Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/763

CONQUEST OP ITALY.] ROME 739 any further conditions whatsoever. The legislative inde- pendence of the plebeian assembly was secured, and with this crowning victory ended the long struggle between the orders. (b) Conquest of Italy. Twelve years after the passing of the lex Hortensia, King Pyrrhus, beaten at Beneventum, withdrew from Italy, and Rome was left mistress of the peninsula. The steps by which this supremacy had been won have now to be traced. Under the rule of her Etruscan princes Rome spread her sway over the lowlands of Latium, and her arms were a terror to the warlike Highlanders of the Sabine and Volscian hills. But with their fall this minia- ture empire fell also, and at first it seemed as if the infant republic, torn by internal dissensions, must succumb to the foes who threatened it from so many sides at once. It was only after one hundred and fifty years of almost con- stant war that Rome succeeded in rolling back the tide of invasion and in establishing her supremacy over the neigh- bouring lowlands and over the hill country which bordered them to the east and south, The close of this first stage in her external growth is conveniently marked by the first collision with the Sabellian peoples beyond the Liris in 1 343. l In marked contrast with the slowness of her advance up to this point is the fact that only seventy-five years more were needed for the virtual subjugation of all the 1:85. rest of the peninsula (343-269). The expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome, followed as it seems to have been by the emancipation from Etruscan supremacy of all the country between the Tiber and the Liris, entirely altered the aspect of affairs. North of the Tiber the powerful Etruscan city of Veii, after a vain attempt to restore the Tarquins, relapsed into an attitude of sullen hostility towards Rome, which, down to the 7 outbreak of the final struggle in 407, found vent in con- stant and harassing border forays. The Sabines recom- menced their raids across the Anio ; from their hills to the south-east the ^Equi pressed forward as far as the eastern spurs of the Alban range, and ravaged the plain country between that range and the Sabine mountains ; the Volsci overran the coast-lands as far as Antium, me established themselves at Velitrae, and even ravaged the tthe fields within a few miles of Rome. But the good fortune || of Rome did not leave her to face these foes single- ts, handed, and it is a significant fact that the history of the Roman advance begins, not with a brilliant victory, but with a useful and timely alliance. According to Livy, it was in 493, only a few years after the defeat of the prince of Tusculum at Lake Regillus, that a treaty was concluded between Rome and the Latin communities of the Campagna. 2 The alliance was in every respect natural. The Latins were the near neighbours and kinsmen of the Romans, and both Romans and Latins were just freed from Etruscan rule to find themselves as lowlanders and dwellers in towns face to face with a common foe in the ruder hill tribes on their borders. The exact terms of the treaty cannot, any more than the precise circumstances under which it was concluded, be stated with certainty (see LATIUM), but two points seem clear. There was at first a genuine equality in the relations between the allies.; Romans and Latins, though combining for defence and offence, did so without sacrificing their separate freedom of action, even in the matter of waging wars independently of each other. 3 But, secondly, Rome enjoyed from the first one inestimable advantage. The Latins lay between her and the most active of her foes, the ^Equi and Volsci, and served to protect her territories at the expense of their own. Behind this barrier Rome grew strong, and the close of the ^quian and Volscian wars left the Latins 1 Livy, vii. 29. 3 Livy, viii. 2. 2 Livy, ii. 33 ; Cic. Pro Balbo, 23. her dependents rather than her allies. Beyond the limits of the Campagna Rome found a second ally, hardly less useful than the Latins, in the tribe of the Hernici ("the men of the rocks "), in the valley of the Trerus, who had equal reason with the Romans and Latins to dread the Volsci and ^Equi, while their position midway between the two latter peoples made them valuable auxiliaries to the lowlanders of the Campagna. The treaty with the Hernici is said to have been con- cluded in 486, 4 and the confederacy of the three peoples 265. Romans, Latins, and Hernicans lasted down to the great Latin war in 340. Confused and untrustworthy as 414. are the chronicles of the early wars of Rome, it is clear that notwithstanding the acquisition of these allies Rome made but little way against her foes during the first fifty years of the existence of the republic. In 474, it is true, 280. an end was put for a time to the harassing border feud with Veii by a forty years' peace, an advantage due not so much to Roman valour as to the increasing dangers from other quarters which were threatening the Etruscan states. 5 But this partial success stands alone, and down to 449 the raids of Sabines, ^Equi, and Volsci continue 305. without intermission, and are occasionally carried up to the very walls of Rome. Very different is the impression left by the annals of the next sixty years (449-390). 305-364. During this period there is an unmistakable development of Roman power on all sides. In southern Etruria the capture of Veii (396) virtually Capture gave Rome the mastery as far as the Ciminian forest. of Veii - Sutrium and Nepete, "the gates of Etruria," became 358. her allies and guarded her interests against any attack from the Etruscan communities to the north, while along the Tiber valley her suzerainty was acknowledged as far as Capena and Falerii. On the Anio frontier we hear of no disturbances from 449 until some ten years after the sack of Rome by the Gauls. In 446 the ^Equi 308. appear for the last time before the gates of Rome. After 418 they disappear from Mount Algidus, and in 336. the same year the communications of Rome and Latium with the Hernici in the Trerus valley were secured by the capture and colonization of Labicum. Successive invasions, too, broke the strength of the Volsci, and in 393 361. a Latin colony was founded as far south as Circeii. In part, no doubt, these Roman successes were due to the improved condition of affairs in Rome itself, consequent upon the great reforms carried between 450 and 442 ; but 304-312. it is equally certain that now as often afterwards fortune befriended Rome by weakening, or by diverting the atten- tion of, her opponents. In particular, her rapid advance Decline of in southern Etruria was facilitated by the heavy blows Et inflicted upon the Etruscans during the 5th century B.C. pc by Celts, Greeks, and Samnites. By the close of this century the Celts had expelled them from the rich plains of what was afterwards known as Cisalpine Gaul, and were even threatening to advance across the Apen- nines into Etruria proper. The Sicilian Greeks, headed by the tyrants of Syracuse, wrested from them their mastery of the seas, and finally,, on the capture of Capua by the Samnites in 423, they lost their possessions in the fertile 331. Campanian plain. These conquests of the Samnites were part of a great southward movement of the highland Sabellian peoples, the immediate effects of which upon the fortunes of Rome were not confined to the weakening of the Etruscan power. It is probable that the cessation of the Sabine raids across the Anio was partly due to the new outlets which were opened southwards for the restless and populous hill tribes which had so long disturbed the peace of the Latin lowlands. We may conjecture, also, 4 Livy, ii. 40. 5 From the Celts in the north especially.