here was in its case no single leading community and
therefore no policy of conquest. While the conquest of the Veientine
and Pomptine territories was for Rome a real enlargement of power,
Samnium was weakened rather than strengthened by the rise of the
Campanian cities and of the Lucanian and Bruttian confederacies; for
every swarm, which had sought and found new settlements, thenceforward
pursued a path of its own.

Relations between the Samnites and the Greeks

The Samnite tribes filled a disproportionately large space, while
yet they showed no disposition to make it thoroughly their own.
The larger Greek cities, Tarentum, Thurii, Croton, Metapontum,
Heraclea, Rhegium, and Neapolis, although weakened and often
dependent, continued to exist; and the Hellenes were tolerated
even in the open country and in the smaller towns, so that Cumae
for instance, Posidonia, Laus, and Hipponium, still remained--as
the Periplus already mentioned and coins show--Greek cities even
under Samnite rule. Mixed populations thus arose; the bi-lingual
Bruttii, in particular, included Hellenic as well as Samnite elements
and even perhaps remains of the ancient autochthones; in Lucania
and Campania also similar mixtures must to a lesser extent have
taken place.

Campanian Hellenism

The Samnite nation, moreover, could not resist the dangerous charm
of Hellenic culture; least of all in Campania, where Neapolis early
entered into friendly intercourse with the immigrants, and where
the sky itself humanized the barbarians. Nola, Nuceria, and Teanum,
although having a purely Samnite population, adopted Greek manners
and a Greek civic constitution; in fact the indigenous cantonal form
of constitution could not possibly subsist under these altered
circumstances. The Samnite cities of Campania began to coin money,
in part with Greek inscriptions; Capua became by its commerce and
agriculture the second city in Italy in point of size--the first in
point of wealth and luxury. The deep demoralization, in which,
according to the accounts of the ancients, that city surpassed all
others in Italy, is especially reflected in the mercenary recruiting
and in the gladiatorial sports, both of which pre-eminently flourished
in Capua. Nowhere did recruiting officers find so numerous a
concourse as in this metropolis of demoralized civilization; while
Capua knew not how to save itself from the attacks of the aggressive
Samnites, the warlike Campanian yout