on the stage until the close of the Third Samnite War, 292 B.C., twenty-nine years after the Caudine disaster, when he was taken prisoner by the Romans, and, after having been led in the triumph of Q. Fabius Gurges, was beheaded, (134) according to the inhuman practice of the Romans: (135) a measure which bears the stamp of vindictive cruelty, but which does not prove that, after his long inaction, the Romans considered him a formidable enemy. (136)

Official notices and records of the Caudine convention (such

Statius Gellius is mentioned by him as a Samnite general in the Second War, (ix. 44,) Gellius Egnatius and Staius Minucius in the Third; x. 19, 20.

(134) Niebuhr says: The persecution of Hannibal is unworthy, the death of Perseus horrible, that of Jugurtha cruel; but the greatest stain in the Roman annals is the execution of C. Pontius;' Hist. vol. iii. p. 217. In his Lectures, he says: Roman history has no greater stain than this; the fate of Pontius even at this day deserves our tears, and the conduct of Rome towards her generous enemy, our curse;' vol. i. p. 404. Such a murder, committed or sanctioned by such a man as Q. Fabius, is peculiarly a national crime, and proves but too clearly that, in their dealings with foreigners, the Romans had neither magnanimity, nor humanity, nor justice;' Arnold, ib. p. 365. The Romans, after all danger to themselves was over, could murder in cold blood the Samnite general, C. Pontius, to whom they owed not only the respect due to a brave enemy, but gratitude for the generosity with which he had treated them in his day of victory;' ib. p. 416.

(135) The remarks of Cicero, Verr. v. 30, show that the execution of generals led in a Roman triumph, was considered a matter of course-so that the execution of Pontius may not have had any peculiar reference to the disgrace at Caudium.

(136) Cato is introduced by Cicero, in the work de Senectute, c. 12, as declaring that a dialogue took place in the consulship of L. Camillus and Appius Claudius (319 B.C.), at Tarentum, between Plato, Archytas, and the father of C. Pontius, the Samnite general at the Caudine disaster: that he had heard this fact from a certain Nearchus who had entertained him at Tarentum when he was a youth, and that Nearchus had learnt it from some of his seniors. A real dialogue is evidently intended; similar to that mentioned in Athen. xii. 64; and not a fictitious composition, according to the hypothesis of Niebuhr, Hist. vol. iii. n. 373; Lect. on Anc. Hist. vol. iii. p. 148. It could not however have taken place at the time stated, if Plato was present at it; for Plato died very old in 347 B.C., and his last visit to Sicily was about 361 B.C. The intercourse of Cato with Nearchus took place (according to Plut. Cat. Maj. 2), after the capture of Tarentum by Fabius Maximus in 209 B.C. Even if we take the date of Cicero, and suppose that the presence of Plato is a fable, the conversation of Archytas and the father of Pontius must have preceded the time when Cato conversed with Nearchus by 140 years. This interval does not admit of Nearchus having received the account from a person who was living at the time when the supposed dialogue took place.

as the list of sponsors mentioned by Livy) may have been, and probably were, preserved in the Roman archives ;(187) but we have no reason for believing that any connected narrative of the transaction was written by a contemporary historian, or even by a historian who derived his information directly from contemporaries. All our positive testimony, indeed, directly negatives such an idea. (188) The grandfather of Fabius Pictor, the earliest historian, is reported to have painted the Temple of Salus in 450 U.C. (304 B.C.);(139) which was seventeen years after the Caudine treaty. The narrative must, apparently, have been framed from traditionary recollections: but what the accuracy or value of these may have been, we have no certain means of judging. The Caudine disaster was calculated to leave deep traces on the national memory.(140) We may be entitled to consider the narrative, in its general outlines, as resting on a historical basis; but our knowledge is insufficient to enable us to judge of its details, and still less are we entitled to accuse Livy of having wilfully falsified the account.(14) Whatever may have been the materials from which the original narrative was constructed, we doubtless have it in the form in which it was presented by

(137) See above, vol. i.

. p. 146.

(138) See above, ch. iii. § 1. Livy, viii. 40, speaking of the year immediately preceding the Caudine capitulation, expressly says: Nec quisquam æqualis temporibus illis scriptor extat, quo satis certo auctore stetur.'

(139) Plin. xxxv. 7; above, vol. i. p. 38, n. 94. Livy mentions that the contract for building this temple was given out by the censor in 306 B.c. (ix. 43), and that the temple itself was dedicated in 302 B.c. x. 1;

(140) Livy says that when Fabius was about to enter the Ciminian wood in 310 B.C., all the army thought of the Caudine surrender; ix. 36. The Samnites are represented as referring to it at the same time; ib. 38. The Faucian curia is likewise stated to have been considered unlucky, as having been the first in the year both of the Gallic capture of the city, and of the Caudine disaster-to which Licinius Macer added the Cremera; ib. 38. Reminiscences of the Caudine disgrace, during the Second Punic War, are mentioned by Livy, xxiii. 42, xxv. 6. Compare above, vol. i. p. 118, n. 78.

(141) See Niebuhr, Hist. vol. iii. p. 212-3, 221. In p. 222, he accuses 'the annalists' of having fabricated the story of the recovery of the Roman hostages and standards. In his Lectures, however, he says that Livy has corrupted and distorted the history of the whole of the year following, by stating that in it the Romans, at the conquest of Luceria, recovered their hostages;' vol. i. p. 366. Dr. Arnold considers the account of the Caudine treaty to have been falsified by the annalists;' vol. ii. p. 226.

Fabius and his successors, long before it was adopted and repeated by Livy.(142)

§ 31 The history of the remainder of the Second Samnite War, down to the year 304 B.C., is related by Livy with considerable detail. His narrative is indistinct and incoherent, and it differs in many material points from the notices of Diodorus, which recur at close intervals during this period, though as to the general course and chronology of the war, the accounts of the two historians agree.

The war was continued in Campania: in 315 B.C., the Romans obtained the town of Saticula, but lost Plestia and Sora. (143) Soon afterwards the Samnites seem to have been victorious in a battle at Lautulæ (near Anxur), in which Q. Aulius, the master of the horse, was killed ;(1) but the Romans speedily regained the superiority, and in a few years had nearly brought the war to an end. (145) It may be remarked, that with regard to

(142) A senatus-consultum concerning the Tiburtines, published from a brazen plate, now lost, is referred by Niebuhr to the Second Samnite War, and to about the time of the Caudine treaty; Hist. vol. iii. p. 265. Visconti has referred it to the time of the Social War. The language seems to prove that it must be considerably later than the time indicated by Niebuhr. See Klotz, Lat. Litt. p. 313.

(143) Livy, ix. 21-3; Diod. xix. 72.

6

(144) Livy, ib. 23, first says that the battle of Lautulæ ended without advantage to either army. He then adds: Invenio apud quosdam, adversam eam pugnam Romanis fuisse, atque in eâ cecidisse Q. Aulium, magistrum equitum.' He had already given a circumstantial account of the death of Aulius in an equestrian battle near Saticula. Diodorus, ib. describes the Romans as completely routed at Lautulæ, and Aulius dying in order to avoid the disgrace of flight. The Capitoline Fasti record the death of Aulius in battle at this time.

(145) See Livy, ix. 24-9, 31; Diod. xix. 76, 101, xx. 26. Cinna, a place near which the Romans defeat the Samnites, in Diod. c. 76, is an unknown and probably corrupt or inaccurate name. The account, ib., of C. Mænius, dictator, and M. Fulvius, master of the horse, being sent to inquire about the revolt of the Campanians, also occurs in Livy, c. 26. Livy calls the master of the horse M. Foslius. Diod. xix. 2, likewise has Fulvius for Foslius, as one of the consuls for the year 318 B.C. The recovery of Fregellæ is attributed by Diod. c. 103 to Fabius; by Livy, c. 28, to Poetelius. Diod. ib. mentions the capture of Keλía and Nola in the same year. Kelia appears to be a corruption or error for Calatia, which is mentioned at the same time by Livy, c. 28. The colony to Pontiæ occurs both in Livy and Diodorus. Livy speaks of profligatum fere Samnitium bellum; c. 29. (313 B.C.) The narratives of Livy and Diodorus are quite inconsistent with Niebuhr's view that the defeat of Lautulæ inflicted

the capture of Nola, in 313 B.C., there was, according to Livy, a doubt similar to one which was mentioned above. Some histories gave the credit of this achievement to the dictator Poetelius; while others assigned it to the consul C. Junius, and represented Poetelius as having been appointed dictator merely for the formal purpose of driving a nail into a temple in order to mitigate a pestilence.(146)

The subsequent capture of Allifæ, in the valley of the Vulturnus, by the consul Marcius, is mentioned both by Livy and Diodorus. (147) He afterwards engages the Samnites with doubtful success; and the Senate send to Fabius, the other consul, cailing upon him to name Papirius Cursor dictator; an act which he does reluctantly, and in silence, on account of the treatment formerly experienced from him, as his master of the horse. In the battle subsequently gained by Papirius, the Samnites wore highly ornamented armour, and shields embossed with gold and silver. In his triumph, the gold shields were hung up in the silversmiths' forum; and hence, according to Livy, the custom for the ædiles to ornament the forum for certain pro

a deep wound upon Rome, and that the situation of the republic was not more threatening after the battle of Canna;' Hist. vol. iii. p. 230. In his Lectures, he says: This victory produced a mighty revolution; for the Samnites now spread into Latium;' vol. i. p. 370. No such advance however is mentioned either by Livy or Diodorus. Livy's account (c. 31) of the operations against the Samnites in the year of Junius and Emilius (311 B.C.) differs altogether from that of Diodorus; xx. 26. See Niebuhr, ib. p. 244; Arnold, ib. p. 247. The latter remarks that if we compare Livy's account with that of Diodorus, no one would suspect that both writers were describing the events of the same war and the same period.'

(146) Livy, ix. 28. The Capitoline Fasti for this year state that C. Poetelius was dictator rei gerundæ causâ, and not clavi figendi causâ, as is affirmed by Niebuhr, ib. p. 236.

(147) Livy, ix. 38; Diod. xx. 35. There is a direct conflict of testimony between Livy and Diodorus with respect to the Marsi in the consulship of Decius and Fabius, 308 B.C. Diod. xx. 44, states that the consuls assisted the Marsi who were attacked by the Samnites; that they had the superiority in the battle, and killed many of the enemy. Livy, on the other hand, states that Decius alone went into Samnium, and that a battle which he fought with the Samnites was rendered memorable only by the fact that the Marsi fought in it for the first time against the Romans; ix. 41. Four years later, the Marsi are described as suing for peace with Rome, and obtaining a treaty; ib. 45. They are likewise defeated, and mulcted of a part of their territory, in 302 B.C.; Livy, x. 3.

cessions took its origin. It is added, that the Campanians, from hatred of the Samnites, copied this armour for the gladiators, and called it by their name.(118) Livy and Diodorus agree in describing the Romans as gaining great advantages in the years 306 and 305 B.C.,(149) and they both state that in the following year the Samnites submitted to the treaty imposed upon them. by their victorious enemy.(150)

During the later years of this war, hostilities with the Etruscans, which had some years been intermitted, (151) were renewed. The campaign was begun by the Etruscans, who attacked Sutrium; but were defeated near it by the Romans. After this victory, Q. Fabius crossed the Ciminian wood, which

(148) Livy, ix. 38-40; Dio Cass. xxxvi. 26. sidered as historical by Niebuhr, ib. P. 248.

These origins are con

(149) Livy, ix. 43-5; Diod. xx. 80, 90, 101. The march of the consuls Marcius and Cornelius into Iapygia (B.c. 306), in Diod. c. 80, seems to correspond with the campaign of the consul Volumnius, against the Sallentini, in Livy, c. 42. (B.c. 307.) The capture of Statius Gellius, the Samnite general, and the recovery of the towns Sora, Arpinum, and Censennia are mentioned by both historians (Livy, c. 44; Diod. c. 90): the general is called C. Gellius, and the two latter towns Harpina and Serennia by Diodorus. Bola in Diodorus is likewise a manifest error for Bovianum, whose capture is mentioned in Livy. See Niebuhr, ib. p. 257. There were discordant accounts concerning the early part of the campaign of 305 B.C. Alii haud dubie Samnites victos, ac viginti millia hominum capta tradunt; alii marte æquo discessum, et Postumium, metum simulantem nocturno itinere, clam in montes copias abduxisse;' Livy, c. 44. In the same place, Livy mentions that Piso had in his history omitted two pairs of consuls (Claudius and Volumnius, Cornelius and Marcius) at this period (307-6 B.C.), but whether from inadvertence, or intentionally, did not appear.

(150) Diod. xx. 101, says that the Romans and Samnites made peace with one another, after a war of twenty-two years and six months (326-304 B.C.). Livy, ix. 45, says: Foedus antiquum Samnitibus redditum. By this he evidently understands an unequal treaty; for in the Caudine convention, the Samnites stipulated for an equal treaty (above, p. 453, n. 121), and the convention was repudiated by the Romans. Dionysius represents the Romans, in the negotiations before the Third Samnite War, as calling the Samnites their subjects. (xvi. 13.) Compare Niebuhr, ib. p. 259; Arnold, ib. p. 264. Zonaras, viii. 1, gives an account, which apparently refers to the latter part of the Second Samnite War, of a defeat of the Romans under the consul C. Junius (Bubulcus) near Averna.

(151) Niebuhr attributes the pacific relations between Etruria and Rome at this period to the danger from the Gauls, who kept the attention of the Etruscans directed to their northern and eastern frontiers; Hist. vol. iii. p. 275. Compare above, p. 298.