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Your plans being once unfolded, it will be easy to suit words to the subject; for if even now we are capable of submitting to slavery under the shadow of a confederacy on equal terms, what is wanting but to betray the Sidicinians, be obedient to the orders not only of the Romans, but of the Samnites, and tell the Romans, that we will lay down our arms whenever they intimate it to be their wish?
Nor did the senate, however, discontinue their attention to that war, because the Sidicinians had now so often taken up arms either as principals, or had afforded aid to those who did so, or had been the cause of hostilities. Accordingly they exerted themselves with all their might, to raise to the consulship for the fourth time, Marcus Valerius Corvus, the greatest general of that day.
Though a part of the war with the Sidicinians still remained; yet that they might anticipate, by an act of kindness, the wishes of the commons, they proposed about sending a colony to Cales; and a decree of the senate being passed that two thousand five hundred men should be enrolled for that purpose, they appointed Kæso Duilius, Titus Quinctius, and Marcus Fabius commissioners for conducting the colony and distributing the land.
The Campanians, therefore, when asked by the Sidicinians to arm in their behalf, must have measured their strength by wealth and not by soldiers; for after declaring in their favour and suffering two defeats, to save themselves they were obliged to become tributary to Rome.
This people inhabited the city Cales; they had united their arms with their neighbours the Sidicinians; and the army of the two states being defeated in one battle scarcely worthy of record, was induced to take to flight the earlier in consequence of the proximity of the cities, and the more sheltered on their flight.
There because the Sidicinians, who had raised a numerous army, seemed determined to fight vigorously for their last hope, and a report existed that Samnium also was preparing for hostilities, Publius Cornelius Rufinus was created dictator by the consuls in pursuance of a decree of the senate; Marcus Antonius was nominated master of the horse.
In proportion as they should carry their arms to a greater distance from the city, the more and more unwarlike should the nation prove to be against whom they should proceed. That they should not estimate the valour of the Samnites by the defeats of the Sidicinians and Campanians. Let the combatants be of what kind they may be, that it was necessary that one side should be vanquished.
For the Samnites, taking no further notice of the Sidicinians, having attacked the Campanians as being the chief of the neighbouring states, from whom the victory might be equally easy, and a greater share of spoil and glory, after they had secured Tifata, a ridge of hills hanging over Capua, with a strong garrison, they march down from thence with their army formed in a square into the plain which lies between Capua and Tifata.
The year following, in which the consuls were Publius Plautius Proculus and Publius Cornelius Scapula, was remarkable for no one transaction, civil or military, except the sending of a colony to Fregellæ, a district which had belonged to the Sidicinians, and afterwards to the Volscians; and a distribution of meat to the people, made by Marcus Flavius, on occasion of the funeral of his mother.
To mark the mistake made by the Sidicinians in trusting to the protection of the Campanians, and by the Campanians in supposing themselves able to protect the Sidicinians, Titus Livius could not have expressed himself in apter words than by saying, that "the Campanians rather lent their name to the Sidicinians than furnished any substantial aid towards their defence."