1-Acest articol este copiat !
2-Istoria ramane pasiunea mea nr-1!
“You must either kill them all, or free them all, not merely offer release under terms of surrender. That neither wins men friends nor rids them of their enemies.”
The Roman Consul Philo positioned his army betwixt Paleopolis and Neapolis to isolate the cities, while back in Rome to Senate instituted a new office – the Proconsul. Seeing that the war may drag on beyond the end of the Consul’s one-year term in office, and that repeated changes to command of the troops could be disruptive to the war effort, the office of Proconsul was designed to extend the Consul’s imperium beyond the end of his tenure, util a designated task could finish, ie. rather than keep changing the commander annually as the Consul changes, the initial Consul instead remains in command, but as Proconsul, until the war is settled. This would go on to become a hugely important office in the late republic, with Consuls using their term to establish a province they could govern as Proconsul, using their imperium and the benefits with it – including immunity from prosecution – to extort the provinces for their own gain. It was ultimately Julius Caesar’s refusal to lay down his Proconsular imperium in the face of political aggression from his enemies seeking to exile him that saw him cross the Rubicon with his Thirteenth Legion and trigger the civil war that would end the republic.
In 326 BC, two leading men of Naples were dissatisfied with the Samnites within their city, and thus plotted for the Romans to overthrow them in return for alliance. The Samnite towns of Allifae, Callifae and Rufrium were all captured by Rome, while the Lucanians and the Apulians, at the toe of Italia, allied themselves to the eternal city too. News of an alliance betwixt the Samnites and the Vestini (on the Adriatic coast) reached Rome in 325 BC, causing the Consul Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva to ravage their territory and force them into pitched battle, after which he took their towns of Cutina and Cingilia. Lucius Papirius Cursoe became dictator when his fellow Consul was taken ill the next year, and proceeded to crush the Samnites in battle. Despite the defeat, the Samnites rejected Rome’s peace terms and instead agree only a one-year truce, which they broke when they heard that Papirius intended to keep fighting.
Livy states that the Apulians became enemies of Rome around this time, though does not detail which of the trio of peoples living in that region did. The Daunia became involved in the war, though they were an independent collection of city states rather than a single, centralised state. 323 saw the Consuls fighting on two fronts, with Sulpicius Longus going to Samnium and Quintus Aemilius Cerretanus to Apulia. There were no battles, just ravaging of land on both sides. 322 saw the emergence of rumours that the Samnites had hired a new mercenary force, and Aulus Cornelius Cossus Arvina was appointed dictator. He left his camp in Samnium following an attack, though in the following battle the Samnites were routed. Their terms of surrender were rejected by Rome.
The Consuls for 321, Titus Veturius Calvinus and Spurius Postumius Albinus, encamped in Calatia (a Campanian town six miles southeast of Capua), when they received news that the Samnite commander Gaius Pontius had placed his army at the Caudine Forks. Pontius had some of his soldiers disguise themselves as shepherds and spread misinformation that the Samnites were about to attack the Apulian city of Lucera, a Roman ally. The Consuls decided to march to the aid of the city, and take the most direct route, through the Caudine Forks. These were two narrow, wooden valleys through the Apennines, with a plain betwixt them. The passage from the first defile to the second was a narrow and difficult ravine, which the Samnites blocked with trees and boulders. When the Romans began to pass through, they soon found their rear under attack from the Samnites, expediating their entry into the ravine. Soon the Consuls learnt that they had been lured into a trap, building a fortified camp in the plain though now having both exits to the Forks blocked by the Samnites.
Pontius sent a messenger to his father and retired stateman Herennius, asking for his advice on what to do with this surrounded Roman army. He replied that the legions should be freed immediately. Pontius rejected this advice, so sent another messenger to clarify why such leniency was suggested. This time Herennius replied that he should kill them all. Confused by these contradictory messages, Pontius summoned his father to attend him. Herennius explained that the first option – freeing them without recourse – would lead to a peace and friendship of Rome that will be unbreakable. The second option – killing them all – would cripple Rome’s military might and ensure a swift end to the war. A middle option, releasing them and imposing terms on Rome, would merely embitter the republic further towards Samnium, leaving them smarting and humiliated after such a defeat, and “neither wins men friends nor rids them of their enemies”.
Regardless, Pontius took the middle ground, and demanded the Romans’ surrender, their evacuation of Samnium, and the withdrawal of their colonies. The Consuls had little choice, despite their actions to save thousands of lives being harshly judged by those men sat snugly in the Senate and not facing the realities of war. The legionaries left the camp unharmed, though underwent the humiliation of passing under the yoke, enduring the mockery of the enemy. Pontius used spears to make the yoke, a symbol of subjugation in which defeated soldiers had to bow to pass under a yoke used for oxen. Caudine Forks would go down as one of Rome’s worst military defeats, despite there being little loss of life. Far from ending the war, it would merely drive the Romans on to innovate, and to embrace their greatest strength – to adapt. Realising the Greek phalanx was unsuitable to fighting in the Apennines, the Romans were set to bring in a military revolution in how the legions operate.
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