of Umbria rendered them as valuable to Rome as the Apulians had proved farther south.
Fourteen years had passed since the battle on the Vadimonian
Lake, when the Samnites appeared on the borders of Etruria and
called on the peoples of northern Italy to rise against
the common enemy. Their appeal, backed by the
presence of their troops, was successful. The Etruscans
Battle of Sentinum, 295 = 459.
found courage to face the Roman legions once more;
a few of the Umbrians joined them; but the most valuable
allies to the Samnites were the Celts, who had for some time
threatened a raid across the Apennines, and who now marched
eagerly into Umbria and joined the coalition. The news that
the Celts were in motion produced a startling effect at Rome,
and every nerve was strained to meet this new danger. While
two armies were left in southern Etruria as reserves, the two
consuls, Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus and P. Decius Mus the
younger, both tried soldiers, marched northwards up the valley
of the Tiber and into Umbria at the head of four Roman legions
and a still larger force of Italian allies. At Sentinum, on the
further side of the Apennines, they encountered the united
forces of the Celts and Samnites, the Etruscans and Umbrians
having, it is said, been withdrawn for the defence of their own
homes. The battle that followed was desperate, and the
Romans lost one of their consuls, Decius, and more than 8000
men.[1] But the Roman victory was decisive. The Celts were
annihilated, and the fear of a second Celtic attack on Rome
removed. All danger from the coalition was over. The
Etruscan communities gladly purchased peace by the payment
of indemnities. The rising in Umbria, never formidable, died
away, and the Samnites were left single-handed to bear the
whole weight of the wrath of Rome. During four years
more, however, they desperately defended their highland
461, 462.
464.
homes, and twice at least, in 293 and 292, they
managed to place in the field a force sufficient to
meet the Roman legions on equal terms. At last,
in 290, the consul M’.Curius Dentatus finally exhausted
their power of resistance. Peace was concluded, and
it is significant of the respect inspired at Rome by their
indomitable courage that they were allowed to become the
allies of Rome, on equal terms and without any sacrifice of
independence.[2]
Between the close of the Third Samnite War and the landing
of Pyrrhus in 281 B.C. we find Rome engaged, as
her wont was, in quietly extending and consolidating
her power. In southern Italy she strengthened her hold on
Apulia by planting on the borders of Apulia and Lucania the
473.
464.
469–71.
strong colony of Venusia.[3] In central Italy the annexation
of the Sabine country (290) carried her frontiers
eastward to the borders of her Picentine allies on the
Adriatic.[4] Farther east, in the territory of the Picentes themselves,
she established colonies on the Adriatic coast at Hadria
and Castrum (285–83).[5] North of the Picentes lay
the territories of the Celtic Senones stretching inland
to the north-east borders of Etruria, and these too now fell into
her hands. Ten years after their defeat at Sentinum (285–84)
a Celtic force descended into Etruria, besieged Arretium
and defeated the relieving force dispatched by Rome. In
283 the consul L. Cornelius Dolabella was sent to avenge
the insult. He completely routed the Senones. Their lands
were annexed by Rome, and a colony established at Sena
on the coast. This success, followed as it was by the
decisive defeat of the neighbouring tribe of the Boii, who
had invaded Etruria and penetrated as far south as the
Vadimonian Lake, awed the Celts into quiet, and for more
than forty years there was comparative tranquillity in northern
Italy.[6]
In the south, however, the claims of Rome to supremacy were now to be disputed by a new and formidable foe. At the close of the Third Samnite War the Greek cities on the southern coast of Italy found themselves once more harassed by the Sabellian tribes on their borders, War with Pyrrhus, 281–75 = 473–79. whose energies, no longer absorbed by the long struggles in central Italy, now found an attractive opening southward. Naturally enough the Greeks, like the Capuans sixty years before, appealed for aid to Rome (283—82), and like the Capuans they offered in return to recognize the suzerainty of the great Latin Republic. In reply a Roman force under C. Fabricius Luscinus marched into south Italy, easily routed the marauding bands of Lucanians, Bruttians and 471–72. Samnites, and established Roman garrisons in Locri, Croton, Rhegium and Thurii. At Tarentum, the most powerful and flourishing of the Greek seaports, this sudden and rapid advance of Rome excited the greatest anxiety. Tarentum was already allied by treaty (301) with Rome, and she had now to decide whether this treaty should be exchanged for one which would place her, like the other Greek communities, under the protectorate of Rome, or whether she should find 453. some ally able and willing to assist in making a last stand for independence. The former course, in Tarentum, as before at Capua, was the one favoured by the aristocratic party; the latter was eagerly supported by the mass of the people and their leaders. While matters were still in suspense, the appearance, contrary to the treaty, of a Roman squadron off the harbour decided the controversy. The Tarentines, indignant at the insult, attacked the hostile fleet, killed the admiral and sunk most of the ships. Still Rome, relying probably on her partisans in the city, tried negotiation, and an alliance appeared likely after all, when suddenly the help for which the Tarentine democrats 473–74. had been looking appeared, and war with Rome was resolved upon (281–80).[7]
King Pyrrhus,[8] whose timely appearance seemed for the moment to have saved the independence of Tarentum, was the most brilliant of the military adventurers whom the disturbed times following the death of Alexander the Great had brought into prominence. High-spirited, generous and ambitious, he had formed the scheme of rivalling Alexander’s achievements in the East, by winning for himself an empire in the West. He aspired not only to unite under his rule the Greek communities of Italy and Sicily, but to overthrow the great Phoenician state of Carthage—the natural enemy of Greeks in the West, as Persia had been in the East. Of Rome it is clear that he knew little or nothing; the task of ridding the Greek seaports of their barbarian foes he no doubt regarded as an easy one; and the splendid force he brought with him was intended rather for the conquest of the West than for the preliminary work of chastising a few Italian tribes, or securing the submission of the unwarlike Italian Greeks. He defeated the Roman consul, M. Valerius Laevinus, on the banks of the 474. Liris (280), and gained the support of the Greek cities as well as that of numerous bands of Samnites, Lucanians and Bruttians. But, to the disappointment of his new allies, Pyrrhus showed no anxiety to follow up his advantage. His heart was set on Sicily and Africa, and his immediate object was to come to terms with Rome. But though he advanced as near Rome as Anagnia (279), nothing could shake the resolution of the senate, and in the next year 475. (278) he again routed the legions at Asculum (Ascoli), but only to find that the indomitable resolution of the enemy was strengthened by defeat. He now crossed into Sicily, where, though at first successful, he was unable to achieve any lasting result. Soured and disappointed, Pyrrhus returned to Italy (276) to find the Roman legions steadily moving 476 southwards, and his Italian allies disgusted by his desertion of their cause. In 275 the decisive battle of the war 478. 479. was fought at Beneventum. The consul, M'. Curius Dentatus, the conqueror of Samnium, gained a complete victory,
- ↑ Livy x. 27.
- ↑ Livy, Epit. xi., “pacem petentibus Samnitibus foedus quarto renovatum est.”
- ↑ Dion. Hal. Exc. xvi. xvii. 5; Vell. Pat. i. 14.
- ↑ Livy, Epit. xi.; Vell. Pat. i. 14.
- ↑ Livy, Epit. x.
- ↑ Ibid. xii.; Polyb. ii. 20.
- ↑ Livy, Epit. xii.; Plut. Pyrrh. 13.
- ↑ For his career and for the story of his wars with Rome, see the article Pyrrhus.
