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Updated: June 2, 2025
The consul, when he found that passage stopped up, faced about, resolved to return: but the entrance behind, also, was occupied by a party of the enemy, and the disaster of Caudium not only occurred to the memory of the Romans, but was in a manner represented to their eyes.
After the Samnites had given battle for the relief of the town and been defeated, Luceria surrendered to the Romans . Papirius enjoyed the double satisfaction of liberating his comrades who had been given up for lost, and of requiting the yoke of Caudium on the Samnite garrison of Luceria.
But the senate not only recalled the general immediately, but after long deliberation caused a proposal to be submitted to the burgesses that the convention should be treated as they had formerly treated that of Caudium, in other words, that they should refuse to ratify it and should devolve the responsibility for it on those by whom it had been concluded.
N. Cluvius M'. f. was a quattuorvir at Caudium, a duovir at Nola, and a quattuorvir quinquennalis at Capua, which again shows that a quinquennalis need not have been an official previously in the town in which he held the quinquennial office. C. Maenius C.f.
Nola was abandoned by its allies; and the Romans had the sagacity to detach the town for ever from the Samnite party by a very favourable convention, similar to that concluded with Neapolis . Fregellae, which after the catastrophe of Caudium had fallen into the hands of the party adverse to Rome and had been their chief stronghold in the district on the Liris, finally fell in the eighth year after its occupation by the Samnites ; two hundred of the citizens, the chief members of the national party, were conveyed to Rome, and there openly beheaded in the Forum as an example and a warning to the patriots who were everywhere bestirring themselves.
Of the consuls, Marcellus returned to Nola, whence he had come, Fabius proceeded to Samnium to waste the lands, and recover by force the cities which had revolted. The Samnites of Caudium suffered the severest devastation; their fields were laid waste by fire for a wide extent, and both men and cattle were conveyed away as booty.
To these words two tribunes of the Commons, having been among the sureties, made objection, saying, "Ye cannot set the Roman people free by giving up the sureties, but only by restoring all things as they were at Caudium. Neither do we deserve punishment because we saved the army; and seeing that we are sacred we may not be surrendered to the enemy."
Each side would have their own native spirit, wherever they should happen to engage, but the Samnites would not, every where, have the glens of Caudium." Their disaster was, by this time, well known at Rome also. At first, they heard that the troops were shut up; afterwards the news of the ignominious peace caused greater affliction than had been felt for their danger.
At the first there was great wrath, not against the generals alone, but also against the soldiers, whom they counted unworthy to be admitted into the city; but when the army came in pitiable plight wrath was changed to compassion. So soon as the Consuls of the next year were appointed they called the Senate to consider what should be done concerning the peace of Caudium.
To-day it is traversed by the road from Naples to Benevento, and is called the valley of Arpaia. In the past it was famous as Caudium. Into this defile the Romans marched between the rugged mountain acclivities that bounded its sides, and through the deep silence that reigned around.
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