own rights
vindicated the general cause of the Hellenes against the barbarians.
Hiero, the new ruler of Syracuse, accordingly supported the Romans
before Rhegium by sending supplies and a contingent, and in
combination with the Roman expedition against the garrison of Rhegium
he made an attack upon their fellow-countrymen and fellow-criminals,
the Mamertines of Messana. The siege of the latter town was long
protracted. On the other hand Rhegium, although the mutineers
resisted long and obstinately, was stormed by the Romans in 484; the
survivors of the garrison were scourged and beheaded in the public
market at Rome, while the old inhabitants were recalled and, as far as
possible, reinstated in their possessions. Thus all Italy was, in
484, reduced to subjection. The Samnites alone, the most obstinate
antagonists of Rome, still in spite of the official conclusion of
peace continued the struggle as "robbers," so that in 485 both
consuls had to be once more despatched against them. But even the
most high-spirited national courage--the bravery of despair--comes
to an end; the sword and the gibbet at length carried quiet even
into the mountains of Samnium.

Construction of New Fortresses and Roads

For the securing of these immense acquisitions a new series of
colonies was instituted: Paestum and Cosa in Lucania (481); Beneventum
(486), and Aesernia (about 491) to hold Samnium in check; and, as
outposts against the Gauls, Ariminum (486), Firmum in Picenum (about
490), and the burgess colony of Castrum Novum. Preparations were made
for the continuation of the great southern highway--which acquired in
the fortress of Beneventum a new station intermediate between Capua
and Venusia--as far as the seaports of Tarentum and Brundisium, and
for the colonization of the latter seaport, which Roman policy had
selected as the rival and successor of the Tarentine emporium. The
construction of the new fortresses and roads gave rise to some further
wars with the small tribes, whose territory was thereby curtailed:
with the Picentes (485, 486), a number of whom were transplanted to
the district of Salernum; with the Sallentines about Brundisium (487,
488); and with the Umbrian Sassinates (487, 488), who seem to have
occupied the territory of Ariminum after the expulsion of the Senones.
By these establishments the dominion of Rome was extended over the
interior of Lower Italy, and over the whole Italian east coast from
the Ionian