decorated the rows
of shops along the Roman Forum. Their distress was ever increasing;
the struggle was becoming ever more hopeless. In the following year
(446) the Etruscans laid down their arms; and in the same year the
last town of Campania which still adhered to the Samnites, Nuceria,
simultaneously assailed on the part of the Romans by water and by
land, surrendered under favourable conditions. The Samnites found new
allies in the Umbrians of northern, and in the Marsi and Paeligni of
central, Italy, and numerous volunteers even from the Hernici joined
their ranks; but movements which might have decidedly turned the scale
against Rome, had the Etruscans still remained under arms, now simply
augmented the results of the Roman victory without seriously adding to
its difficulties. The Umbrians, who gave signs of marching on Rome,
were intercepted by Rullianus with the army of Samnium on the upper
Tiber--a step which the enfeebled Samnites were unable to prevent;
and this sufficed to disperse the Umbrian levies. The war once more
returned to central Italy. The Paeligni were conquered, as were also
the Marsi; and, though the other Sabellian tribes remained nominally
foes of Rome, in this quarter Samnium gradually came to stand
practically alone. But unexpected assistance came to them from
the district of the Tiber. The confederacy of the Hernici, called
by the Romans to account for their countrymen found among the Samnite
captives, now declared war against Rome (in 448)--more doubtless from
despair than from calculation. Some of the more considerable Hernican
communities from the first kept aloof from hostilities; but Anagnia,
by far the most eminent of the Hernican cities, carried out this
declaration of war. In a military point of view the position of the
Romans was undoubtedly rendered for the moment highly critical by this
unexpected rising in the rear of the army occupied with the siege of
the strongholds of Samnium. Once more the fortune of war favoured the
Samnites; Sora and Caiatia fell into their hands. But the Anagnines
succumbed with unexpected rapidity before troops despatched from Rome,
and these troops also gave seasonable relief to the army stationed
in Samnium: all in fact was lost. The Samnites sued for peace, but
in vain; they could not yet come to terms. The final decision was
reserved for the campaign of 449. Two Roman consular armies
penetrated--the one, under Tiberius Minucius and aft