Samnium in a sentence

The next memorable struggle of Rome was with Samnium, for the supremacy of Italy.

Samnium was a hilly country on the east of the Volscians, and its people were brave and hardy.

The Samnites found allies in the Umbrians of Northern, and the Marsi and Pieligni of Central Italy, But these people were easily subdued, and a peace was made with Samnium, after twenty-two years’ war, when Bovianum, its strongest city, was taken by storm, B.C. 298.

The Romans retreated into Apulia, but the whole south of Italy, Lucania, Samnium, the Bruttii, and the Greek cities were the prizes which the conqueror won.

Carthage could not be subdued by that rustic warfare which had sufficed for the conquest of Etruria or Samnium.

But the Greek cities of the coast were held by Roman garrisons, as well as the fortresses in Apulia, Campania, and Samnium.

The insurrection broke out in Asculum in Picenum, and spread rapidly through Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania.

Samnium had not grown into the might which she afterwards put forth: nor could the Greek colonies in South Italy and Sicily hope to survive when their parent states had perished.

Accordingly, no greater exertions were made for it than for the wars in Samnium and Etruria; the two legions which were sent over to the island for the next year (492) sufficed, in concert with the Sicilian Greeks, to drive the Carthaginians everywhere into their fortresses.

The rustic method of warfare, by which Etruria and Samnium had been won, was the very cause of the defeat in the plain of Tunes.

Passing the Roman army, he marched over the Apennines into the heart of Italy towards Beneventum, took the open town of Telesia on the boundary between Samnium and Campania, and thence turned against Capua, which as the most important of all the Italian cities dependent on Rome, and the only one standing in some measure on a footing of equality with it, had for that very reason felt more severely than any other community the oppression of the Roman government.

Samnium and Luceria were no longer what they had been, when king Pyrrhus had thought of marching into Rome at the head of the Sabellian youth.

With the same dexterous boldness which he had shown in his first Italian campaigns, he threw himself with a weak army between the armies and fortresses of the enemy, and led his troops through Samnium and along the Valerian Way past Tibur to the bridge over the Anio, which he passed and encamped on the opposite bank, five miles from the city.

The veterans of the victorious army of Africa were settled singly on various patches of land in Samnium and Apulia; the remainder was retained as public land, and the pasture stations of the grandees of Rome replaced the gardens and arable fields of the farmers.

Cato and those who shared his opinions demanded such measures, pointing, on the one hand, to the devastation of Italy by the Hannibalic war and the alarming diminution of the farms and of the free Italian population generally, and, on the other, to the widely extended possessions of the nobles-occupied along with, and similarly to, property of their own-in Cisalpine Gaul, in Samnium, and in the Apulian and Bruttian districts; and although the rulers of Rome did not probably comply with these demands to the extent to which they might and should have complied with them, yet they did not remain deaf to the warning voice of so judicious a man.

Italy is so situated in respect of climate that the summer pasture in the mountains and the winter pasture in the plains supplement each other: already at that period, just as at the present day, and for the most part probably along the same paths, the flocks and herds were driven in spring from Apulia to Samnium, and in autumn back again from Samnium to Apulia.

Samnium had recovered from the severe wars of the fifth century: according to the census of 529 it was in a position to furnish half as many men capable of arms as all the Latin towns, and it was probably at that time, next to the -ager Romanus-, the most flourishing region of the peninsula.

Hence too it happened that he was called by the people _the shield of the empire_. Through the whole of Samnium, and through the Falerian and Gauran forests, he so harassed Hannibal that he who could not be reduced by valor was weakened by delay.

The Roman consul Bubulcus penetrates into Samnium, where he is surrounded, and cuts his way through with great courage.

By a wise and humane regulation, the eight provinces which had been the most deeply injured, Campania, Tuscany, Picenum, Samnium, Apulia, Calabria, Bruttium, and Lucania, obtained an indulgence of five years: the ordinary tribute was reduced to one fifth, and even that fifth was destined to restore and support the useful institution of the public posts.