450-345 B.C.

of these retained their independence. Other Greek cities, such as Cumae, Posidonia, Laus, and Hipponium, were under Samnite rule. In this way mixed populations arose; this was especially the case with the bilingual Bruttii, and in a lesser degree with the Samnites in Lucania and Campania. The very extent of the Samnite conquests, owing to the want of a settled policy, and of some bond by which the Lucanians, Bruttians, and Samnites proper might be closely united, proved a source of weakness rather than strength. The space they occupied was out of proportion to their numbers, and the hold they exercised over their possessions was loose and insecure. Moreover, Greek culture exercised a fatal influence on the Samnite nation. Thus in Campania the Samnite population of Capua, Nola, Nuceria, and Teanum adopted Greek manners, and a Greek form of constitution. Capua became notorious for its wealth and luxury, for its gladiatorial combats, and its warlike, if dissolute, youth whose plundering excursions to Sicily and other places had no small effect on the history of Italy. The Campanian Samnites -especially in Capua, where Etruscan influences still lingeredthus completely changed their old habits of life; and, though they did not lose their love of enterprise and bravery, they were unable to resist the demoralizing influences with which they were there surrounded. The same result in a lesser degree is observable in the Lucanians and Bruttians. Treasures of Greek art have been discovered in their tombs, and they abandoned their old national mode of writing for that of the Greeks. The stock inhabiting Samnium proper alone retained its old character, and was free from all the debasing effects of a superior but immoral civilization. The Hellenized Samnites of Campania soon learned to fear their hardier and purer kinsmen in Samnium, who, pouring down from their mountain strongholds, ravaged the rich plains of their weaker brethren.

Roman interference sprang from this very cause. The Sidicini in Teanum, and the Campanians in Capua, called in Rome to protect them against the Samnites in 343 B.C. When Rome at first refused, the Campanians offered to submit to Roman supremacy; this offer was too tempting to be rejected. Rome and Samnium, whether after a campaign or not is doubtful, came to terms; Capua was left under Roman, and Teanum under Samnite sway, and the upper Liris was left in Volscian hands. Both sides were glad to lay down arms-the Samnites, because Tarentum

384-332 B.C.

was threatening her Sebellian neighbors; the Romans, because a fresh storm was brewing in Latium. The old grievances of the Latin towns were aggravated by the prospect of Roman rule extending to the south of them, and once more they broke into open revolt. All the original Latin communities, except the Laurentes, took up arms against Rome; but all the Roman colonies in Latium, except Velitrae, remained firm to the Roman side. Capua seized the opportunity to get rid of Roman rule, and other Campanian cities joined the revolted Latins. The Volscians also felt that still another chance was given them of recovering their liberty; but the Hernici and the Campanian aristocracy did not unite with the insurgents. The battle of Trifanum in 340 B.C., gained by Titus Manlius Torquatus over the joint forces of the Latins and Campanians, broke the neck of the rebellion. The old Latin league was dissolved in 338 B.C., and was changed from a political federation into a mere association for religious purposes. The Latin communities were isolated from one another by the application to the whole of Latium of the principle which was introduced in the case of those colonies founded after the closing of the Latin league in 384 B.C. Moreover, each community had to form a separate alliance with Rome, as the old confederacy no longer existed. In certain cases harsh measures were adopted. Tibur and Praeneste had to give up part of their territory to Rome. Colonists were sent to Antium, the most important and strongest town of the Volscians; and the town was treated as Tusculum had been in 381 B.C. Lanuvium, Pedum, Aricia, and Nomentum also lost their independence and became Roman municipia. Velitrae lost its walls, and its senate was deported to the interior of south Etruria, while the town was probably treated as Caere had been in 351 B.C. The land thus acquired by Rome was partly distributed among Roman citizens, and two new tribes were instituted in 332 B.C., thus bringing the total up to twenty-nine. The decoration of the orators' platform in the Forum with the beaks of the galleys of Antium by the dictator Gaius Maenius, in 338 B.C., and the erection of a column in the Forum to his honor, attested the Roman sense of the great results achieved by this war. Roman rule was secured in similar fashion. in the Volscian and Campanian provinces. A number of towns, among which were Capua, Fundi, Formiae, and Cumae, became dependent on Rome in the same way that Caere was. Privernum, under Vitruvius Vaccus, struck the last blow for Latin freedom;

338-328 B.C.

but in 329 B.C. the town was stormed, and its leader executed. About ten years later two new tribes were formed out of the numerous settlers planted in the Falernian and Privernate territories. The two strong colonies of Cales, in the middle of the Campanian plain, and Fregellae, commanding the passage of the Liris, finally secured the newly won land. These were founded in 334 and 328 B.C. respectively. The Romans even established a garrison in Sora, which properly belonged to Samnite territory. This steady pursuit of a far-reaching policy of colonization secured to Rome what she won on the field of battle, and contrasts strongly with the unsteady violence and loose grasp of the Samnite nation. It is clear that the Samnites must have been alarmed at the advance of the Romans, but with the exception of garrisoning Teanum they did little to prevent it. The Samnite confederacy allowed the Roman conquest of Campania to be completed before they in earnest opposed it; and the reason for their doing so is to be sought partly in the contemporary hostilities between the Samnite nation and the Italian Hellenes, but principally in the remiss and distracted policy which the confederacy pursued.

While Rome had been securing her hold in the center of Italy, the Samnite tribes of the Lucanians and Bruttians had been engaged in constant struggles with the Italian Greeks in the south, and especially with Tarentum. So hard pressed was the latter city that she called in the aid of the Spartan king, Archidamus, who was defeated by the Lucanians on the same day as Philip conquered at Chaeronea, in 338 B.C. Alexander, the Molossian, uncle of Alexander the Great, proved far more successful in his championship of the Greek cause in southern Italy. Not only did he capture Consentia, the center of the Lucanians and their confederates, but he defeated the Samnites who brought aid to the Lucanians, and subdued the Daunians and Messapians, who had made common cause with the Sabellian tribes against the Greeks. His successes, however, alarmed the Tarentines, who turned against their commander; and his scheme of founding a new Hellenic empire in the West was cut short by the hand of an assassin in 332 B.C. His death left the Lucanians and other Sabellian tribes again paramount in the south of Italy, and destroyed all hopes of a combined resistance from the Greek cities.

We have already shown that war was sooner or later unavoidable between Rome and the Samnites, as the latter were the only