History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

Yet the war was protracted in the mountains of the Apennine. Tarentum united with the Samnites, the only people who were still to be feared,191 and the Lucanians abandoned the alliance of the Romans; but, in 429, the two most celebrated captains of the time, Q. Fabius Rullianus and Papirius Cursor, penetrated into the country of Samnium, and compelled the enemy to pay an indemnity for the war and accept a year’s truce.

At this epoch, an unforeseen event, which changed the destinies of the world, came to demonstrate the difference between the rapid creation of a man of genius and the patient work of an intelligent aristocracy. Alexander the Great, after having shone like a meteor, and brought into subjection the most powerful kingdoms of Asia, died at Babylon. His fruitful and decisive influence, which carried the civilization of Greece into the East, survived him, but at his death, the empire he founded became in a few years dismembered (431); the Roman aristocracy, on the contrary, perpetuating itself from age to age, pursued more slowly, but without interruption, the system which, binding again the peoples about a common centre, was destined by little and little to secure her domination over Italy first, and then over the universe.

The defection of a part of the Apulians, in 431, encouraged the Samnites to take arms again; defeated in the following years, they asked for the restoration of friendly relations, but the haughty refusal of Rome led, in 433, to the famous defeat of the Furcæ Caudinæ. The generosity of the Samnite general, Pontus Herennius, who granted their lives to so many thousands of prisoners on condition of restoring to force the old treaties, had no effect upon the Senate. Four legions had passed under the yoke – a circumstance in which the Senate only saw a new affront to revenge. The treaty of Caudium was not ratified, and subterfuges little excusable, although approved at a later period by Cicero,192 gave to the refusal an appearance of justice.

Meanwhile the Senate exerted itself vigorously to repair this check, and soon Publilius Philo defeated the enemies in Samnium, and, in Apulia, Papirius, in his turn, caused seven thousand Samnites to pass under the yoke. The vanquished solicited peace, but in vain; they only obtained a truce for two years (436), and it had hardly expired, when, penetrating into the country of the Volsci, as far as the neighbourhood of Terracina, and taking a position at Lautulæ, they defeated a Roman army raised hastily and commanded by Q. Fabius (439). Capua deserted, and Nola, Nuceria, the Aurunci, and the Volsci of the Liris took part openly with the Samnites. The spirit of rebellion spread as far as Præneste. Rome was in danger. The Senate required its utmost energy to restrain populations whose fidelity was always doubtful. Fortune seconded its efforts, and the allies, who had proved traitors, received a cruel chastisement, explained by the terror they had inspired. In 440,193 not far from Caudium, a numerous army encountered the Samnites, who lost 30,000 men, and were driven back into the Apennine territory. The Roman legions proceeded to encamp before their capital, Bovianum, and there took up their winter quarters.

The year following (441), Rome, less occupied in fighting, profited by this circumstance to seize upon advantageous positions, establishing in Campania and Apulia colonies which surrounded the territory of Samnium. At the same epoch, Appius Claudius transformed into a regular causeway the road which has preserved his name.194 The Romans turned their attention to the defence of the coasts and communication by sea; a colony was sent to the isle of Pontia,195 opposite Tarracina, and the armament of a fleet was commenced, which was placed under the command of duumviri navales.196 The war had lasted fifteen years, and, although Rome had only succeeded in driving back the Samnites into their own territory, she had conquered two provinces, Apulia and Campania.

Third Samnite war. Coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Hernici (443-449).

VI. A struggle so desperate had produced its effect even in Etruria, and the old league was formed again. Inured to war by their daily combats with the Gauls, and emboldened by the reports of the defeat of Lautulæ, the Etruscans believed that the moment had arrived for recovering their ancient territory to the south of the Ciminian forest; they were further encouraged by the attitude of the peoples of Central Italy, who were weary of the continual passing of legions. From 443 to 449, the armies of the Republic were obliged to face different enemies at the same time. In Etruria, Fabius Rullianus relieved Sutrium, a rampart of Rome on the north;197 he passed through the Ciminian forest, and by the victories of Lake Vadimo (445)198 and Perusia compelled all the Etruscan towns to ask for peace. At the same time, an army laid waste the country of the Samnites; and a Roman fleet, composed of vessels furnished by the maritime allies, took the offensive for the first time. Its attempt near Nuceria Alfaterna (Nocera, a town of Campania) was unfortunate.

War next breaks out again in Apulia, Samnium, and Etruria, where the aged Papirius Cursor, named dictator anew, gains a brilliant victory at Langula (445). The year following Fabius penetrates again into Samnium, and the other consul, Decius, maintains Etruria. Suddenly the Umbrians conceive the project of seizing Rome by surprise. The consuls are recalled for the defence of the town. Fabius meets the Etruscans at Mevania (on the confines of Etruria and Umbria), and, the year following, at Allifæ (447). Among the prisoners were some Æqui and Hernici. Their towns, feeling themselves thus compromised, declared open war against the Romans (448). The Samnites recovered courage; but the prompt reduction of the Hernici allowed the Senate to concentrate its forces. Two armies, penetrating into Samnium by way of Apulia and Campania, re-established the old frontiers. Bovianum was taken for the third time, and during six months the country was delivered up to devastation. In vain Tarentum tried to raise new quarrels for the Republic, and to force the Lucanians to embrace the cause of the Samnites. The successes of the Roman arms led to the conclusion of treaties of peace with all the peoples of Southern Italy, constrained thenceforward to acknowledge the majesty of the Roman people. The Æqui remained alone exposed to the wrath of Rome; the Senate did not forget that at Allifæ they had fought in the ranks of the enemy, and, once freed from its more serious embarrassments, it inflicted on this people a terrible chastisement: forty-one places were taken and burnt in fifty days. This period of six years thus terminated with the submission of the Hernici and Æqui.

Five years less agitated left Rome time to regulate the position of its new subjects, and to establish colonies and ways of communication.

The Hernici were treated in the same manner as the Latins, in 416, and deprived of commercium and connubium. Prefects and the law of the Cærites were imposed on Anagnia, Frusino, and other towns guilty of desertion. The cities which had remained faithful preserved their independence and the title of allies (448);199 the Æqui lost a part of their territory and received the right of city without suffrage (450). The Samnites, sufficiently humiliated, obtained at last the renewal of their ancient conventions (450).200 Fœdera non æqua were concluded with the Marsi, the Peligni, the Marrucini, the Frentani (450), the Vestini (452), and the Picentini (455).201 Rome treated with Tarentum on a footing of equality, and engaged not to let her fleet pass the Lacinian Promontory to the south of the Gulf of Tarentum.202

Thus, on the one hand, the territories shared among the Roman citizens; on the other, the number of the municipia were considerably augmented. Further, the Republic had acquired new allies; she possessed at length the passages of the Apennines and commanded both seas.203 A girdle of Latin fortresses protected Rome and broke the communications between the north and south of Italy; among the Marsi and the Æqui, there were Alba and Carseoli; Sora, towards the sources of the Liris; and Narnia, in Umbria. Military roads connected the colonies with the metropolis.

Fourth Samnite War. Second coalition of the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls (456-464).

VII. Peace could not last long: between Rome and the Samnites it was a duel to death. In 456, these latter had already sufficiently recovered from their disasters to attempt once more the fortune of arms.204 Rome sends to the succour of the Lucanians, suddenly attacked, two consular armies. Vanquished at Tifernum by Fabius, at Maleventum by Decius, the Samnites witness the devastation of their whole country. Still they do not lose courage; their chief, Gellius Egnatius, conceives a plan which places Rome in great danger. He divides the Samnite army into three bodies: the first remains to defend the country; the second takes the offensive in Campania; the third, which he commands in person, throws itself into Etruria, and, increased by the junction of the Etruscans, the Gauls, and the Umbrians, soon forms a numerous army.205 The storm roared on all sides, and, while the Roman generals were occupied some in Samnium and others in Campania, despatches arrived from Appius, placed at the head of the army of Etruria, announcing a terrible coalition formed in silence by the peoples of the north, who were concentrating all their forces in Umbria for the purpose of marching upon Rome.

The terror was extreme, but the energy of the Romans was equal to the danger. All able men, even to the freedmen, were enrolled, and ninety thousand soldiers were raised. Under these grave circumstances (458), Fabius and Decius were, once again, raised to the supreme magistracy, and gained, under the walls of Sentinum, a brilliant victory, long disputed. During the battle, Decius devoted himself, as his father had done before. The coalition once dissolved, Fabius defeated another army which had issued from Perusia, and then came to receive the honour of a triumph in Rome. Etruria was subdued (460), and obtained a truce of forty years.206

The Samnites still maintained an obstinate struggle of mingled successes and reverses. In 461, after having taken an oath to conquer or die, thirty thousand of them were left on the field of battle of Aquilonia. A few months later, the celebrated Pontius, the hero of Furcæ Caudinæ, re-appeared, at the end of twenty-nine years, at the head of his fellow-citizens, and inflicted upon the son of Fabius a check, which the latter soon retrieved with the assistance of his father.207 Finally, in 464, two Roman armies re-commenced, in Samnium, a war of extermination, which led for the fourth time to the renewal of the ancient treaties and the cession of a certain extent of territory. At the same epoch, an insurrection which broke out in the Sabine territory was put down by Curius Dentatus. Central Italy was conquered.

The peace with the Samnites lasted five years (464-469). Rome extended her frontiers, and fortified those of the peoples placed under her protectorate; and at the same time established new military forts.

The right of city without suffrage was accorded to the Sabines, and prefects were given to some of the towns of the valley of the Vulturnus (Venafrum and Allifæ).208 A Latin colony, of twenty thousand men, was sent to Venusia to watch over Southern Italy.209 It commanded at the same time Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania. If, owing to the treaty concluded with the Greek towns, the Roman supremacy extended over the south of the peninsula, to the north the Etruscans could not be reckoned as allies, since nothing more than truces had been concluded with them. In Umbria, the small tribe of the Sarsinates remained independent, and all the coast district from the Rubicon to the Æsis was in the power of the Senones; on their southern frontier the Roman colony of Sena Gallica (Sinigaglia) was founded; the coast of Picenum was watched by that of Castrum Novum and by the Latin fortress of Hatria (465).210

Third coalition of the Etruscans, Gauls, Lucanians, and Tarentines (469-474).

VIII. The power of Rome had increased considerably. The Samnites, who hitherto had played the first part, were no longer in a condition to plan further coalitions, and one people alone could hardly be rash enough to provoke the Republic. Yet the Lucanians, always hesitating, gave this time the signal for a general revolt.

The attack on Thurium, by the Lucanians and Bruttians, became the occasion of a new league, into which entered successively the Tarentines, the Samnites, the Etruscans, and even the Gauls. The north was soon in flames, and Etruria again became the battle-field. A Roman army, which had hastened to relieve Arretium, was put to rout by the Etruscans united with Gaulish mercenaries. The Senones, to whom these belonged, having massacred the Roman ambassadors sent to expostulate on their violation of the treaty with the Republic, the Senate sent against them two legions who drove them back beyond the Rubicon. The Gaulish tribe of the Boians, alarmed by the fate of the Senones, descended immediately into Umbria, and, rallying the Etruscans, prepared to march to renew the sack of Rome; but their march was arrested, and two successive victories, at Lake Vadimo, (471) and Populonia (472), enabled the Senate to conclude a convention which drove back the Boians into their old territory. Hostilities continued with the Etruscans during two years, after which their submission completed the conquest of Northern Italy.

Pyrrhus in Italy. Submission of Tarentum (474-488).

IX. Free to the north, the Romans turned their efforts against the south of Italy; war was declared against Tarentum, the people of which had attacked a Roman flotilla. While the consul Æmilius invested the town, the first troops of Pyrrhus, called in by the Tarentines, disembarked in the port (474).

This epoch marks a new phase in the destinies of Rome, who is going, for the first time, to measure herself with Greece. Hitherto the legions have never had to combat really regular armies, but they have become disciplined in war by incessant struggles in the mountains of Samnium and Etruria; henceforth they will have to face old soldiers disciplined in skilful tactics and commanded by an experienced warrior. The King of Epirus, after having already twice lost and recovered his kingdom, and invaded and abandoned Macedonia, dreamt of conquering the West. On the news of his arrival at the head of twenty-five thousand soldiers and twenty elephants,211 the Romans enrolled all citizens capable of bearing arms, even the proletaries; but, admirable example of courage! they rejected the support of the Carthaginian fleet with this proud declaration: “The Republic only entertains wars which it can sustain with its own forces.”212 While fifty thousand men, under the orders of the consul Lævinus, march against the King of Epirus, to prevent his junction with the Samnites, another army enters Lucania. The consul Tiberius Coruncanius holds Etruria, again in agitation. Lastly, an army of reserve guards the capital.

Lævinus encountered the King of Epirus near Heraclea, a colony of Tarentum (474). Seven times in succession the legions charged the phalanx, which was on the point of giving way, when the elephants, animals unknown to the Romans, decided the victory in favour of the enemy. A single battle had delivered to Pyrrhus all the south of the Peninsula, where the Greek towns received him with enthusiasm.

But, though victor, he had sustained considerable losses, and learned at the same time the effeminacy of the Greeks of Italy, and the energy of a people of soldiers. He offered peace, and asked of the Senate liberty for the Samnites, the Lucanians, and especially for the Greek towns. Old Appius Claudius declared it impossible so long as Pyrrhus occupied Italian soil, and peace was refused. The king then resolved to march upon Rome through Campania, where his troops made great booty.

Lævinus, made prudent by his defeat, satisfied himself with watching the enemy’s army, and succeeded in covering Capua; whence he followed Pyrrhus from place to place, looking out for a favourable opportunity. This prince, advancing by the Latin Way, had reached Præneste without obstacle,213 when, surrounded by three Roman armies, he found himself under the necessity of falling back and retiring into Lucania. Next year, reckoning on finding new auxiliaries among the peoples of the east, he attacked Apulia; but the fidelity of the allies in Central Italy was not shaken. Victorious at Asculum (Ascoli di Satriano) (475), but without a decisive success, and encountering always the same resistance, he seized the first opportunity of quitting Italy to conquer Sicily (476-78). During this time, the Senate re-established the Roman domination in Southern Italy, and even seized upon some of the Greek towns, among the rest Locri and Heraclea.214 Samnium, Lucania, and Bruttium were again given up to the power of the legions, and forced to surrender lands and renew treaties of alliance; on the coast, Tarentum and Rhegium alone remained independent. The Samnites still resisted, and the Roman army encamped in their country in 478 and 479. Meanwhile Pyrrhus returns to Italy, reckoning on arriving in time to deliver Samnium; but he is defeated at Beneventum by Curius Dentatus, and returns to his country. The invasion of Pyrrhus, cousin of Alexander the Great; and one of his successors, appears as one of the last efforts of Grecian civilisation expiring at the feet of the rising grandeur of Roman civilisation.

The war against the King of Epirus produced two remarkable results: it improved the Romans in military tactics, and introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of civilised nations which teach men to honour their adversaries, to spare the vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended. The King of Epirus treated his Roman prisoners with great generosity. Cineas, sent to the Senate at Rome, and Fabricius, envoy to Pyrrhus, carried back from their mission a profound respect for those whom they had combated.

In the following years Rome took Tarentum (482),215 finally pacified Samnium, and took possession of Rhegium (483-485). Since the battle of Mount Gaurus, seventy-two years had passed, and several generations had succeeded each other, without seeing the end of this long and sanguinary quarrel. The Samnites had been nearly exterminated, and yet the spirit of independence and liberty remained deeply rooted in their mountains. When, at the end of two centuries and a half, the war of the allies shall come, it is there still that the cause of equality of rights will find its strongest support.

The other peoples underwent quickly the laws of the conqueror. The inhabitants of Picenum, as a punishment for their revolt, were despoiled of a part of their territory, and a certain number among them received new lands in the south of Campania, near the Gulf of Salernum (Picentini)(486). In 487, the submission of the Salentines allowed the Romans to seize Brundusium, the most important port of the Adriatic.216 The Sarsinates were reduced the years following.217 Finally, Volsinium, a town of Etruria, was again numbered among the allies of the Republic. The Sabines received the right of suffrage. Italy, become henceforth Roman, extended from the Rubicon to the Straits of Messina.

Preponderance of Rome.

X. During this period, the conquest of the subjugated countries was ensured by the foundation of colonies. Rome became thus encircled by a girdle of fortresses commanding all the passages which led to Latium, and closing the roads to Campania, Samnium, Etruria, and Gaul.218

At the opening of the struggle which ended in the conquest of Italy, there were only twenty-seven tribes of Roman citizens; the creation of eight new tribes (the two last in 513) raised finally the number to thirty-five, of which twenty-one were reserved to the old Roman people and fourteen to the new citizens. Of these the Etruscans had four; the Latins, the Volsci, the Ausones, the Æqui, and the Sabines, each two; but, these tribes being at a considerable distance from the capital, the new citizens could hardly take part in the comitia, and the majority, with its influence, remained with those who dwelt at Rome.219 After 513, no more tribes were created; those who received the rights of citizens were only placed in the previously existing tribes; so that the members of one individual tribe were scattered in the provinces, and the number of those inscribed went on increasing continually by individual additions, and by the tendency more and more apparent to raise the municipia of the second order to the rank of the first order. Thus, towards the middle of the sixth century, the towns of the Æqui, the Hernici, the Volsci, and a part of those of Campania, including the ancient Samnite cities of Venafrum and Allifæ, obtained the right of city with suffrage.

Rome, towards the end of the fifth century, thus ruled, though in different degrees, the peoples of Italy proper. The Italian State, if we may give it that name, was composed of a reigning class, the citizens; of a class protected, or held in guardianship, the allies; and of a third class, the subjects. Allies or subjects were all obliged to furnish military contingents. The maritime Greek towns furnished sailors to the fleet. Even the cities, which preserved their independence for their interior affairs, obeyed, so far as the military administration was concerned, special functionaries appointed by the metropolis.220 The consuls had the right of raising in the countries bordering on the theatre of war all men capable of bearing arms. The equipment and pay of the troops remained at the charge of the cities; Rome provided for their maintenance during war. The auxiliary infantry was ordinarily equal in number to that of the Romans, the cavalry double or triple.

In exchange for this military assistance, the allies had a right to a part of the conquered territory, and, in return for an annual rent, to the usufruct of the domains of the State. These domains, considerable in the peninsula,221 formed the sole source of income which the treasury derived from the allies, free in other respects from tribute. Four questors (quæstores classici) were established to watch over the execution of the orders of the Senate, the equipment of the fleet, and the collection of the farm-rents.

Rome reserved to herself exclusively the direction of the affairs of the exterior, and presided alone over the destinies of the Republic. The allies never interfered in the decisions of the Forum, and each town kept within the narrow limits of its communal administration. The Italian nationality was thus gradually constituted by means of this political centralisation, without which the different peoples would have mutually weakened each other by intestine wars, more ruinous than foreign wars, and Italy would not have been in a condition to resist the double pressure of the Gauls and the Carthaginians.

The form adopted by Rome to rule Italy was the best possible, but only as a transition form. The object to be aimed at was, in fact, the complete assimilation of all the inhabitants of the peninsula, and this was evidently the aim of the wise policy of the Camilli and the Fabii. When we consider that the colonies of citizens presented the faithful image of Rome; that the Latin colonies had analogous institutions and laws; and that a great number of Roman citizens and Latin allies were dispersed, in the different countries of the peninsula, over the vast territories ceded as the consequence of war, we may judge how rapid must have been the diffusion of Roman manners and the Latin language.

If Rome, in later times, had not the wisdom to seize the favourable moment in which assimilation, already effected in people’s minds, might have passed into the domain of facts, the reason of it was the abandonment of the principles of equity which had guided the Senate in the first ages of the Republic, and, above all, the corruption of the magnates, interested in maintaining the inferior condition of the allies. The right of city extended to all the peoples of Italy, time enough to be useful, would have given to the Republic a new force; but an obstinate refusal became the cause of the revolution commenced by the Gracchi, continued by Marius, extinguished for a moment by Sylla, and completed by Cæsar.