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XXV. "In respect of planting vines," resumed Scrofa, "it should be observed that the varieties fitted for the best land and exposure to the sun are the little Aminean, the twin Eugeneam and the little yellow kind: while on rich or wet land the best varieties are the large Aminean, the Murgentine, the Apician and the Lucanian.
The wealthy merchant-republic of Tarentum, daily exposed to more serious peril from the Lucanian and Messapian bands and justly distrusting its own sword, gained by good words and better coin the help of -condottieri- from the mother-country.
The two consuls then invested the town, while Tiberius Gracchus stationed himself on the Appian Way to prevent Hannibal from approaching to relieve it But that brave officer fell in consequence of the shameful stratagem of a perfidious Lucanian; and his death was equivalent to a complete defeat, for his army, consisting mostly of those slaves whom he had manumitted, dispersed after the fall of their beloved leader.
Punishment not much lighter awaited the Arpanians and a number of other Apulian, Lucanian, and Samnite communities, most of which lost portions of their territory. On a part of the lands thus acquired new colonies were settled.
But when intelligence was brought by the same Lucanian Statilius, who had reconnoitred every place on the other side the mountains, and beyond the camp, that the enemy was seen marching at a distance, then plans began to be deliberated on about pursuing him.
Crassus was afraid lest he should march directly to Rome, but was soon eased of that fear when he saw many of his men break out in a mutiny and quit him, and encamp by themselves upon the Lucanian lake. This lake they say changes at intervals of time, and is sometimes sweet, and sometimes so salt that it cannot be drunk.
"You must not reckon," he wrote, "on my eating your hors d'oeuvre. I have given them up entirely. The time has gone by when I can abuse my stomach with your olives and your Lucanian sausages." To repeat then, if the student, who is going to be a historian, uses his acquisitive years in obtaining a thorough knowledge of French and Latin, he will afterwards be spared useless regrets.
For the Lucanian sausage of to-day is the Lucanica unchanged; the same tough, greasy, odoriferous compound, in fact, that Cicero describes as “an intestine, stuffed with minced pork, mixed with ground pepper, cummin, savory, rue, rock-parsley, berries of laurel, and suet.” And we have only to add that mingling with the above-mentioned condiments there was an all-pervading flavour of wood-smoke, due to the sausage’s place of storage, a hook within the kitchen chimney.
On the other hand the Romans succeeded, by means of a weak corps which advanced along the Lucanian frontier and of the garrison of Venusia, in preventing the Lucanians and Samnites from uniting with Pyrrhus; while the main force four legions as it would appear, and so, with a corresponding number of allied troops, at least 50,000 strong marched against Pyrrhus, under the consul Publius Laevinus.
That he had agreed upon a place with those who were privy to the transaction, out of the way of observation, and at no great distance from the Roman camp; that there the business might be settled in few words, so that all the Lucanian states might be in the alliance and friendship of the Romans."
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