Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (19 page)

Page 80

flocks in the vicinity reported to them that the Samnite army had left Samnium and was besieging the town of Luceria, which lay in the territory of Apulia, and was allied to the Romans. Two roads could lead the Romans to the relief of the Lucerians: one was long, with open plains to its sides; the other was short, but with mountains rising to either side. The Romans went by the short path, through an area called Caudium. They had proceeded some distance when they noticed that trees had been chopped down and boulders had been piled up to bar their progress. They turned around, only to find that the way by which they had entered the gorge was blocked, not only by trees that had been chopped down, but also by Samnite soldiers. The Romans had been led into a trap; the shepherds had been planted there by the Samnite commander, Gavius Pontius.

Pontius had not expected that his plan would go so well. He was unsure what to do and wrote a letter to his father, an experienced general, asking him for advice. His father's first reply was to let the Roman soldiers go, unharmed, as soon as possible. The son did not like that advice, so he wrote his father another letter; this time, his father advised him to put all the Roman soldiers to death.

Now the son was even more confused and thought that old age must have blunted his father's acumen. Still, he sent a wagon to bring his father to him so they could discuss the course of action. The father came and explained his advice: By the first plan, which he considered the better of the two, the Samnites would, by a magnanimous gesture, secure unending peace with that very powerful people; by the other plan, the Samnites would merely postpone war for many generations, since Rome would find it difficult to replace the two armies that had been lost. There was no third alternative.

The son rejected both solutions. He told his father of his solution: to release the Romans, but to force them to give up their weapons and possessions, and to pass under the yokea symbol of slavery and a great source of shame to soldiers. He would also require that the Romans withdraw their colonies and forces from Samite territory, and that six hundred Roman
equites
be handed over to the Samnites as hostages.

The father, after listening to his son, said, "That plan of yours is one that doesn't make friends or remove enemies. Just watch out

Page 81

for those whom you have enraged with public humiliation! Those men there are of the Roman race, which doesn't know how to give in, even when it has been conquered. The memory of whatever they are forced to do now will always remain branded in their hearts, and it will not allow them to rest until you have paid the penalty many times over" (Livy IX.3.12).

The father was right, but his son did not know it, and he proceeded with his plans for sending the Roman soldiers under the yoke.

First, they were ordered to lay down their weapons, and then to go outside the camp's walls, with only one article of clothing; then the first hostages were handed over and led away to their guards. Then the lictors were ordered to leave the consuls, and the consuls' military cloaks were torn off. This caused such great pity among the soldiers that those who only shortly before had been cursing the consuls and thinking that they should be handed over to the enemy for torture, now forgot their individual situations and turned their eyes away from the degradation of such great majesty, as if from something too abominable to be seen. The consuls, almost nude, were the first to be sent under the yoke. Then, as each was next in rank, so was he subjected to debasement and humiliation; then the legions passed, one by one, under the yoke. The armed Samnites stood around, calling them cowards and insulting them. They also threatened many with their swords, even wounding and killing those whose faces showed their bitterness at suffering such indignities and thereby offended their conquerors. (Livy IX.5.12-IX.6.2)

The second war with the Samnites had ended, in 321
B.C.
One source says that the Romans reneged on their humiliating treaty and continued fighting from 316 to 314, but most historians believe that they abided by the terms.

In the following years, the Romans did not fight the Samnites again, but they did not remain inactive. They made alliances with the Samnites' neighbors, the most important being the region called Apulia. The Samnites were now surrounded by Rome's allies or subjects. The Romans were waiting for the opportunity to avenge the humiliating peace of the Caudine Forks.

Page 82

The Third Samnite War

The Samnites themselves offered Rome the opportunity to break the treaty between them, by attacking Rome's allies the Lucanians, who naturally asked Rome for help against the Samnites. Roman fetials, the priests whose duties included deciding upon the justice or injustice of a war, were sent to the Samnites to demand reparations for the injuries to the Lucanians, but were told by the Samnites' messengers that if they met any Samnite council they would not leave uninjured. The Romans then declared war on the Samnites, in 298
B.C.

The Romans experienced many successes in the early stages of the war. The consul Gnaeus Fulvius captured one of the Samnites' main towns, Bovianum; Roman armies took other towns, such as Romulea, Murgantia, and Ferentinum, and destroyed much of the Samnites' territory. The Samnites nonetheless did not give up; instead they instigated a general revolt of the Etruscans, Umbrians, Gauls, and other peoples Rome had subdued in Italy, Rome was facing a serious war not only with the Samnites, but also with the Etruscans, and with their combined forces.

One of the great battles in the war was fought at Sentinum. The Gauls, Umbrians, Etruscans, and Samnites had joined forces against the Romans. In charge of the Romans' four legions were Q. Fabius and P. Decius. Neither side was winning, when Decius ordered his cavalry to attack; they drove far into the enemy forces, but suddenly became alarmed by the enemy bearing down upon them in war chariots. The Romans had never encountered those war chariots before, and their horses bolted; the Roman cavalry fled. Failing to restrain their flight, P. Decius decided to make the ultimate sacrifice for the good of Rome. The Romans believed that a general could sacrifice himself and the enemy army (in Latin,
devovere
is the verb,
devotio
the noun) to the gods of the Underworld and to Mother Earth; Decius' father had sacrificed himself at the Battle of Veseris. Here is how the younger Decius did it:


He ordered the priest M. Livius to dictate the words for sacrificing himself and the enemy's army on behalf of the army of Rome. He then offered himself while saying the same prayers and wearing his toga in

Page 83

ceremonial fashion, as his father had when he offered himself in the Latin War, at Veseris. Saying the solemn prayers, he had claimed that he was driving before himself terror, flight, slaughter, and bloodshedall the wrath of the gods of the Underworldand that he would pollute the standards, arms, and missiles of the enemy with awful destruction, and the place of his destruction would be the place of the destruction of the Gallic and Samnite armies. After bringing this curse on himself and the enemy, he turned his horse to where he saw the Gauls were the thickest, lashed his horse, and galloped into their midst, where he was killed by their deadly weapons. (Livy X.28.14-18)

Decius' death, according to the Romans, sealed the pact with the gods of the Underworld; the enemy army was therefore doomed. The Roman cavalry stopped its flight, and the Romans, hearing the priest say that the Gauls and Samnites now belonged to Mother Earth and the gods of the Underworld, renewed their attack. Helped by the Campanians who attacked the Gauls in the rear, the Roman and allied armies won the battle, killing the Samnite general and taking the Samnite camp.

The Smites did not give up. They raised more armies and kept trying to spur those people subject to Rome to revolt. But they became desperate, for they were losing most of the battles and Samnium was being destroyed. As a last resort to defend their land and liberties, they created the Linen Legion:

There, almost in the middle of the camp, a place was closed off by wicker walls and covered by a linen roof, stretching out two hundred feet [61 meters] in all directions. Then, in accordance with an ancient book written on linen, a sacrifice was performed, with the priest being a certain Ovius Paccius, a man of great ancestry; he confirmed that he was performing this sacred rite in accordance with the most venerable religion of the Samnites, which their ancestors had used when they made their secret plans for taking Capua from the Etruscans.


Once the sacrifice had been completed, the commander sent out a messenger to order all those most noted for birth and accomplishments to appear before him; they were brought in one at a time. There was sacred paraphernalia lying around, to overwhelm one's mind with the presence of the sacred, and in the middle of the enclosed area were

Other books

Storm Front by John Sandford

A Christmas Bride by Hope Ramsay

Moorcroft - the Possession: Book One of the Moorcroft Trilogy by Sandra Callister

Deadly Pursuit (A Blood Hunter Novel, #2) by Nina Croft

Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) by Benner, Tarah

Fighting Gravity by Leah Petersen

Game On by Tracy Solheim

The Killing Floor Blues by Craig Schaefer

Kiss and Tell by Suzanne Brockmann

The Search for Joyful by Benedict Freedman