When the Carthaginian had spoken thus, Kaiso replied:
`This is what we Romans are like . . . [W]ith those who make war on us we agree
to fight on their terms, and when it comes to foreign practices we surpass
those who have long been used to them. For the Tyrrhenians used to make war on
us with bronze shields and fighting in phalanx formation, not in maniples; and
we, changing our armament and replacing it with theirs, organised our forces
against them, and contending thus against men who had long been accustomed to
phalanx battles we were victorious. Similarly the Samnite shield was not part
of our national equipment, nor did we have javelins, but fought with rounds
shields and spears; nor were we strong in cavalry, but all or nearly all of
Rome’s strength lay in infantry. But when we found ourselves at war with the
Samnites we armed ourselves with their oblong shields and javelins, and fought
against them on horseback, and by copying foreign arms we became masters of
those who thought so highly of themselves. Ineditum Vaticanum, ed. H. von
Arnim, “Ineditum Vaticanum,” Hermes 27 (1892): 118-30 (= Jacoby
FGrHist 839 F. 1), 3, in Cornell’s translation, Beginnings of Rome (n. 1), 170.
Cf. Diod., 23.2.1; Ath. 6.273 e-f; Sall. Cat. 51.37-38.
Map showing expansion of
Roman sphere of influence from the Latin War (340–338 BC) to the defeat of the
Insubres (222 BC).
The Samnites were the archetypal warriors of the ver sacrum
(Sacred Spring). Claiming descent from the Sabines (hence the Samnites and
other Oscan speakers were known as Sabelli or Sabellians) they believed that a
bull sent by Mamers guided them to their homeland in the southern central
Apennines. They divided into four tribes, the Pentri, Caudini, Caraceni and
Hirpini. The latter took their name from Mamers’ hirpus (wolf), which they
followed in a subsequent ver sacrum. The four tribes cooperated in a military
alliance.
They fought long and hard against the Romans in a series of
wars from 343 BC to 272 BC, and were the only Italian nation whose military
qualities the Romans feared. According to Livy they were warlike, brave and
resolute even in adversity. Their main strength was in swift moving
javelin-armed infantry, organised in cohorts and legions. Many of them being
armoured. Their preferred tactic was to surround an enemy and pelt him with
javelins while avoiding hand-to-hand contact. If possible they would ambush the
enemy rather than risk a pitched battle. The wooded hills of their home
territory were ideally suited to such tactics. However, they were prepared to
fight it out in the open if necessary.
In 354 BC the Samnite League sent an embassy to Rome,
requesting friendship and alliance between their peoples. According to Livy,
the Samnites were prompted to do so because they were impressed by a Roman
victory over Tarquinii, but Rome’s reduction of the Hernici in 358 BC would
have been of more interest to the Samnites; the victory over Tarquinii merely
reinforced the growing reputation of Roman military prowess. However, the
allies fell out in 343 BC when the Samnites attempted to expand west into
northern Campania and the territory of the Sidicini, and Capua, the leading
Campanian city-state, appealed to Rome for help against the invaders. The
Romans scented an opportunity to massively expand their little empire and
renounced the treaty with the Samnite League.
The Romans sent priests called fetiales to the border of
Samnium, perhaps in the vicinity of Sora, where the chief fetial declared war
by symbolically casting a spear into the territory of the enemy. The consul
Valerius the Raven (Corvus) was assigned the war in Campania, while his
colleague Cornelius the Greasy (Arvina) invaded Samnium. The Raven pushed south
to Mount Gaurus, in the hills above Puteoli, drawing the Samnite army away from
Capua. The Samnites were defeated after a long struggle, requiring the heroic
Valerius to dismount from his horse and lead a counter-attack on foot, and they
withdrew from Campania.
Meanwhile, Cornelius the Greasy had advanced into the
territory of the Caudini located immediately east of Capua. In the vicinity of
Saticula his army was trapped in a heavily wooded defile; this was a favourite
tactic of the Samnite mountain men. However, Cornelius’ army was extricated by
a military tribune, Publius Decius Mus. Tradition asserted that before the
Samnites completed the encirclement and closed in, the military tribune led the
hastati and principes of the consular legion (2,400 legionaries) through the
woodland to a hill above the enemy; distracted by Mus’ sudden appearance on the
hill, the rest of the consul’s army was able to escape. The dauntless Decius
was now surrounded by the full Samnite army (apparently numbering in excess of
30,000 warriors), but during the night the tribune led his legionaries down the
hill, broke through the encirclement and reunited with the consul’s army. In
the morning the Samnites, still disorganized from the confusion resulting from
Decius’ escape, were surprised by the Romans and soundly defeated. Decius was
where the fighting was thickest, claiming that he had been inspired by a dream
in which he achieved immortal fame by dying gloriously in battle. It has been
suggested that Decius’ peculiar cognomen, Mus, meaning ‘rat’, derived from his
exploits at Saticula, perhaps because he dared to fight at night, a most
unusual enterprise for a Roman commander.
Despite these two heavy defeats the Samnite League was not
ready to throw in the towel. A new army of 40,000 men (another exaggeration of
the later Roman sources) was raised from the populous tribes of Samnium, and it
established a camp by Suessula, a city on the eastern edge of the Campanian
plain. The army of Cornelius Arvina had evidently withdrawn from the territory
of the Caudini, and it fell to the Raven to fight this last battle of the
campaign. He marched from his camp at Mount Gaurus and overcame this new
Samnite army as well. Suessula was located at the mouth of a valley that led to
the Caudine Forks, an important pass into western Samnium. The defeated
Samnites presumably retreated by way of the Forks into the country of the
Caudini and Hirpini and thence to their homes, but the Raven did not follow. He
was sensible not to. The Suessulans may have informed him that the pass was the
perfect spot to trap an army and he had no desire to repeat the error of his
colleague.
The consuls returned to Rome to celebrate triumphs (21 and
22 September 343 BC) and news of their victories spread quickly across Italy.
The Faliscans were prompted to seek a formal treaty of friendship and alliance
(foedus) with their old enemy, perhaps fearing that if they simply maintained
the forty years’ truce imposed on them in 351 BC, the bellicose Romans would
find an excuse to declare war and seize their territory. The news also
travelled overseas. Ambassadors from Carthage arrived in Rome, keen to bolster
the alliance of 348 BC, full of congratulations for the victories over the
Samnites and bearing the not inconsiderable gift of a gold crown weighing 25
pounds. However, the war was not over and substantial Roman garrisons were
installed in Capua and Suessula to protect them from Samnite incursions.
In 342 BC the Samnites nursed their wounds. The scale of
their defeats could not have been as great as Livy’s account suggests, but the
Romans had administered a serious blow to their military prestige and
confidence. Samnite manpower in 225 BC (by which time their territory was very
much reduced) is reported by the reliable Polybius as 70,000 infantry and 7,000
cavalry. Afzelius and Cornell have estimated the population of Samnium in the
middle of the fourth century BC at around 450,000 persons, and the report of
the geographer Strabo that the Samnites had 80,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry
may belong to this period. Strabo’s manpower figures would represent somewhat
less than 20 per cent of the estimated population. The total number of adult
males, including seniores, would have been well in excess of 100,000, but these
figures are misleading and should be regarded as potential reserves of manpower
rather than the number of warriors the Samnite League could mobilize at one
time. If the Samnites had lost 30,000 men at Saticula and suffered similarly
enormous casualties at Mount Gaurus and Suessula, as Livy’s accounts suggest,
then their military power would have been utterly broken and their rural
economies, which required men to tend crops and herds, would have collapsed.
The strengths of the consuls’ armies are not attested. It is uncertain if the practice of enrolling two legions per consular army was yet in effect. It is generally believed that the regular strength of a consular army was raised from one to two legions in 311 BC. However, because the Romans could not draw on any substantial Latin manpower in the 340s BC, it may be that extra consular legions were raised. Campanian levies would have bolstered the Roman legions, and the aristocratic cavalrymen of Capua and the other cities were famed for their martial prowess. The number of soldiers in a consular army may be estimated at 9,000 – 18,000, that is one or two legions of c. 4,500 (4,200 infantry plus 300 cavalry) and an equal number of Campanians. The Samnite armies were probably of similar size.
