Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/766

Rh 742 ROME [HISTORY. The strength of this system was now to be tried by a straggle with the one Italian people who were still ready and able to contest with Rome the supremacy of the peninsula. The passive attitude of the Samnites between 342 and 327 was no doubt largely due to the dangers which had suddenly threatened them in South Italy. But the death of Alexander of Epirus, in 332, 1 removed their only formidable opponent there, and left them free to turn their attention to the necessity of checking the steady advance of Rome. In 327, the year after the ominous foundation of a Roman colony at Fregellse, a pretext for renewing the struggle was offered them. The Cumaean colony of Palaepolis 2 had incurred the wrath of Rome by its raids into her territory in Campania. The Samnites sent a force to defend it, and Rome replied by a declaration of war. The two opponents were not at first sight unequally matched, and had the Sabellian tribes held firmly together the issue of the struggle might have been different. As it was, however, the Lucanians to the south actually joined Rome from the first, while the northern clans Marsi, Vestini, Pasligni, Frentani, after a feeble and lukewarm resistance, subsided into a neutrality which was exchanged in 304 for a formal alliance with Rome. An even greater advantage to Rome from the outset was the enmity existing between Samnites and the Apulians, the latter of whom from the first joined Rome and thus gave her a position in the rear of her enemy and in a country eminently well fitted for maintaining a large military force. These weaknesses on the Samnite side were amply illustrated by the eveiits of the war. The first seven or eight years were marked by one serious disaster to the Roman arms, the defeat at the Caudine Forks (321), but, when in 318 the Samnites asked for and obtained a two years' truce, Rome had succeeded not only in inflicting several severe blows upon her enemies but in isolating them from outside help. The Lucanians to the south were her allies. To the east, in the rear of Samnium, Apulia acknowledged the suzer- ainty of Rome, and Luceria, captured in 320, had been established as a base of Roman operations. Finally to the north the Romans had easily overcome the feeble resistance of the Vestini and Frentani, and secured through their territories a safe passage for their legions to Apulia. On the renewal of hostilities in 316, the Samnites, bent on escaping from the net which was being slowly drawn round them, made a series of desperate efforts to break through the lines of defence which protected Latium and Campania. Sora and Fregellaa on the upper Liris were captured by a sudden attack; the Ausones in the low country near the mouth of the same river were encouraged to revolt by the appearance of the Samnite army; and in Campania another army, attracted by rumours of disturb- ance, all but defeated the Roman consuls under the very walls of Capua. But these efforts were unavailing. Sbra and Fregellae were recovered as quickly as they had been lost, and the frontier there was strengthened by the estab- lishment of a colony at Interamna. The Ausones were punished by the confiscation of their territory, and Roman supremacy further secured by the two colonies of Suessa and Pontia (312). The construction of the famous Via Appia, 3 the work of the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, opened a safe and direct route to Campania, while the capture of Nola deprived the Samnites of their last important stronghold in the Campanian lowlands. The failure of these attempts broke the courage even of the Samnites. Their hopes were indeed raised for a moment by the news that Etruria had risen against Rome (310), but their daring scheme of effecting a union with the Etruscans was frustrated by the energy of the Roman 1 Livy, viii. 3, 17, 24. 2 Livy, viii. 22. 8 Livy, ix. 23. generals. Five years later (305) the Romans revenged a 449. Samnite raid into Campania by an invasion of Sanmium itself. Arpinum on the frontier was taken, and at last, after a twenty-two years' struggle, the Second Samnite ^Y;u was closed by a renewal of the ancient treaty with Rome (304). 4 450. The six years of peace which followed (304-298) 450-6. were characteristically employed by Rome in still further strengthening her position. Already, two years before the peace, a rash revolt of the Hernici 5 had given Rome a pretext for finally annexing the territory of her ancient allies. The tribal confederacy was broken up, and all the Hernican communities, with the exception of three which had not joined the revolt, were incorporated with the Roman state as municipia, with the civil rights of the Roman franchise. Between the Hernican valley and the frontiers of the nearest Sabellian tribes lay what remained of the once formidable people of the ./Equi. In their case, too, a revolt (304) was followed by the annexa- tion of their territory, which was marked in this case by the formation there (301) of two Roman tribes (Aniensis 453. and Teretina). 6 Not content with thus carrying the borders of their own territory up to the very frontiers of the Sabellian country, Rome succeeded iu finally detaching from the Sabellian confederacy all the tribes lying 7 between the north-east frontier of Latium and the Adriatic Sea. Henceforward the Marsi, Pseligni, Vestini, Marrucini, and Frentani were enrolled among the allies of Rome, and not only swelled her forces in the field but interposed a useful barrier between her enemies to the north in Etruria and Umbria and those to the south in Samnium, while they connected her directly with the friendly Apulians. Lastly, as a security for the fidelity at least of the nearest of these allies, colonies were planted in the Marsian territories at Carseoli and at Alba Fucentia. A significant indication of the widening range of Rome's influence in Italy, and of the new responsibilities rapidly pressing upon her, is the fact that when in 302 the Spartan Cleonymus landed in 4 the territory of the Sallentini, far away in the south-east, he was met and repulsed by a Roman force. 8 Six years after the conclusion of the treaty which ended TMnl the Second Samnite War, news arrived that the Samnites SamL were harassing the Lucanians. Rome at once interfered 0( ^. to protect her allies. Samnium was invaded in force, the 455.. country ravaged, and one stronghold after another cap- tured. Unable any longer to hold their own in a position where they were hedged round by enemies, the Samnite leaders turned as a last hope to the communities of northern Etruria, to the free tribes of Umbria, and to the once dreaded Celts. With a splendid daring they formed the scheme of uniting all these peoples with themselves in a last desperate effort to break the power of Rome. For some forty years after the final annexation of Ron" southern Etruria (351 B.C.) matters had remained un- '" changed in that quarter. Sutrium and Nepete still guarded the Roman frontier; the natural boundary of the Ciminian forest was still intact; and up the valley of the Tiber Rome had not advanced beyond Falerii, a few miles short of the most southerly Umbrian town Ocriculum. But in 311, on the expiry, apparently, of the long truce 443. with Rome, concluded in 351, the northern Etruscans, alarmed no doubt by the rapid advances which Rome was making further south, rose in arms and attacked Sutrium. The attack, however, recoiled disastrously upon the heads of the assailants. A Roman force promptly relieved Sutrium, and its leader, Q. Fabius Rullianus, without awaiting orders from home, boldly plunged into the wilds of the Ciminian forest, and crossing them safely swept 4 Livy, ix. 29. 7 Livy, x. 9. 8 Livy, ix. 45. 8 Livy, x. 2. 6 Livy, ix. 45.