to its system of only adding whole tribes, whilst the vacancies in the old ones were scarcely ever filled up, and the enlistments were to be made in the same proportions as before, the citizens who belonged to those old tribes were very hardly dealt with: hence it was but a natural thought, to increase the number of those who were bound to serve. But among the Romans, rights and duties were inseparably united; and thus we may understand why it was that the censor wished to complete the tribes. He who had to bear the burthen of the war, was also to enjoy the advantage of belonging to the commonalty. The undoubted power of the censors to enrol names in the lists of the tribes, the knights, and the senate, and to strike them off likewise, warrants the supposition that the deficiency of two ancestors was not, after all, an insurmountable obstacle to entering the tribes; and that it could not have been altogether a thing unheard of, that freedmen were received in them. Yet if it had been done hitherto, it was in truth but seldom, and in the case of individuals; and the innovation of Appius consisted in this, that he placed the freedmen in a mass among the tribes. In one point of view, this measure was a happy expedient; but there was besides to be considered the change of relations between the different elements of the state, which are to be looked upon in history as always tending to shift their ground. Under the then existing circumstances, the trades might have become of greater importance than they were formerly. If, instead of the slaves, many ærarians carried on the trades and enriched themselves, the relations between the different classes were changed, and the state was then obliged to have regard to their reasonable demands: excessive advantages were not indeed to be granted them, and at the same time, established institutions and vested interests were to be protected against the too luxuriant growth of what was fresh and new. With these principles, free states have always been able to maintain their ground. Thus at that period a class of people is formed, which we now meet with for the first time, namely, the notaries, or _scribæ_, who had a wider range than the _tabelliones_ under the emperors. They became a guild, which in Cicero’s times was exclusive, and into which one had to pay for admission: its members were people of the most motley description. According to the Roman constitution, no other kind of knowledge was requisite for holding an administrative office, but the _artes liberales_, which comprised everything that a man of good education was supposed to have learned; on the other hand, the whole mass of that business of which the greater part of the work of officials is made up, was done by the _scribæ_. Thus there was an immense deal of writing at the prætor’s office; yet the minutes were neither kept by the prætor himself, nor by any other _homo ingenuus_, but by the _scribæ_. This profession was very lucrative; all transactions were drawn up in writing by them according to certain forms. These men were employed not by the authorities only, but in every possible kind of business; for the Romans wrote to a fearful amount. They kept all the accounts of the ædiles, the laborious registers of the censors and others, while the functionaries themselves only superintended the whole; they also did the same services for the bankers (_negotiatores, equites_), as every Roman was obliged to keep his own accounts, his books of receipts and expenses, and this in deference to public opinion, that he might not be considered as a _homo levis_. For this purpose they frequently kept a _scriba_.

This class now comes forward for the first time, and as a body of the greatest weight, owing to Cn. Flavius. If Appius wished to drag down the leading plebeians from the position which they had won, it was no longer feasible to have recourse to arms in conjunction with clients and isopolites; but he had to gain his point by cunning, which was done by uniting a great mass with the patrician order, and so he introduced _libertini_ into the tribes: he had then a majority in the resolutions of the _Plebes_. In a like manner, the _municipes_ might further his plans; and he was himself able, by removing, as censor, the independent plebeians from the senate, and by bringing into it men of low birth, to carry measures which were formerly not to be thought of. Something similar occurs in the undertaking of Sylla, who likewise, more than two hundred years afterwards, came back to his legislation, and promoted men of the lowest rank, who were mere proletarians, into the senate. There is to be found in Livy, from the censorship of Appius downwards, a difference between the _Plebs sincera_ and the _forensis factio_; evidently the former is the old _Plebs_, and the latter the incorporated freedmen and isopolites.

Those who had been newly received into the senate, must therefore have been only the creatures of Appius Claudius and his party. He certainly did not think of a _tyrannis_, being too sensible a man to do so: his son is said to have had such an idea; but he must have been mad. His plan could therefore have only been for the interest of the aristocracy: on what is called the “right side” in the French chamber of deputies, there is indeed no want of people who have been raised up by the revolution from the very lowest ranks. That Appius entered _libertini_ upon the rolls of the senate, excited such heartburning, that the consuls summoned the senate according to its former composition: he seems in fact to have also made omissions, very likely among the plebeian senators. His list was therefore never made use of.

The period for which the censorship was held, had for a long time been reduced from five years to one and a half. Appius claimed all the five years, and carried his point, until at last he wanted to be consul and censor both at once. This was against the Genucian law; and the tribunes had decided upon having him arrested, if he should try and do this by force: he then resigned the censorship. It is, however, possible that he wished to retain it, not so much from motives of ambition, as for the sake of those great works which he had begun to execute. He made the Appian road, the _regina viarum_. For, the Latin one, which led through Tusculum, and through the country of the Hernicans, being then so much infested, and not yet quite restored to the possession of the Romans, the Appian road was to serve as a shorter and safer one: it led by Terracina, Fundi, and Mola, to Capua. At first, he laid it down as far as Velitræ, then to Setia round the Pontine marshes. That portion which crosses the marshes themselves, he did not make;--even that which was afterwards constructed, was not of much use for the Roman troops;--but he cut a canal through them, in order to drain part of them: for to drain the whole, was not, and will perhaps never be possible. This canal was meant for the conveyance of warlike stores from Cisterna to Terracina; which was necessary, as the Romans had no fleet, and the Tarentines could easily cut off their communication by sea with Campania. The mainroad for the troops passed over the mountains, and by Setia, _via Setina_, which, therefore, in the list of roads is mentioned separately: it is the same road, which throughout the middle ages, until the times of Pius VI., was again the common one, when the Pontine marshes were deserted. The Romans chose it, because the distance between Cisterna and Terracina through the marshes is too great for one day’s march. There lay indeed between the two places _Forum Appii_ on the canal; but indeed it must have been inhabited during the winter only: on the _Via Setina_, on the other hand, the armies might encamp on the hills during the summer nights. Had they wished to bivouack in the Pontine marshes during the night, they would have been destroyed by the malignant fevers; consequently the _Via Setina_ was a necessity. The _Via Appia_, even if Appius should have carried it on the whole length to Capua, has not been executed by him with that magnificence which we now admire in those parts of it which have not been intentionally destroyed; those closely fitting polygons of basalt, which thousands of years were not able to disturb, are of somewhat later date. The road was now made because it was wanted; and it was not until the year 457, that they began at all to pave it with _peperino_, and some years later with basalt (_silex_),--at first a small portion, from the Porta Capena to the temple of Mars, of which we have positive information in Livy. Before that time, there were highroads already, which along the mainway had footpaths paved with _peperino_; that is to say, with flag-stones (_saxo quadrato_) of that material. For the basaltic pavement, the fines especially were appropriated.

Appius was also the first who brought an aqueduct to Rome, the _aqua Appia_. The Roman aqueducts of later times were of immense extent; the one built by Appius was but a small beginning, being only for immediate wants. They had to fetch water in Rome from wells, but chiefly from cisterns (_putei_), as that which is got from the Tiber is so bad. Those quarters of the city which lay low on marshy ground, as the Velabrum, the _Forum Olitorium_, had of course no wells, and people were therefore obliged to do as well as they could with cisterns: to supply those parts, was the object of the _aqua Appia_. It was brought to Rome from a distance of eight (Italian) miles, and supplied only the lower town, not the hills, as Livy expressly states. It was finished in the middle of the Samnite war, after the year 440, when fortune began to turn in favour of the Romans; and it was all under ground, as Frontinus tells us, that it might not be destroyed in some of the many Latin insurrections. For it was feared that arches built above ground might be demolished, as was done by the Goths in Belisarius’ times. It led by the Cœlius under the Porta Capena to the Aventine, as far as the spot where Piranesi very exactly hit upon it, near the _Clivus Publicius_, at the corner of the hill. The outlet is now covered with rubbish, the water having been choked by stalactites, as in several other aqueducts. This undertaking was a benefit unknown throughout the whole of Greece.

These two works are said to have induced Appius Claudius not to lay down his censorship, until they should be completed, and much has been written here about the struggle between him and the tribunes. If it was merely his intention to carry out this design, the way in which the tribunes behaved would have been paltry enough: but perhaps these works were too grand for the circumstances of the times; and it is a question, how far he may have burthened the existing generation for the benefit of those who came after. According to a statement which Diodorus has taken from Fabius, who, though a patrician himself, was indeed an enemy to oligarchy, Appius actually undertook them without any authority from the senate. This would certainly have been an audacious enterprise; and, to judge from his disposition, it was not impossible. He seems also to have made sales of the _ager publicus_ for this purpose; and thus, while the _Plebes_ suffered, the members of his own order were losers as well.

His real agent seems to have been the Cn. Flavius, who has been already mentioned. This man was the son of a freedman; he could therefore use the name of his father only, which was Annius. This is an Etruscan name; so that Annius was very likely an Etruscan slave, who had perhaps been a man of consequence in his own country, and had only lost his freedom (_ingenuitas_) by having been taken prisoner. Cn. Flavius became the benefactor of the people, in a manner of which we cannot easily form an idea. According to the most ancient Roman custom, there were thirty-eight court-days in the year of ten months, the kings, and then the consuls, sitting in judgment every eighth day, consequently on the nundines. This was afterwards done away with; the nundines were no more to be the same as the court-days, as on these the country plebeians were in such numbers in the town, that a tumult might easily be raised. The thirty-eight days were therefore distributed over the whole year of twelve months; and there being too few of them, single days were added, on which likewise _lege agebatur_. But now there was a double difficulty; and the patricians took advantage of the circumstance to keep the plebeians in a state of dependance. The thirty-eight days had been distributed irregularly throughout the year; so that if any one wanted, for instance, to sue by a _vindicatio_, he did not know when the prætor would sit in judgment, but had to make inquiries in the forum, or of the pontiffs, on what day a _legis actio_ might be brought in. Now it might be answered, that one could surely have remembered the eight and thirty days: but then there were others besides, half _fasti_ and half _nefasti_, on which _lege agebatur_; and others again, on which _comitia_ were appointed to be held, but yet _lege non agebatur_. And therefore, as we are told, Appius ordered his _scriba_ Cn. Flavius constantly to find out from the lawyers, on what days _legi agi posset_; Flavius by this means made a calendar on a tablet of plaster (_album_), and publicly set it up: it was then frequently copied, and the plebeians were full of gratitude towards him. Indeed, to secure their independence still further, he also published the _formulæ actionum_:--according to Cicero, this was done after his time only, as the forms themselves were first invented at a later period; according to others, it was he who did it, which is much more likely. We must not imagine this to have been a regular system of laws, although it is generally termed _jus Flavianum_, but a set of forms of proceeding for every case,--a sort of “Complete Lawyer.” This was felt to be a heavy blow to the influence of the higher classes on the common people. Until then, no one could transact any business without a legal adviser; for certain acts could only be performed on certain days, and so forth. This manual of law is a great step in the progress of political freedom.

As a requital for these benefits, Cn. Flavius had the votes of the plebeians in the election for the ædiles. When it was objected to him that he could not be an ædile, _quia scriptum faceret_, he took an oath that he would give up his notary business; from which we may gather, that, at that time, it was still incompatible with the condition of an _ingenuus_. Together with him, one Q. Anicius of Præneste, who a few years before had still been a public enemy of the Romans,--perhaps the remote ancestor of that Anician family which was so brilliant in the last days of the western empire,--was elected in opposition to two distinguished plebeians, a Pœtelius and a Domitius; which proves that in this case, isopolites and _libertini_, the _factio forensis_, combined, and decided the election. We find from Pliny, that Flavius made a vow, _si populo reconciliasset ordines_; by _populo_ the patricians are meant, and as Flavius performed his vow, the reconciliation must have been effected: very likely he acted as mediator during the later censorship of Fabius and Decius, inducing the _libertini_ to allow their rights to be abridged, as the good of the republic required. For from the mingling of these men with the tribes, there arose great fermentation, down to the censorship of Q. Fabius Maximus and P. Decius. A reconciliation then took place (449): the _libertini_ could not entirely forego their rights; but they were combined by Fabius into four tribes, the _tribus urbanæ_, which always remained _tribus libertinorum_, and consequently _minus honestæ_. This measure had most beneficial results. For when we call to mind that the votes were given by tribes, in each of which it was the majority which decided; we may easily imagine, that if the _libertini_, who were engaged in trades and dwelt in the city, were scattered through all the tribes, they, being always present, must have formed the majority in any meeting which was suddenly called; as among the plebeians of each tribe, but few of those who lived out of the town, could have made their appearance: and thus, in such assemblies of the commonalty, the whole power had passed into the hands of the _libertini_. The system of Appius would therefore have become most pernicious, without this wholesome change.

At the time of the second Samnite war, another change took place, namely, the abolition of the _nexum_, which Livy assigns to the consulship of C. Pœtelius and L. Papirius; but according to Varro, as corrected from the MS., it was brought about during the dictatorship of Poetelius, 441. With this also agrees the circumstance, that the impoverished state of the families of the bondmen for debt is said to have been a consequence of the disaster at Caudium. We thus see, how even at so late a period, events which did not strictly belong to the province of real political history, were arbitrarily interpolated in the annals. A youth is ill treated; he rung to the forum; a tumult arises: then it came to pass that the _nexum_ was abolished, so that the person of the debtor, or those of his children, were now no more to be detained. This shows us a state of things in which the mob have already great power. We cannot doubt but that by this time indeed, wealthy people pledged themselves _realiter_ by the _fiducia_, if they had quiritary property; and this kind of mortgage may have become more general, the more the quiritary property increased among the plebeians. It was now permitted as the only one, and it was forbidden to pledge one’s person. But if any one incurred a debt by a _delictum_, the relation of the _addictio_ remained; and he was to continue in it, until he redeemed himself: this is certainly the case, even as late as in the war with Hannibal. The continuance of this relation has led many into error, and has awakened in them a suspicion of the law of Pœtelius; but _addictio_ is something quite different from the _nexum_. Livy calls this law _novum initium libertatis plebis Romanæ_.

In consequence of the Ogulnian law, from the year 462, the number of the _Pontifices majores_ was increased from four to eight, and those of the augurs from four to nine: the increase was taken from the ranks of the plebeians. A ninth pontiff was the _Pontifex maximus_, who without doubt was chosen _promiscue_ from both orders. Afterwards _cooptatio_ was by a decree: whether it were thus from the beginning, is hidden in darkness. Twenty years later, Ti. Coruncanius was the first plebeian _Pontifex maximus_. Livy gives us the _suasoria_ of Decius on the occasion of the Ogulnian law; but the speech is not quite in the character of that age: for, the patricians now knew right well, that they could no longer keep their privileges. This change is evident from the fact, that, although at that time there is no doubt that the nominations to the priesthoods were made by the curies, or by cooptation on the part of the college, yet the law was not transgressed at all, and the plebeians were at once admitted to these offices. Thus the spirit of real life had prevailed over the letter of mere institutions. People as yet only called themselves patricians and plebeians; but there existed already the parties of those who were noble, and of those who were not: the former comprised all the eminent patrician and plebeian families.

The admission to the priesthoods was a point in which the plebeians were highly interested; as the pontiffs were the guardians of the civil law, and the keepers and the fountain head of the whole of the _jus sacrum_, and the augurs, whose declarations in that age were certainly still considered authentic, exercised influence upon all transactions of importance.

THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR.

The peace between the Romans and the Samnites had lasted four years at most. During this interval, the Samnites had, by the defence of Nequinum or Narnia, paved the way for the continuance of the war: they wanted merely to rest themselves, and to collect their strength. By the conditions of their agreement with Rome, they ought to have kept themselves from every sort of hostility against the neighbouring states; yet this was impossible. In Lucania the feuds of the two parties soon broke out again: the country had recovered its independence, and attacked Tarentum; the Samnites declared war with Lucania, and the Lucanians, being hard pressed, put themselves under the protection of the Romans. As these did not like to see the Samnites recovering their power, they required them to give up the Lucanian conquest, in accordance with the peace. The Samnites returned a haughty answer, and warned the Roman ambassadors not to make their appearance in Samnium. In the year 454, whilst in Etruria there was at one moment a truce, and at another a quarrel with some of the towns, open war broke out again with the Samnites. We behold the Apulians allied with Samnium; for Apulia was too far away for Rome to have maintained her dominion there: the Sabines also we find on good terms with the Samnites, and in some instances even in a league with them. Thus therefore had circumstances taken a turn by which the condition of Samnium became somewhat more favourable; on the other hand, the power of Rome had so much spread in the meanwhile, that she was a much more terrible enemy for Samnium to face.

This war took quite a different course from the former ones, from which we may infer that the state of things had changed. The Romans do not again transfer the scene of war into Apulia, whether it was that the Apulians had fallen away from them, or because they were hindered by other circumstances. They now attacked the Samnites in front, who do not go into the Æquian country, but into the Falernian district in the neighbourhood of Vescia. The war lasted eight years, and was still more ruinous for the Samnites than the one before; yet they carried it on with great energy, and the whole of their plan, although not crowned with success, is one of the grandest which history can produce; but _victrix causa Diis placuit_. In the first campaign, the Romans were at once in the heart of Samnium, and they advanced into Lucania to assist its people: Rome indeed had also sometimes the worst of it; but she did not lose any great battles. In the year 455, both the Roman armies, that of Fabius, and that of Decius, were in Samnium, waging there a war of extermination, of which the account in Livy clearly bears the stamp of authenticity: he had genuine memoirs before him; yet these often contained most irreconcilable statements. The Romans marched from place to place, and wherever they encamped, they destroyed in the country round every trace of cultivation: Fabius had his camp in eighty-six, Decius in forty-five places. They took but few towns; for the Samnites defended themselves on their hills with such lion-hearted courage, that it was impossible to reduce them.--In 456, Volumnius and Ap. Claudius were consuls, Decius proconsul. Volumnius is said to have beaten the Samnites again and again, and at last to have compelled their army to flee into Etruria: this is a calumnious misrepresentation of the heroic spirit and the vast plan of the Samnites. Their army was so far from having been driven out of the country, that Gellius Egnatius fought for several years in Etruria; and even after the destruction of his force, the Samnites a long time held their ground in Samnium: they, on the contrary, conceived the grand idea of abandoning their country to the mercy of the enemy, and of carrying the war into Etruria. The Etruscans had during the last hundred years become better acquainted with the Gauls, who, being settled in the Romagna, had lost their love of roving, and were peacefully engaged in husbandry: individuals only enlisted as warriors. But as on the other side of the Alps the national migration was still going on, the transalpine hosts from time to time crossed the mountains, and then the Gauls were again set in motion. Such a migration must have taken place about this period; and the Etruscans availed themselves of the favourable moment, to take the Gauls in their pay against the Romans. It must have cost them much to come to this resolution; for if the Gauls had settled on the lower Tiber, amid the ruins of Rome, Etruria was surrounded and annihilated. Nevertheless, passion and hatred against the Romans were stronger motives than prudence. The Etruscans, with the exception of a few townships, had in the hope of this reinforcement again taken up arms, violating even their accustomed faith with regard to armistices; Perusia, for instance, did not keep the thirty years’ peace. Now as the Etruscans were indeed a wealthy, and with their serfs to fight at their side, a valiant people, but wanting in generals; the Samnites determined to march through the land of the Pentrians, Marsians, Sabines, and Umbrians, to Etruria. This is not here the fate of the heroic Vendeans, who in the month of October 1793, with all their population passed the Loire, and left their home to be laid waste, because they could not defend it: the Samnites were but an army, and the Romans did not hinder their march. This is one of the most brilliant feats in ancient history, and it excited in Rome not a little dismay.

The junction of Gellius Egnatius with the Etruscans was difficult to effect on account of the new Roman colonies: the Samnites had to march by Antrodoco; Volumnius followed them, but he could not prevent the union. It took place in 456; and the Romans were so far from looking upon them as fugitives, that the consul Volumnius received orders from the senate, to transfer the war from Samnium into Etruria, where Ap. Claudius seemed not to be equal to the emergency of the case. Ap. Claudius, in his patrician pride, considered this as an insult; and he demanded that Volumnius should leave the province: this insolent and egregious folly might have put the very existence of the republic in jeopardy. Volumnius was ready to return, and was only induced by the entreaties of his army to remain. In this year, the Gauls had not yet stirred; it is possible that the hosts which were expected, had not yet crossed the Alps.

The campaign of the year 457, is the turning point of the fate of Italy. The Romans made immense exertions. One body of troops was left behind on the frontier of Samnium, in order to hinder the Samnites from any attempt at offensive war against Rome: perhaps it consisted chiefly of Campanians and Lucanians: it merely acted on the defensive. The army under the proconsul Volumnius marched against the Gauls; and the old consular one of Appius, which was stationed in the neighbourhood of Foligno, was reinforced by two new legions, which Fabius had enlisted. Besides these, there were two armies of reserve, consisting of those who had to take up arms in case of need only, part of them perhaps a mere militia armed with spears: one was encamped on the Vatican hill before the city; the other was thrown forward as far as Falerii, in order to keep up the communication. The consul Decius went to the army, to take the command of the legions; to him Fabius brought his reinforcement. The Romans had posted themselves in the Umbrian mountains, near Nuceria, and had gone into cantonments there; a detachment was sent to Camerinum[149] on the most northern slope of the Apennines, to prevent the Gauls from marching through the defiles to Spoleto in the rear of the Romans. The Gauls, we must assume, passed the Apennines by Ariminum and Sena. Here Polybius comes to our aid. The legion which had been pushed on as far as Camerinum, was surprised and cut to pieces; so that the Romans knew nothing of the defeat, until the Gallic horsemen, charging on, displayed the heads of the slain Romans stuck on their lances.--The Etruscans, Samnites, and Umbrians, had combined their forces; until then they had remained on the defensive. Then the two Roman generals again resolved on an exceedingly bold undertaking: elsewhere ἀσφάλεια is wont to be the leading principle of their strategy. They made a movement in flank against an enemy immensely their superior in numbers; the main army marched from Nuceria through the Apennines, which are not very high there, to Sentinum; the Gauls and Samnites were stationed on the right, the Etruscans and Umbrians on the left of it. Between the two, they advanced as far as where the Apennines towards the Adriatic end in ranges of low hills, as if they meant to invade the country of the Senones; the latter, however, instead of advancing, fell back upon their frontier, and the Romans disposed themselves _en échelons_. The consuls called in the reserves. Cn. Fulvius moved from Falerii (Civita Castellana) into the position which had been left by the main army, and was detached against Assisium in the neighbourhood of Perusia: here there is a very high and strong range of mountains, from which he might invade the country, and entice the Etruscans to separate themselves from the Gauls. All this is quite certain, and I am led to think that the second reserve also marched afterwards on to Falerii. At Rome, they were surely forward enough in their preparations for arming, to be able to withstand any sudden invasion from Samnium. Another fact besides is hardly to be doubted, although Polybius merely gives it as a supposition. Volumnius also, who again faced the Samnites in their own country, must have been summoned back; so that by forced marches, he approached on the decisive day through the country of the Sabines above Terni, and abandoned Samnium to its fate.

The diversion of Fulvius against Perusia was crowned by the most complete success; the Etruscans and Umbrians detached considerable divisions of their main army to their own country, to protect the frontiers from the devastations of the enemy. These were the best troops of the Etruscans, whilst, on the other hand, Fulvius had the worst of the Roman. As generals in the battle, there are mentioned only the two consuls Q. Fabius V. and P. Decius IV.; but most certainly, as mentioned before, Volumnius also was there as proconsul: about fifty to sixty thousand men faced an enemy of infinitely superior numbers. There were a great many reasons for proceeding to Sentinum: in the first place, to draw the Etruscans away from their own home, so that, if they should be obliged to retreat, being separated from their allies, they would have to move by the arc of which the Romans had cut the chord; in the next place, they made the Gauls tremble for their own country, and it was to be expected that a great part of them would be scattered in order to protect their open villages; and lastly, they were afraid of the ἀπόνοια of the Gauls. If they had cut off the retreat of the Gauls in the south, these would have fought much more desperately; now they had the retreat into their own land open before them, and they had not yet crossed the mountains.

The result rewarded their wisdom. Yet the numbers of the enemy were so much superior, that the Romans did not trust to the efforts of human bravery alone; but Decius had resolved upon devoting himself to the infernal gods, and he had induced the plebeian pontiff M. Livius to accompany him, in order, if necessary, to perform the consecration in the midst of the battle. Decius faced the Gauls; Fabius the Etruscans, Umbrians, and Samnites; the legions of Volumnius may have been stationed in the centre. Of these enemies, the Samnites were by far the most formidable. Fabius had a style of his own in his strategy, as is the case with nearly every distinguished general;[150] he kept back the reserve to the very last,--a manœuvre the practicability of which entirely depends upon the composition of the army; it is only possible with very well trained troops; with young soldiers one risks a defeat;--when the foremost battalions were nearly destroyed, then only he led on the reserve, which was still quite fresh, and in this manner he almost always succeeded. Thus also now against the Samnites. But a different system was that of Decius against the Gauls, and must have been: this is the grand characteristic of the Roman order of battle, that they fought against every enemy in a special manner. The Greek wars are not by any means interesting, but so much the more are those of the Romans. The Greek phalanges pushed against each other, and the masses were immoveable; the Roman method on the contrary was light and flexible: Polybius, a very good officer, found it adapted to every circumstance. Fabius tried to weary out the Samnites, as it was summer, a season which the labourer from the warmer country bears much more easily than the Samnite, who dwelt in the cooler valleys. The Gauls also were easily wearied; but they were a numberless swarm which with the utmost impetuosity threw themselves upon the enemy; the first onset was the worst; if its shock was resisted, the victory was almost sure. To meet this first attack, Decius did everything in his power, but in vain: the innumerable cavalry of the Gauls, although at first driven back, advanced again with its overwhelming superiority of numbers; and now they brought forward their thousand war chariots, which were a terrible sight for the horses of the Romans. These took fright, and the flight began without any fault of the riders. For two days, the armies had faced each other; on the morning of the third, the Romans had an omen which prophesied victory to them; namely, a hind came down from the mountains, chased by a wolf, who caught her, and tore her in pieces. The day notwithstanding seemed to end disastrously; but Decius, after the example of his father, now devotes himself to death, and he rushes into the midst of the Gallic hosts, adding yet to the form in use the prayer, that fear and death might go before him. Hereupon affright is said to have spread through the army of the foe, and to have stopped it in its career. However this may have been, the death of Decius decided the battle. The Romans rallied, picked up the _pila_ from the field of carnage, and hurled them against the Gauls; the barbarian cavalry, having pushed on too far, was surrounded and overpowered; and Fabius, who had already discomfited the Samnites, sent his troops to give aid, and he now also led on the reserve. On this, the Gauls, who, like the Russians at the battles of Zorndorf and Austerlitz, were in one dense mass, broke, and could only scatter and flee: the retreat of the Samnites, Etruscans, and Umbrians to their camp was less of a rout. The loss of the Romans is stated to have been about seven thousand men of one army, and twelve hundred of the other; the Gauls had five and twenty thousand killed, and between seven and eight thousand taken prisoners, which is very credible. They went back again into their own land, without troubling themselves about any thing further, and the Samnites again accomplished an immense undertaking. Gellius Egnatius himself had fallen, either in the battle, or in the retreat; but the Samnite army was once more obliged to march round that of the Romans, or else quite through it, pursued by Volumnius, and attacked by the peoples into whose territory they trespassed, and whom they had to plunder in order to live. Five thousand of them reached their homes.

Thus ended the greatest campaign for achievements, known in the earlier Roman history. The numbers of the armies are corrupted in most of the books: Livy has for the Gauls 40,330 foot, and 46,000 horse; the former number has been left unchanged, but the 46,000 were brought down to 6,000; it ought, however, to have been 1,000,000 foot and 46,000 horse.[151] These are numbers, however, which do not belong to history, but merely to the chroniclers. The battle of Sentinum was so glorious, that the Greeks also knew of it, and Duris of Samos mentions in his history that a hundred thousand Gauls had been slain in it.

A campaign of such historical importance as that of the year 457, fills one indeed with pity, but at the same time with the greatest respect. The end of the third Samnite war brought misery and ruin upon Samnium. However blind the struggles of the Samnites may seem to have been, yet in truth they were great. We shall now give a short sketch of the rest of the war. Until 461, when it ended (the peace itself was only concluded in 462), it was continued in the same manner, and the Samnites renewed their attempts to break through into Etruria, but in vain. The Romans wedge themselves into Samnium; the Samnites retaliate in the country between the Liris and the Vulturnus. On the whole, during the last years, they still display mighty efforts: even as late as the year of the battle of Sentinum, they make an inroad through Campania. In the second year after,[152] they are said to have sent two great armies into the field, one of which binds itself by a solemn oath to fight to the last man. The only wonder is where they found the means, especially to keep up the style that they did, as Livy mentions that they had shields embossed with gold and silver: such magnificence sounds quite fabulous in a people which had been so reduced for years.[153] That, however, the consuls Postumius and Carvilius won _spolia_ of extraordinary splendour in their victories over the Samnites, is an historical fact; from part of these, a brazen colossus was erected in front of the Capitol.

But in reality, the war was decided as early as in 459 by the consuls L. Papirius and Sp. Carvilius. It is characteristic of the way in which it was waged, that the Samnite towns, both then, and afterwards in the war of Sylla, so entirely vanished from the earth, that the later geography did not know of them any more; and that no Samnite antiquities whatever are found in those regions. The last great battle was fought in the year 460. At that time, the son of the great Fabius, Q. Fabius Gurges, had marched into the country of the Pentrians; against him commanded C. Pontius, the conqueror at Caudium: from this we may infer, that the Caudines certainly took part in the war. The Romans were beaten, and they lost the whole of their baggage, the news of which reached Rome: they had, it is true, cut their way through the enemy; but they were not able to go on with the campaign. Then Fabius begged hard that the _imperium_ might not be taken from his son; and he succeeded in carrying a motion to that effect, and in getting permission to go out as legate to his son with a reinforcement: this was the greatest reward which the republic could give to that great man. He now gained a most decisive victory, by which, as Orosius justly remarks, an end was put to the Samnite war; for, although Eutropius tells us that it lasted a year longer, he is indeed such a careless writer, that no stress is to be laid on what he says. The sequel of the victory was horrid: C. Pontius was taken prisoner, led in the triumph, and then put to death: a fouler stain than this is not to be found in the whole of the Roman history. His native city Caudium must also at that time have been razed to the ground.

At the end of this war, when it was too late to turn the scale, it happened that new allies declared for the Samnites. These were the Sabines, whose peace with Rome had lasted for a century and a half, and that in such a manner, that we must believe what we are told by one whose authority is otherwise not quite to be trusted, that they had the right of Roman citizenship. This might have induced the Romans to grant the Samnites the peace, although they were not crushed: on what conditions, we are not able to make out. The Romans took advantage of it to establish on the frontiers of Apulia, Samnium, and Lucania, the large colony of Venusia, the native place of Horace: twenty thousand _coloni_ are said to have been sent thither; if this be true, it must have got a large country district. By means of this colony, Samnium was cut off from Tarentum, and such indeed was its importance, that the number given becomes not unlikely: in the war against Pyrrhus, it saved Rome; without it, after the battle of Heraclea, the army of Lævinus would have been utterly destroyed. Some time afterwards, they founded a colony besides at Æsernia in Samnium.

WAR WITH THE SABINES. COMMOTIONS AT HOME. LEX MÆNIA. LEX HORTENSIA.