ar between the Samnites and Romans. The Tarentines and
Samnites, informed of the intention of the Romans to seize these cities,
anticipated the seizure, upon which the Romans declared war, and commenced
the siege of Palaeapolis, which soon submitted, on the offer of favorable
terms. An alliance of the Romans with the Lucanians, left the Samnites
unsupported, except by tribes on the eastern mountain district. The Romans
invaded the Samnite territories, pillaging and destroying as far as
Apulia, on which the Samnites sent back the Roman prisoners and sought for
peace. But peace was refused by the inexorable enemy, and the Samnites
prepared for desperate resistance. They posted themselves in ambush at an
important pass in the mountains, and shut up the Romans, who offered to
capitulate. Instead of accepting the capitulation and making prisoners of
the whole army, the Samnite general, Gaius Pontius, granted an equitable
peace. But the Roman Senate, regardless of the oaths of their generals,
and regardless of the six hundred equites who were left as hostages,
canceled the agreement, and the war was renewed with increased
exasperation on the part of the Samnites, who, however, were sufficiently
magnanimous not to sacrifice the hostages they held. Rome sent a new army,
under Lucius Papirius Cursor, and laid siege to Lucania, where the Roman
equites lay in captivity. The city surrendered, and Papirius liberated his
comrades, and retaliated on the Samnite garrison. The war continued, like
all wars at that period between people of equal courage and resources,
with various success--sometimes gained by one party and sometimes by
another, until, in the fifteenth year of the war, the Romans established
themselves in Apulia, on one sea, and Campania, on the other.

The people of Northern and Central Italy, perceiving that the Romans aimed
at the complete subjugation of the whole peninsula, now turned to the
assistance of the Samnites. The Etruscans joined their coalition, but were
at length subdued by Papirius Cursor. 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.

(M820) The defeated nations would not, however, submit to Rome without one
more final struggle, and the third Samnite war was renewed the following
year, fo