Rome grew in power. In the first half of the 4th century BCE, the Romans, who had defeated many Italic peoples like the Etruscans, the Hernici, the Volsci, and the Latins, eventually encountered a force as strong as them: the Samnites. These mountain herders were established in the southern Apennines, north of present-day Campania, the region of Naples. Tough and fierce, they matched the Romans in terms of wealth and military skills. It was better to find common ground.
In 354 BCE, the Romans and Samnites established a treaty to define their respective spheres of influence. However, this agreement lasted only about ten years… Between 343 and 341 BCE, the two peoples fought their first war due to a Samnite attack on the city of Capua, an ally of Rome. During this conflict, the Romans discovered the difficulties of mountain warfare. Rome lost the battle but not the war.
Fifteen years later, the city had consolidated its control over Latium and northern Campania. Its expansionist ambitions again clashed with the interests of the Samnites, who also coveted the fertile lands of Campania. The second war between the Romans and the Samnites broke out in 327 BCE. It would last… over twenty years. Although the Roman army had modernized, in 321 BCE it suffered a terrible defeat. Trapped in the rocky pass of the Caudine Forks, west of Capua, the Roman troops were forced to march under enemy projectiles and insults, yoked like cattle. They would take their revenge in the following years, eventually defeating the Samnites at Bovianum in 305 BCE. Rome then annexed part of their territory.
At the turn of the century, no other people in the peninsula seemed capable of countering Rome’s power. But the Samnites were not finished. The third and final Samnite war, called by historians the “Italic War,” began in 298 BCE. This war saw a new phenomenon emerge. Several peoples tried to unite against the Roman juggernaut: the Samnites, mostly, but also the Etruscans, the Umbrians, and the Gauls, the latter living in northern Italy in the Po Valley.
The Battle of Sentinum in 295 BCE marked the climax of this coalition. The Samnites, pushed back by the Romans in the early years of the conflict, had managed to reach this city near present-day Sassoferrato, 200 kilometers north of Rome. There, they met their allies to face four Roman legions commanded by two consuls. The situation looked bleak for the Romans. But the Romans managed to divide the enemy camp by sending troops to ravage Clusium, in Etruscan territory (modern-day Tuscany). The Etruscan and Umbrian warriors then left the battlefield. The Romans were left to face the Samnites and the Gauls. After two days of waiting, the hostilities began. On the left wing, facing the Gauls, Consul Publius Decius Mus found himself in difficulty.
This medieval miniature illustrating Roman history, from Titus Livius (59 BCE – 17 CE), shows the defeated Samnites placing gold at the feet of Roman soldiers. He then performs a devotio: a suicidal war act. He throws himself, weapon in hand, into the enemy ranks to drag his opponents with him into death. The operation is successful: the Romans win the battle, leaving 25,000 Samnites and Gauls dead, including the Samnite leader Gellius Egnatius, against 9,000 Roman soldiers.
Several Peoples Try to Unite to Fight Against the Roman Ogre
The third Samnite war still sees some turmoil. The Samnites create an elite force, the “linen legion,” to crush their Roman adversaries. But in 293 BCE, they are again defeated at Aquilonia, in Campania (20,000 Samnite casualties). As their cities fall one after the other, they are forced to capitulate in 290 BCE. The peace treaty is harsh: the Samnites lose part of their territory and are required to supply troops to Rome. The Samnites are definitively defeated, though they gave Rome a tough fight. “No enemy, in Italy, put the courage of the Romans to more severe tests,” wrote the Roman historian Eutropius in the 4th century CE.
It takes Rome a few more years to subjugate the other allied peoples (Umbrians, Gauls, and Etruscans, with the last independent city, Volsinii, falling in 264 BCE) and solidify its domination over the entire peninsula. It must also conquer the South, which was dominated by the Greeks. The Greeks, particularly those of Tarentum, the main Greek city in southern Italy, call for help from Pyrrhus, King of Epirus (a region in the northwest of present-day Greece). In 280 BCE, Pyrrhus crosses the Ionian Sea and lands on the peninsula with 25,000 men and elephants, a fearsome weapon at the time. The war between Rome and Pyrrhus lasts five years and ends in 275 BCE with a Roman victory. Rome, now master of the territory, has multiplied its wealth and expanded its army. It can now set its sights farther. Toward Carthage.