the cities retained their own laws and
magistrates, but others had Romans with their families settled in them,
and were called colonies, while the Latin people themselves became Roman
citizens in everything but the power of becoming magistrates or voting
for them, being, in fact, very much what the earliest plebeians had been
before they acquired any rights.

CHAPTER XV.

THE SAMNITE WARS.

In the year 332, just when Alexander the Great was making his conquests
in the East, his uncle Alexander, king of Epirus, brother to his mother
Olympius, came to Italy, where there were so many Grecian citizens south
of the Samnites that the foot of Italy was called Magna Graecia, or
Greater Greece. He attacked the Samnites, and the Romans were not sorry
to see them weakened, and made an alliance with him. He stayed in Italy
about six years, and was then killed.

To overthrow the Samnites was the great object of Rome at this time, and
for this purpose they offered their protection and alliance to all the
cities that stood in dread of that people. One of the cities was founded
by men from the isle of Euboea, who called it Neapolis, or the New
City, to distinguish it from the old town near at hand, which they
called Palaeopolis, or the Old City. The elder city held out against the
Romans, but was easily overpowered, while the new one submitted to Rome;
but these southern people were very shallow and fickle, and little to be
depended on, as they often changed sides between the Romans and
Samnites. In the midst of the siege of Palaeopolis, the year of the
consulate came to an end, but the Senate, while causing two consuls as
usual to be elected, at home, would not recall Publilius Philo from the
siege, and therefore appointed him proconsul there. This was in 326, and
was the beginning of the custom of sending the ex-consul as proconsul to
command the armies or govern the provinces at a distance from home.

[Illustration: COMBAT BETWEEN A MIRMILLO AND A SAMNITE.]

[Illustration: COMBAT BETWEEN A LIGHT-ARMED GLADIATOR AND A SAMNITE.]

In 320, the consul falling sick, a dictator was appointed, Lucius
Papirius Cursor, one of the most stern and severe men in Rome. He was
obliged by some religious ceremony to return to Rome for a time, and he
forbade his lieutenant, Quintus Fabius Rullianus, to venture a battle in
his absence. But so good an opportunity offered that Fabius attacked the
enemy, beat them, and killed 20,000 men. Th