CHAPTER XIX.

FIRST SAMNITE WAR. (B.C. 343-341.)

§ 1. Origin and geographical position of the Samnites. § 2. Little unity between them and kindred tribes. § 3. Samnites a pastoral people. § 4. They spread from their mountains over various parts of the coast. Campania. Their Colonists become their enemies. § 5. Causes of the War. § 6. First year of the War: battle of Mount Gaurus gained by Valerius Corvus. Other victories. § 7. Peace concluded next year. Reasons. § 8. FIRST REASON: Mutiny of Roman Legions wintering in Campania. They advance to Bovillæ, and are joined by Plebeians from the City: Fourth Secession. § 9. Difference between this and former Secessions. It is put down by Valerius. § 10. Laws for improving the condition of soldiers. § 11. Genucian Laws. Laws for relieving Debtors: remarks. § 12. SECOND REASON deferred to next Chapter.

§ 1. We must now carry our eyes beyond the district described in our sixth Chapter, and penetrate into Campania and the valleys of the Apennines, of which, as yet, our History has taken

no count.

The Sabines are a people connected with the earliest legends of Rome. But the Sabines of Cures and the lower country between the Anio and the Tiber are those who have hitherto engaged our attention. It is in the highlands of Reaté and Amiternum that we must search for the cradle of the race. The valleys of this high district afford but scanty subsistence; and the hardy mountaineers ever and anon cast off swarms of emigrants, who sought other homes, and made good their claim by arms. It was a custom of the Sabellian race, when famine threatened and population became too dense, to devote the whole produce of one spring-time, by a solemn vow, to the gods." Among other produce, the youth born in that year were included they were dedicated to the god Mamers (Mars), and went forth to seek their fortunes abroad. On one such occasion the emigrants, pressing southward along the highland valleys,

This was called a Ver sacrum.

occupied the broad mountain district which lies northward of Campania. Such is the story which the SAMNITES told of their own origin. The Picenians on the north coast, with the four allied Cantons of the Vestinians, Marrucinians, Pelignians, and Marsians, who were interposed between the Samnites and their ancestral Sabines, claimed kin with both nations. The Samnites themselves also formed four Cantons,-the Caracenians, Pentrians, Caudinians, and Herpinians. Of these Cantons, the first and last are little heard of. The Pentrians were far the most considerable: they occupied the rugged mountain district between the upper valleys of the Vulturnus and the Calor. Here a great mass of mountains, now known by the name of Mount Matésé, projects boldly from the central chain, rising to the height of more than 6000 feet; and its steep defiles offer defences of great natural strength against an invader. But the remains of massive polygonal masonry, which are still seen on the rocky heights occupied by their towns of sernia and Bovianum (Isernia and Bojano), show that the Samnites trusted to military art as well as to natural strength of country. Below Mount Matésé, in the valley of the Calor, lay the Cantons of the Caudinians, whose town of Beneventum (anciently called Maleventum, or Maliessa) also offered a position made strong by art. It is within these limits, from Æsernia to Beneventum, that the scenes of the chief campaigns of the Samnite wars were laid.

§ 2. It must be remarked that but little connexion seems to have been maintained between the Samnite Cantons and their Sabellian kinsmen to the north. If the Sabines of the Upper Apennines, if the Marsian, and Pelignian, and other Cantons which lie between the Sabines and the Samnites, had combined, nay, if all the Samnite Cantons had been closely united, the issue of the wars which were waged with Rome might have been different. But the brunt of conflict fell chiefly on the Pentrians and Caudinians; and it was not till their strength was well nigh exhausted that the other Sabellian tribes came forward to oppose the growing power of Rome.

§ 3. From the nature of their country, the Samnites were for

b Strabo, who gives a similar account of the origin of the Picenians.

the most part a pastoral people. Their mountains break into numberless valleys, sloping both to the north and south, well watered, and fresh even in the summer heats. Into these valleys, as is still the practice of the country, the flocks were driven from the lower lands, ascending higher and higher as the heats increased, and descending towards the plain in the same gradual way as autumn inclined towards winter."

§ 4. But the Samnites were not contented with these narrow mountain-homes. As they had themselves been sent forth from a central hive, so in time they cast forth new swarms of emigrants. In early times a Samnite tribe, under the name of Frentanians, had taken possession of the coast lands between the Marrucinian canton and Apulia. They also constantly pushed forward bands of adventurous settlers down the Vulturnus and Calor into the rich plain that lay temptingly beneath their mountains, and to which they gave the name of Campania, or the champagne-land, in opposition to the narrow vales and rugged hills of their native country. In earlier times this fair plain had attracted Etruscan conquerors; and its chief city, anciently called Vulturnum, is said from them to have received the lasting name of Capua. But about the year 423 B.C., nearly a century before the time of which we are presently to speak, a band of Samnites had seized this famous city, and had become its lords," the ancient Oscan inhabitants being reduced to the condition of clients. Soon after, the great Greek city of Cuma, which then gave name to the Bay of Naples, had been conquered by the new lords of Capua; and from this time forth, under the name of Campanians, they became the dominant power of the country. In course of time, however, the Samnites of Capua, or the Campanians, lost their own language and usages, and adopted those of the Oscan people, who had become their subjects. Hence it is that we shall find the Campanian Samnites at war with the old Samnites of the mountains,

See Chapt. xlviii. § 5.

d From the Etruscan chief Capys. It must be remarked, however, that Capua and Campania seem to be etymologically akin, and are probably both of Samuite origin.

e Liv. iv. 37.

Liv. iv. 44, who places the conquest of Cuma in the year 420 B.C. Diodorus, xii. 76, places it eight years earlier.

just as the Roman Sabines lost all national sympathy with the old Sabines of Cures, just as in England the Anglo-Normans became the national enemies of the French.

It may be added that the Lucanians and Apulians, who stretched across the breadth of Italy below Campania, were formed by a mixture of Samnite invaders with the ancient population, themselves (as we have seen above) a compound of Oscan and Pelasgian races ; while the Bruttians, who occupied the mountainous district south of the Gulf of Tarentum, were a similar offcast from the Lucanians. But these half-Sabellian tribes, like the old races from whom the Samnites came, lent very uncertain aid to their kinsmen in the struggle with Rome. The sons were as slow as the fathers to perceive that their true interest lay in joining the Samnites against the new conquerors.

§ 5. These prefatory remarks will prepare us for the great conflict which followed, and which, in fact, determined the sovereignty of Italy to be the right of the Roman, and not of the Samnite people. The first war arose out of a quarrel such as we have just alluded to between the Campanians or Samnites of the plain, and the old Samnites of the Matésé. In the year 354 B.C. a treaty had been concluded by the mountaineers with Rome. Since that time, Samnite adventurers had been pressing upon the Oscan nations in the upper valley of the Liris, and had even taken the Volscian cities of Sora and Fregellæ, while the Romans, combined with the Latins again since the year 358 B.C., were forcing back the Volscians from the west. In 343 B.C. the Samnites had pursued their encroachments so far as to assail Teanum, the chief city of the Sidicines, probably an Oscan tribe, who occupied the lower hills in the north of Campania. The Sidicines demanded the aid of the burgesses of Capua against their assailants; and the Campanians, venturing to give this aid, drew down upon their own heads the wrath of the mountaineers. The Samnites took possession of Mount Tifata, a bare hill which overhangs Capua on the north, and from their camp there plundered at will the rich plain below. Unable to meet the enemy in the field, the degenerate Campanians entreated the assistance of the Roman and Latin League. There was some difficulty in listening to this application; for

Introduction, Sect. ii. § 8.

the treaty, which had been concluded eleven years before, still subsisted, and no aggression against Rome or her allies was chargeable upon the Samnites. But no doubt their aggressions in the valleys of the Liris and Vulturnus had alarmed the Senate; and all scruples were removed when the Campanians offered to surrender their city absolutely, so that in defending them Rome might plead that she was defending her own subjects. This quibbling bargain was struck, and war was declared against the Samnites.

§ 6. The Consuls of the year were both Patricians,—Au. Cornelius Cossus, and M. Valerius Corvus, whose single combat with the Gaul has been mentioned more than once. Apart from legendary tales, it is evident that Valerius was the most considerable man at Rome, now that Camillus was no more. He was now in his third Consulship, and thrice in future years he held the same high office. To extreme old age he continued in the service of the state, and his last Consulships were employed in assisting to remove the last traces of disunion between the Orders. If the Licinian Law was to be broken, it could not be broken in favour of a worthier than M. Valerius.

Each Consul led two legions separately into the field, with an equal number of Latin Allies. The force under the command of Valerius was destined to drive the Samnites out of Campania, while Cossus was to invade the Pentrian valleys. But the details of the campaign are quite unintelligible. Valerius gained a great victory over the Samnites on Mount Gaurus, which lies near Baiæ on the sea-coast. How it happened that he was thus driven into this corner of the land we know not. No sooner was the battle of Mount Gaurus won, than news reached Valerius that his colleague Cossus had become entangled in a Samnite defile, and was shut in by the enemy on all sides. From this danger he was relieved by the valour and conduct of a legionary tribune, P. Decius Mus, the first-named of an illustrious plebeian family. He seized an eminence which commanded the pass, and the Consul was enabled to escape from his danger. Then, say the Roman annals, Cossus attacked the Samnites and defeated them. It is added that Valerius joined him directly after, and the united forces overthrew the enemy in a third great battle.