Roma si Peninsula-Italica ! Partea-3!

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2-Istoria ramane pasiunea mea nr-1!

“They were utterly defeated and it was only now that their courage at length gave way and that they sent an embassy to sue for terms and made a treaty with the Romans.”

The alliances that the Roman Republic developed during the Latin War, following the Second Samnite War, and at the beginning and end of the Third Samnite War, all laid the foundations for Rome’s Italian hegemony. Those who opposed Rome were not only defeated, but then saw their civilisations incorporated into Rome as “friends” or “allies”, even though they were ostensibly vassals having their lands annexed. Some were merely wiped out, though most were absorbed, with a healthy sprinkling of colonies and settlers ensuring lands became Romanised and began to lose their sense of individuality. Rome’s system of alliances would see it morph from a pan-Italian coalition into, essentially, a nation rather than a city. This sense of inclusion of, rather than necessarily conquering others outright, laid the groundwork for Rome to resist Greek attempts to check their expansion when Pyrrhus invaded, and Carthage’s attempt to dismantle the republic when Hannibal invaded. The successes in those wars, built on the successes in Italy, would see the legions become a bulldozer that would obliterate all the remaining Mediterranean powers within two decades – leading them to call the water “Mare Nostrum” – “Our Sea”.

This alliance system worked because Rome supported the ruling elites of its allies, who could then expect Roman support to quell civil strife. Rome shared the spoils of war, which would be considerable, and the allies gained security. The participation of allied troops at the Battle of Sentinum had been a decisive factor for Rome, and this reliance only grew. Allied troops often greatly outnumbers Romans, and the epic Battle of Teleman against the Gauls in 225 BC saw some 41,000 Romans mobilised amidst some 210,000 allies. The Roman pool of military manpower was only about 40% of the total Italian pool, which Polynius estimated at 700,000 – behemoth numbers which could not be matched anywhere else in the Mediterranean.

283 BC saw further Roman consolidation, including clashes with Gauls and Etruscans. The Gauls besieged Arretium and defeated a Roman relief force, and the Praetor Caecillius Metellus Denter died in battle. He was replaced by Manius Curius Dentatus, who sent envoys to release Roman prisoners, though they were killed. A march into Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) saw the Romans defeat the Senones in battle, killing most and driving the rest from their lands so they could found the colony of Sena Gallia (Senigalia). The neighbouring Boii appealed to the Etruscans for aid against Rome, and both marched out in force to confront the legions at the Battle of Lake Vadimon. Polybius states that: “the Etruscans were cut to pieces, and only a few of the Boii escaped”. The following year saw a fresh campaign, though “they were utterly defeated and it was only now that their courage at length gave way and that they sent an embassy to sue for terms and made a treaty with the Romans.”

These clashes gained further Roman territory along the Adriatic, eliminating the Gallic danger from the Senones, and was followed by half a century of peace with the Gauls. The two major advantages Rome took from these encounters was getting used to defeating Gauls – which they had long held a terror of since the Gallic sack of Rome by Brennus in 290 BC – and providing them with veteran legions just as Pyrrhus was about to invade. Rome would finally face an external threat to Italy with the Epirot King Pyrrhus landed, and they campaigned against him from 280 to 275 BC, ultimately successful despite heavy losses. Pyrrhus would win battles, though at such a cost he could not win the war, giving rise to the term “Pyrrhic victory”. 280 BC saw successful clashes with the stubbornly rebellious Etruscans of the Vulsci and Volsinii, with the Caere in 273 BC, and with the Volsinii again in 264 BC. Rome’s ability to keep its enemies divided following the defeat of the Samnites, rather than allow the growing of such coalitions faced in those wars, enabled its enemies to be defeated piecemeal.

For their part, the Samnites never really settled beneath the heel of Rome, despite their successive defeats. Whenever an opportunity arose to rebel, a new generation of Samnites would recite the tales of their ancestors, and resume the ultimately futile struggle against Rome. When Hannibal invaded Italy in the Second Punic War, the Samnites supported him. When the Social War erupted over the lack of voting rights and equal citizenship among Italian allies, it was the Samnites who led it, along with the Marsi. It was also the Samnites who would hold out longest, supporting Gaius Marius and his Populare faction when they began civil war against the Optimates led by Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Sulla developed a special hatred for the Samnites, and won the grass crown, a military distinction, when he routed a Samnite army outside of Nola. Sulla’s final march on Rome was not to defeat a Populare army – whose leader Carbo had already fled Italy – but rather a fresh Samnite army, which saw a belated opportunity to seize Rome. After he crushed the 70,000-strong force at the Colline Gate, Sulla executed all of the prisoners – forcing cowering Senators to listen to their screams. When Spartacus rose up from a minor slave revolt to an army 80,000 strong threatening Italy, his numbers were swollen by Samnites seeing a new opportunity to challenge Rome. The term “Samnite” would come to be used as a type of gladiator, the Romans often basing these on the different styles of enemies they fought (such as “hopplomachus” for Greek spearment, “murmillo” for legionary, and more). Samnite would long remain a thorn in the side of Rome, and arguably never truly integrate.

By the time Rome became an empire rather than a republic though, the concept of “Rome” became far more than a city, and the city itself became increasingly irrelevant. The capital would eventually be moved to Milan, to Ravenna, to Constantinople, while some of Rome’s most successful emperors would come from far flung provinces such as Hispania (Trajan), Africa (Septimius Severus), and Illyria (Aurelian) – something inconceivable to the fledgling city striving for control of Italy and closely protecting its citizenship with full rights.

Victory over the Samnites ensured Rome was now placed to become the master of the Mediterranean. Its military experience would not just vanquish Pyrrhus, but ultimately see it triumph over the other great power, Carthage, following a titanic century-long struggle. This left Rome without serious opposition, and the legions were able to prove their supremacy in Greece as it became Rome, not Macedon, that reunified the Hellenic kingdoms of Alexander, and campaigned deep into Persia in years to come, with many Roman general seeking to emulate his achievements. At a time when Alexander and his phalanxes were sweeping through the vast Achaemenid Empire all the way to India, Rome was but a small city contesting control of central Italy from a vicious mountain tribe, the Samnites. Yet Alexander’s empire was fleeting, swiftly dismantled by his Diadochi successors who could never emulate his accomplishments, much less achieve the stated goal in his will of annexing Arabia, and then all of the Mediterranean basin. Instead it would be that small Italian city state, which would not erupt in a blaze of glory as Alexander did but rather steadily build over generations and centuries, that would go on to annex all of the Mediterranean. Not only that, but instead of a fleeting accomplishment, Rome’s would be lasting, with an empire that would persevere in the east until 476 AD, and the west until 1453 – some 1,796 years after that first war with the Samnites. The shadow of Rome still looms large over the world today – and yet it took an epic struggle against the Samnites for that shadow to even cross the Apennines.