It retires, however, after having plundered the open country, and the Samnites lose no time in sending ambassadors to Rome, to complain that they derive no benefit from the new alliance, and to request that if the Latins and Campanians are the subjects of Rome, the Romans will compel them to respect the Samnite territory; if they refuse to submit to the orders of Rome, that the Romans will compel them by force of arms. The Senate meet this direct appeal with an assurance that the Campanians shall be kept quiet; but they add that the treaty with the Latins permits them to make war with any other state at their own discretion. This answer, we are told, alarmed the Campanians, and alienated them still more from Rome; while it gave courage and confidence to the Latins, who saw that the Romans were afraid of using coercion against them.

The Latins now make secret preparations for the open abandonment of their long-standing Roman alliance; but information of their movements is conveyed to Rome, and measures of precaution are taken by the Senate. The consuls for the year are compelled to resign before the proper time, and two distinguished commanders, T. Manlius Torquatus, and P. Decius Mus, are elected in their place. The ten leading men of Latium, including the two prætors, L. Annius of Setia, and L. Numisius of Circeii, are likewise summoned to Rome upon the pretext of giving them instructions respecting the Samnites. Before the prætors obey their summons, they convene a federal assembly of the Latins, which agrees to demand that one of the Roman consuls shall be a Latin, and that half the Roman Senate shall consist of Latins. Annius and his colleagues subsequently present themselves before the Roman Senate, in order to make this demand; which, if it had been granted, would probably have prevented the development of the Roman power, and thus have changed the subsequent history of the world. Manlius, the consul, was moved to indignation by hearing such a proposition formally made by a Latin envoy to the conscript fathers assembled in the Capitol. He threatened to come armed into the Senate, and with his own hand to kill any Latin who should

venture to appear in it: he also called upon Jupiter to bear witness, that it was proposed to pollute his temple, in which they were sitting, by foreign consuls and a foreign Senate. As the consuls appealed to the gods who had attested the treaty which the Latins had violated, Annius was heard to utter some words derogatory to the Roman deities. When Annius left the temple, he fell down the steps with such force that he was killed. At the moment, moreover, when the consuls invoked the gods who had witnessed the treaty, a storm of rain, accompanied with thunder, was heard. Livy leaves it in doubt whether Annius was killed, or, as some accounts stated, was only stunned by his fall; as well as whether the thunderstorm really took place; for these circumstances, he remarks, might be true, or they might have been invented in order to signify the anger of the gods.(31)

War is immediately declared against the Latins, by the common consent of Senate and people; and the consuls, excluded from the country which had been recently open to a Roman army, march through the midland districts of the Marsians and Pelignians to Samnium, where they are joined by a Samnite army; and with this reinforcement, advance to meet the Latins and their allies at Capua. In this campaign therefore the Romans, assisted by their recent enemies, the Samnites, fought against their ancient allies, the Latins, and their recently acquired and now revolted subjects, the Campanians. (32)

§ 20 While the Roman army was encamped before Capua, each consul is said to have seen in his sleep the figure of a supernatural being, which announced that in the impending battle, the general of one side and the army of the other were due to the infernal deities; and that the victory would be to that side on which the general should devote the enemy's legions and himself to death. These visions were communicated to each

(31) Exanimatum auctores quoniam non omnes sunt, mihi quoque in incerto relictum sit; sicut inter fœderum ruptorum testationem ingenti fragore coeli procellam effusam; nam et vera esse, et apte ad repræsentandam iram deûm ficta possunt; viii. 6.

(32) Livy, viii. 1-6.

other by the consuls, and were confirmed by the responses of the aruspices, who were subsequently consulted: the will of the gods was therefore manifest, and the consuls agreed that if any part of the line of the Roman army should give way, the consul who commanded that part should devote himself to death. This resolution was privately imparted beforehand to the lieutenants and tribunes, in order to prevent any alarm being caused by the voluntary death of the consul.

The close resemblance between the Romans and Latins in language, manners, arms, and military discipline, and the community of service which had existed between them, rendered a confusion of the opposing forces easy, and favoured mistake or treachery. Strict orders were therefore given that no one should engage in any combat out of his ranks. This injunction was disobeyed by T. Manlius, the son of the consul, who, being challenged by Geminius Metius, a distinguished citizen of Tusculum, engaged him in a single equestrian combat, was victorious, and brought his spoils back to his father's tent. The consul having heard the story, summoned an assembly of the soldiers, and ordered his son to execution—a sentence which was carried into immediate effect. This example of stern military discipline is said to have made a profound impression in the camp, to have left a lasting aversion against Manlius in the minds of the young men. of his own time, and to have caused the expression Manliana imperia to become proverbial, as denoting unrelenting severity in the enforcement of military commands.(33)

§ 21 The battle was fought at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, near a place called Veseris.(3) The sacrifice of Manlius was

(33) Livy, viii. 6-7; Gell. i. 13, §7; Victor de Vir. Ill. 28; Dio Cass. Fragm. xxxv. 3, 4, 9; Zon. vii. 26. The execution of Manlius by his father is assigned to a Gallic war by Sallust, Cat. 52, and Dion. Hal. viii. 79. These writers appear to have connected the idea of a Gallic war with Manlius, on account of the exploit which gave him the name of Torquatus. Servius, En. vi. 825. says that Manlius caused his son to be beaten to death, and not executed with the axe: Livy describes the execution as taking place by decapitation, in the ordinary manner.

(34) From the expression of Livy, 'qua via ad Veserim ferebat,' viii. 8, it seems probable that Veseris was not a river, as it is called by Victor de Vir. Ill. c. 26, 28, a writer of no authority.

propitious; but the soothsayer pointed out to Decius that the liver of his victim had an ill-omened mark. Decius expressed himself satisfied, if there was nothing wrong in his colleague's sacrifice. The left wing, commanded by Decius, soon began to waver, and the first rank retreated in order to make way for the second. Hereupon Decius called for the Pontifex, M. Valerius, who ordered him to put on the official toga prætexta, to stand upon a spear, and to repeat the formula of selfdevotion to death for his country. When this ceremony had been performed, Decius mounted his horse, and dashed into the enemy's ranks, where his appearance is said to have caused alarm, but where he soon found the death which he courted. (35) After a protracted and severe struggle, the surviving consul, Manlius, succeeded in achieving a complete victory over the Latin army and their Campanian allies. The Samnites are stated to have been posted under Vesuvius, but to have taken no part in the conflict; according to one account, they did not come up till after the battle, having waited to see which side would be victorious. (36) Livy remarks that the consuls obtained the chief credit of this victory; the one because he had devoted himself for his country, while the other had shown such courage and ability that both the Romans and the Latins, who handed

(35) Livy, viii. 9; Florus, i. 14; Victor de Vir. Ill. 26; Cic. de Fin. ii. 19, De Div. i. 24; Dio Cass. fragm. xxxv. 6. Plutarch, An. vitios. ad infel. suff. c. 3, speaks of Decius sacrificing himself on a pyre to Cronus between two armies; but he does not specify whether it is the father or the son. The author of the Plutarchean Parallela, c. 18, relates that Decius the father devoted himself in a war against the Albans, and Decius the son in a war against the Gauls. Aristides of Miletus is cited as the authority for this statement; see Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. iv. p. 323. Zonaras, vii. 26, says that some writer represented Decius to have ridden into the midst of the enemy, while others described him as having been slain by a Roman soldier. The deaths of the two Decii are thus alluded to by Juvenal:

Plebeia Deciorum animæ, plebeia fuerunt

Nomina:
: pro totis legionibus hi tamen, et pro

Omnibus auxiliis atque omni pube Latinâ

Sufficiunt dis infernis Terræque parenti.—viii. 254-7.

(36) Samnites quoque, sub radicibus montis procul instructi, præbuere terrorem Latinis; Livy, viii. 10. Romanis post proelium demum factum Samnites venisse subsidio, expectato eventu pugnæ, apud quosdam auctores invenio; ib. c. 11.

down the memory of that day to posterity, agreed that whichever army was commanded by Manlius would have gained the victory.(37)

Whatever might be the amount of active assistance which the Romans received from the Samnites in the battle of Veseris, the description of the campaign shows that Samnium was at this time a friendly country.(38) After their defeat, the Latins evacuated Campania, and retreated to Minturnæ, north of the Liris. Letters giving a false account of the result of the battle were circulated in Latium, and in the Volscian country, and thus reinforcements were speedily obtained. The Romans now marched northwards in pursuit of the Latin army, which was interposed between them and Rome, and met it at Trifanum, a coast town, between Sinuessa and Minturnæ. Here the Latin and Campanian confederacy received another blow, and both Latium and Capua were mulcted of their public land.(39)

The Latins, however, were not yet subdued; hostilities were renewed against them by the next consuls, and it was not till the third year that the definitive reduction of the entire country was effected. Different measures were adopted with the several cities, according to their conduct in the late war: those few that remained faithful to Rome were rewarded; the most delinquent were deprived of their public territory, and received colonies of Roman settlers: the policy however applied generally to them was to reduce them to isolated units, without any power of combination and joint action. For this purpose they were prohibited

(37) Alter eâ virtute eoque consilio in prælio fuit, ut facile convenerit inter Romanos Latinosque, qui ejus pugnæ memoriam posteris tradiderunt, utrius partis T. Manlius dux fuisset, ejus futuram haud dubie fuisse victoriam; Livy, viii. 10. There is a similar statement respecting Manlius in Dio Cass. Fragm. xxxv. 4. ὥστε καὶ πρὸς τῶν πολιτῶν καὶ πρὸς τῶν ἐναντίων ὁμοίως λέγεσθαι ὅτι τό τε κράτος τοῦ πολέμου ὑποχείριον ἔσχε, καὶ εἰ καὶ τῶν Λατίνων ἡγεῖτο, πάντως ἂν αὐτοὺς νικῆσαι ἐποίησεν.

(38) See Arnold, vol. ii. p. 150, n.

(39) This victory is described by Diod. xvi. 90, as having been gained by T. Manlius the consul over the Latins and Campanians near Suessa, and to have cost the defeated nations a part of their territory. He says nothing of the battle of Veseris.