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The further traditions associated with the Samnite and Pyrrhic wars are neither sufficiently accredited, nor can they with certainty be duly arranged; although it is in itself probable that the prolonged Samnite mountain warfare exercised a lasting influence on the individual development of the Roman soldier, and that the struggle with one of the first masters of the art of war, belonging to the school of the great Alexander, effected an improvement in the technical features of the Roman military system.
On the overthrow of the Volscians, the Roman armies reached the Samnite territory. Samnium was a hilly country on the east of the Volscians, and its people were brave and hardy. The Samnites had, at the fall of Veii, an ascendency over Lower Italy, with the exception of the Grecian colonies.
The Samnite army had come to them, in readiness for action, furnished with arms and pay, and were willing to follow that instant, even should they lead to the attack of the city of Rome itself." While they were engaged in these representations, and intriguing at Etruria, the operations of the Romans in their own territories distressed them severely.
It was constructed by Appius Claudius the Blind, during the Samnite War, when he was Censor, three hundred and thirteen years before Christ, and led from Rome to Capua, being carried over the Pontine Marshes on an embankment.
Presumably about the same time, and in consequence doubtless of the Samnite peace, peace was also made between Rome and Tarentum. The two cities had not indeed directly opposed each other in the field.
Relation of the Latins to the Umbro-Samnites Among the languages of the Italian stock, again, the Latin stands in marked contrast with the Umbro-Samnite dialects. It is true that of these only two, the Umbrian and the Samnite or Oscan, are in some degree known to us, and these even in a manner extremely defective and uncertain.
Through the influence of Hellenic habits a deep schism took place in the Samnite stock. The civilized "Philhellenes" of Campania were accustomed to tremble like the Hellenes themselves before the ruder tribes of the mountains, who were continually penetrating into Campania and disturbing the degenerate earlier settlers.
As for these men, I accept them not. They may go back to their own country and carry with them the wrath of the Gods whom they have despised. Ye will wage war forsooth with us because Portumius hath struck the herald with his knee. Ye will persuade the Gods that he is not a Roman but a Samnite, and that therefore ye have just cause of war against us.
Thus in the intellectual sphere Hellenism made advances quite as incessant as the efforts of the Romans to subject the earth to their sway; and the secondary nationalities, such as the Samnite, Celt, and Etruscan, hard pressed on both sides, were ever losing their inward vigour as well as narrowing their outward bounds. Rome and the Romans of This Epoch
The Samnite tribes filled a disproportionately large space, while yet they showed no disposition to make it thoroughly their own.
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