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The strong Aesernia was converted from the fortress that had curbed, into the last retreat that sheltered, Samnite freedom; an army assembled consisting, it was said, of 30,000 infantry and 1000 cavalry, and was strengthened by the manumission and incorporation of 20,000 slaves; five generals were placed at its head, among whom Silo was the first and Mutilus next to him.
What gladiator, of even moderate reputation, ever gave a sigh? who ever turned pale? who ever disgraced himself either in the actual combat, or even when about to die? who that had been defeated ever drew in his neck to avoid the stroke of death? So great is the force of practice, deliberation, and custom! Shall this, then, be done by A Samnite rascal, worthy of his trade;
Nearly the converse occurred in the case of the sibilants; for while the Etruscan retained the three signs "id:z", "id:s", "id:sh", and the Umbrian rejected the last but developed two new sibilants in its room, the Samnite and the Faliscan confined themselves like the Greek to "id:s" and "id:z", and the Roman of later times even to "id:s" alone.
Why should this frenzy affect the obstreperous poets in a less degree? I write odes, another elegies: a work wonderful to behold, and burnished by the nine muses! Like Samnite gladiators in slow duel, till candle-light, we are beaten and waste out the enemy with equal blows: I came off Alcaeus, in his suffrage; he is mine, who? Why who but Callimachus?
The speedy capture and fearful punishment of Aeclanum spread terror throughout the Hirpinian country; it submitted even before the arrival of the Lucanian contingent which had set itself in motion to render help, and Sulla was able to advance unhindered as far as the territory of the Samnite confederacy.
To these examples from north Italy may be added two from the south, Herculaneum and Naples. Herculaneum had much the same early history as its more important neighbour Pompeii. First an Oscan settlement, then Etruscan, then Samnite, it passed later under Roman rule. But excavations, commenced in the eighteenth century and now long suspended, have thrown light on its ground-plan.
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.
Five years had scarce elapsed since the contest ended, and all the wounds must still have been bleeding which the twenty-two years' war had inflicted on the peasantry of Samnium, when in the year 456 the Samnite confederacy renewed the struggle. The last war had been decided in favour of Rome mainly through the alliance of Lucania with the Romans and the consequent standing aloof of Tarentum.
The Tarentines had been inactive spectators of the long contest between Rome and Samnium from its beginning to its close, and had only kept up hostilities in league with the Sallentines against the Lucanians who were allies of Rome. In the last years of the Samnite war no doubt they had shown some signs of more energetic action.
A decisive battle was fought at Sentinum, where Decius Mus the younger, following his father's example, devoted himself to death, resulting in the defeat of the Samnites, and of their allies . Soon after, the Samnite general, Pontius, fell into the hands of the Romans. The Samnites kept up the contest for several years. But in 290 they found that they could hold out no longer.
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