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.