und only feeble
support among the degenerate and desponding Greeks, and the forced
change of sides alienated from him his former Lucanian adherents: he
fell at Pandosia by the hand of a Lucanian emigrant (422).(1) On his
death matters substantially reverted to their old position. The Greek
cities found themselves once more isolated and once more left to
protect themselves as best they might by treaty or payment of tribute,
or even by extraneous aid; Croton for instance repulsed the Bruttii
about 430 with the help of the Syracusans. The Samnite tribes acquire
renewed ascendency, and were able, without troubling themselves
about the Greeks, once more to direct their eyes towards Campania
and Latium.

But there during the brief interval a prodigious change had occurred.
The Latin confederacy was broken and scattered, the last resistance
of the Volsci was overcome, the province of Campania, the richest
and finest in the peninsula, was in the undisputed and well-secured
possession of the Romans, and the second city of Italy was a
dependency of Rome. While the Greeks and Samnites were contending
with each other, Rome had almost without a contest raised herself to
a position of power which no single people in the peninsula possessed
the means of shaking, and which threatened to render all of them
subject to her yoke. A joint exertion on the part of the peoples who
were not severally a match for Rome might perhaps still burst the
chains, ere they became fastened completely. But the clearness of
perception, the courage, the self-sacrifice required for such a
coalition of numerous peoples and cities that had hitherto been for
the most part foes or at any rate strangers to each other, were not
to be found at all, or were found only when it was already too late.

Coalition of the Italians against Rome

After the fall of the Etruscan power and the weakening of the Greek
republics, the Samnite confederacy was beyond doubt, next to Rome, the
most considerable power in Italy, and at the same time that which was
most closely and immediately endangered by Roman encroachments. To
its lot therefore fell the foremost place and the heaviest burden in
the struggle for freedom and nationality which the Italians had to
wage against Rome. It might reckon upon the assistance of the small
Sabellian tribes, the Vestini, Frentani, Marrucini, and other smaller
cantons, who dwelt in rustic seclusion amidst their mountains, but
were not dea