Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/144

124 paratively strong political bond held together the Samnite nation, and gave to it the strength which subsequently enabled it to contest with Rome on equal terms the supremacy of Italy. We are as ignorant of the time and manner of the formation of the league, as we are of its constitution; but it is clear that in Samnium no single community exercised a preponderating influence, and still less was there any town to serve as a central rallying point and bond of union for the Samnite stock, such as Rome was for the Latins. The strength of the land lay in its communes of husbandmen, and authority was vested in the assembly formed of their representatives. This assembly in case of need nominated a federal commander-in-chief. In consequence of such a constitution the policy of the confederacy was not aggressive like the Roman, but limited to the defence of its own bounds; only in an united state is power so concentrated and passion so strong, that the extension of territory can be systematically pursued. Accordingly the whole history of the two nations is prefigured in their diametrically opposite systems of colonization. Whatever the Romans gained, was a gain to the state: the conquests of the Samnites were achieved by bands of volunteers who went forth in search of plunder, and, whether they prospered or were unfortunate, were left to their own resources by their native home. The conquests, however, which the Samnites made on the coasts of the Tyrrhenian and Ionic seas, belong to a later age; during the regal period in Home they seem to have been only gaining possession of the settlements in which we afterwards find them. As a single incident in the series of movements among the neighbouring peoples caused by the Samnite settlement may be mentioned the surprise of Cumæ by Tyrrhenians from the Upper Sea, Umbrians, and Daunians in the year of the city. If we may give credit to the accounts of the matter, which bear certainly a considerable colouring of romance, it would appear that in this instance, as was often the case in such expeditions, the intruders and those whom they supplanted combined to form one army, the Etruscans joining with their Umbrian enemies, and these again joined by the Iapygians, whom the Umbrian settlers had driven towards the south. Nevertheless the undertaking proved a failure: on this occasion at least the superiority of the Greeks in the art of war, and the bravery of the tyrant Aristodemus succeeded in repelling the barbarian assault on the beautiful seaport.