In Campania and the coast-lands connecting Campania with Rome, a policy of annexation was considered safer than that of alliance. Of the two frontier posts of the Volsci, Antium and Velitrae, the former was constituted a Roman colony, its long galleys burnt and their prows set up in the Forum at Rome, while the walls of Velitrae were razed to the ground, its leading men banished beyond the Tiber, and their lands given to Roman settlers. Farther south on the route to Campania, Fundi and Formiae were, of ter the precedent set in the case of Caere, de clared Roman and granted the civil rights of Roman citizenship, while lastly in Campania itself the same status was given to Capua, Cumae and the smaller communities dependent upon them'. During the ten years from 338 to 328 the work of settle ment was steadily continued. Tarracina, like Antium, was made a Roman colony. Privernum, the last Volscian town to offer resistance to Rome, was subdued in 33o, part of its territory allotted to Roman citizens, and the state itself forced to accept the Roman franchise. Lastly, to strengthen the lines of defence against the Sabellian tribes, two colonies with the rights of Latin allies were established at Cales (334) and at Fregellae (328). The settlement of the lowlands was accomplished. As a single powerful and compact state with an outer circle of closely de pendent allies, Rome now stood in sharp contrast with the dis united and degenerate cities of northern Etruria, the loosely organized tribes of the Apennines, and the decaying and dis orderly Greek towns of the south.
Second Samnite War.—The strength of this system was now to be tried by a struggle with the one Italian people who were still ready and able to contest with Rome the supremacy of the peninsula. The passive attitude of the Samnites between 342 and 327 was no doubt largely due to the dangers which had suddenly threatened them in South Italy. But the death of Alexander of Epirus, in 332, removed their only formidable opponent there, and left them free to turn their attention to the necessity of checking the steady advance of Rome. In 327, the year of ter the ominous foundation of a Roman colony at Fregellae, a pretext for renewing the struggle was offered them. The Cumaean colony of Palaepolis had incurred the wrath of Rome by its raids into her territory in Campania. The Samnites sent a force to defend it, and Rome replied by a declaration of war. The two opponents were not at first sight unequally matched, and had the Sabellian tribes held firmly together the issue of the struggle might have been different. As it was, however, the Lucanians to the south actually joined Rome from the first, while the northern clans, Marsi, Vestini, Paeligni and Frentani, of ter a feeble and lukewarm resistance, subsided into a neutrality which was exchanged in 304 for a formal alliance with Rome. An
even greater advantage to Rome from the outset was the enmity existing between the Samnites and the Apulians, the latter of whom from the first joined Rome and thus gave her a position in the rear of her enemy and in a country eminently well fitted for maintaining a large military force. These weaknesses on the Samnite side were amply illustrated by the events of the war.
After several years of partial success, the Romans were thor oughly defeated at Caudine Forks (321) and, in order to save their captured army, were compelled to sign a dishonourable treaty of peace. Rome, however, continued to strengthen her connections with the Lucanians and Apulians, settling a Latin colony at Luceria (32o), and to draw the net of alliances more closely by winning over the Vestini and Frentani, north and east of Samnium. The Samnites accordingly, finding that peace was more dangerous than war, renewed hostilities in 316, by making a series of desperate efforts to break through the lines of defence which protected Latium and Campania. Sora and Fregellae on the upper Liris were captured by a sudden attack; the Ausones in the low country near the mouth of the same river were en couraged to revolt by the appearance of the Samnite army; and in Campania another army, attracted by rumours of disturbance, all but defeated the Roman consuls under the very walls of Capua. But these efforts were unavailing. Sora and Fregellae were re covered as quickly as they had been lost, and the frontier there 'For the controversy as to the precise status of Capua and the "equites Campani" (Livy viii. 14), see Beloch, Ital. Bund, 122 seq.; idem, Campanien, 317 ; Mommsen, Staatsr. iii. 574 ; Frank, Roman Imperialism, 41.
was strengthened by the establishment of a colony at Interamna. The Ausones were punished by the confiscation of their territory, and Roman supremacy further secured by the two colonies of Suessa and Pontia (312). The construction of the famous Via Appia, the work of the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, opened a safe and direct route to Campania, while the capture of Nola de prived the Samnites of their last important stronghold in the Campanian lowlands. The failure of these attempts broke the courage even of the Samnites. Their hopes were indeed raised for a moment by the news that Etruria had risen against Rome (3E0), but their daring scheme of effecting a union with the Etruscans was frustrated by the energy of the Roman generals. Five years later (305) the Romans revenged a Samnite raid into Campania by an invasion of Samnium itself. Arpinum on the frontier was taken, and at last, after a 2 2 years' struggle, the second Samnite War was closed by a renewal of the ancient treaty with Rome (304).