The Samnites

The most formidable competitors of the Romans for supremacy in Italy were the Samnites, rough and warlike mountaineers who held the Apennines to the southeast of Latium. The successive struggles between these martial races are known as the First, Second, and Third Samnite wars. They extended over a period of half a century, and in their course involved almost all the states of Italy.

The First Samnite War (343-341 BC)

Of the first war we know very little, although Livy wrote a long, but unfortunately unreliable, account of it.

The Revolt of the Latin Cities (340-338 BC)

In the midst of the Samnite struggle, Rome was confronted by a dangerous revolt of her Latin allies. [In the year 493 B.C. Rome had formed a most important league with the Latin towns (a renewal probably of an earlier alliance). At the outset this league was somewhat such a federation as the Delian League, which Athens just a few years before this had formed with her Ionian allies. There is an instructive parallel between the way in which Athens used her position in the Delian Confederacy to establish an empire and the way in which Rome used her position in the at first equal alliance between her and the towns of Latium to build up a like sovereignty.] Leaving the war unfinished, she turned her forces against the insurgents.

The strife between the Romans and their Latin allies was simply, in principle, the old contest within the walls of the capital between the patricians and the plebeians transferred to a larger arena. As the patricians, before the equalization of the orders, had claimed for themselves alone the right to manage the affairs of Rome, so now did the united orders claim for Rome alone the right to manage the affairs of all Latium. But the Latins had become dissatisfied with their position in the unequal alliance, and had resolved that Rome should give up the sovereignty she was practically exercising. Accordingly they sent an embassy to Rome, demanding that the association should be made one of perfect equality. To this end the ambassadors proposed that in the future one of the consuls should be a Latin, and that one half of the Senate should be chosen from the Latin nation. Rome was to be the common fatherland, and all were to bear the Roman name.

These demands of the ambassadors were listened to by the Roman senators with amazement and indignation. " O Jupiter ! " exclaimed one of the consuls, Titus Manlius by name, addressing the statue of the god; "canst thou endure to behold in thy own sacred temple strangers as consuls and as senators?" The demands of the Latin allies were refused, and war followed.

After about three years' hard fighting, the rebellion was subdued. The Latin League as a political body was now dissolved. Several of the towns were allowed to retain their independence; others with their territories were made a part of the Roman domain, and became municipia of different grades. The inhabitants of some of these cities were admitted at once to full Roman citizenship, while those of others were given only a part of the rights and privileges of citizens. To prevent any further combination among the cities, intermarriage and trade between them were forbidden. [......The essential principle involved in the arrangement is local self-government carried on under the paramount authority of the state. In working out this municipal system Rome laid not only the foundation of her owes greatness but, transmitting the system as a principle of government to later times, contributed an all-important element to the structure of the modern free state. We must not think that the problem here solved by Rome was one easy of solution. The difficulties met and overcome by her in working out this system were very much like those met and overcome by our statesmen of a century and more ago, when they devised the federal system and determined what should be the relations of the States of our Union to the general government at Washington. Indeed, this whole federal system is nothing more than the application to states of the principles of government that Rome applied to cities.]

One noted trophy of the war set up at Rome was the. beaks (rostra) of the ships of the city of Antium, which were attached to the orator's platform in the Forum; hence the name Rostra, by which this stand was ever afterwards known.

The Second Samnite War (326-304 BC)

In a few years after the close of the Latin contest, the Romans were at war again with their old rivals, the Samnites. The most memorable event of this struggle was the entrapping and capture of a Roman army at the celebrated Caudine Forks. The soldiers were deprived of their arms and sent beneath the yoke.

The war ended in 304 B.C., with the Romans as final victors. During its course Rome had added extensive territories to her domain, and had made her hold of t h e s e secure by means of colonies and military roads; for it was at this time that Rome began the construction of those remarkable highways that formed one of the most impressive features of her later empire. The first of the se roads, which ran from Rome to Capua, was begun in the year 3I2 B.C. by the censor Appius Claudius, and called after him the Via Appia.

The Third Samnite War (298-290 BC)

It was only a few years after the close of their second contest with Rome before the Samnites were again in arms and engaged in their third struggle with her for supremacy in Italy. This time they succeeded in forming against their old enemy a powerful coalition which embraced the Etruscans, the Umbrians, the Gauls, and other nations. It was easy for them to accomplish this, for the rapid advance of the power of Rome had caused all the different peoples of the peninsula to realize that unless her encroachments were speedily checked their independence would be lost forever.

The league was soon shattered by- the Roman legions. One after another the states and tribes that had joined the alliance were chastised, and the Samnites were forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. Within a few years after this almost all of the Greek cities of Southern Italy, save Tarentum, had also come under the growing power of the imperial city.

United Italy

We cannot make out clearly just what rights and powers Rome exercised over the various cities, tribes, and nations which she had brought under her rule. [We refer here, not to those territories and communities which Rome had actually incorporated with the Roman domain, but to those communities to which was given the name of Italian allies.] This much, however, is clear. She took away from them the right of making war, and thus put a stop to the bloody contentions which from time immemorial had raged between the tribes and cities of the peninsula. She thus gave Italy what, after she had laid her restraining authority upon all the peoples of the Mediterranean lands, came to be called the Pax Romana (the Roman Peace).

This political union of Italy paved the way for the social and racial unification of the peninsula. The greatest marvel of all history is how Rome, embracing at first merely a handful of peasants, could have made so much of the ancient world like unto herself in blood, in speech, in custom, and in manners. That she did so, that she did thus Romanize a large part of the peoples of antiquity, is one of the most important matters in the history of the human race. Rome accomplished this great feat in large measure by means of her system of colonization, which was, in some respects, unlike that of any other people in ancient or in modern times. We must make ourselves familiar with some of the main features of this unique colonial system.

Roman Colonies and Latin Colonies

The colonies that Rome established in conquered territories fall into two classes, known as Roman colonies and Latin colonies. Roman colonies were made up of emigrants, generally three hundred in number, who retained in the new settlement all the rights and privileges, both private and public, of Roman citizens, though of course some of these rights, as for instance that of voting in the public assemblies at Rome, could be exercised by the colonist only through his return to the capital. Usually it was some conquered city that was occupied by the Roman colonists, the old inhabitants either being expelled in whole or in part or reduced to a subject condition. The colonists in their new homes organized a government which was almost an exact imitation of that of Rome, and through their own assemblies and their own magistrates managed all their local affairs. These colonies were in effect just so many miniature Romes,--centers from which radiated Roman culture into all the regions round about them.

The Latin colonies were so called, not because they were founded by Latin settlers, but because their inhabitants possessed substantially the same rights as the old Latin towns enjoyed that had retained their independence at the end of the great Latin War (sec. 3I9). The Latin colonist possessed some of 'the most valuable of the private rights of Roman citizens, together with the capacity to acquire the suffrage by migrating to the capital and taking up, under certain conditions, a permanent residence there.

The Latin colonies numbered about twenty at the time of the Second Punic War. They were scattered everywhere throughout Italy, and were, even to a much greater degree than the Roman colonies, active and powerful agents in the dissemination of the Roman language, law, and culture. They were Rome's chief auxiliary in her great task of making all Italy Roman.

All these colonies were kept in close touch with the capital by means of splendid military roads, the construction of which, as we have seen, was begun during the Second Samnite War.