not suitable for sacrifice. But, as it appeared, the
deities were not satisfied. The land refused to yield its fruits, and
the Sabines were not long in deciding why their crops had failed. They
had neither sacrificed nor redeemed the children born that year, and had
thus failed in their duty to the gods.

To atone for this fault, all their children of that year's birth were
devoted to the god Mamers, and when they had grown up they were sent
away to make themselves a home in a new land. As the young men started
on their pilgrimage a bull went before them, and, as they fancied that
Mamers had sent this animal for their guide, they piously followed him.
He first lay down to rest when he had come to the land of the Opicans.
This the Sabines took for a sign, and they fell on the Opicans, who
dwelt in villages without walls, and drove them out from their country,
of which the new-comers took possession. They then sacrificed the bull
to Mamers; and in after-ages they bore the bull for their device. They
also took a new name, and were afterwards known as Samnites.

While the Romans were extending their dominion in Central Italy, the
Samnites were conquering the peoples farther south. Their dominion
became great, and at one time included the famous cities of Herculaneum
and Pompeii and many others of the cities of the southern plains. In the
centre of the Samnite country stood a remarkable mountain mass, an
offshoot from the Apennines. This mountain, now called the Matese, is
nearly eight miles in circumference, and rises abruptly in huge
wall-like cliffs of limestone to the height of three thousand feet. Its
surface is greatly varied in character, now sloping into deep valleys,
now rising into elevated cliffs, of which the loftiest is six thousand
feet high. It is rich in springs, which gush out in full flow, and
disappear again in the caverns with which limestone rocks abound. Its
valleys yield abundant pasture and magnificent beech forests, while on
its highest summits the snow tarries till late summer, and in the
hottest months of summer the upland pastures continue cool.

This mountain fastness formed the citadel from which the Samnites issued
in conquering excursions over the surrounding country, and enabled them
in time to extend their dominion far and wide, and to rival Rome in the
width and importance of their state. Thus Rome and Samnium approached
each other step by step, and the time inevitably came when they were