husbandmen continued to dwell in open hamlets
or wherever each found the well-spring and the forest or pasture
that he desired. In such circumstances their constitution remained
stationary; like the similarly situated Arcadians in Greece, their
communities never became incorporated into a single state; at the
utmost they only formed confederacies more or less loosely connected.
In the Abruzzi especially, the strict seclusion of the mountain
valleys seems to have debarred the several cantons from intercourse
either with each other or with the outer world. They maintained but
little connection with each other and continued to live in complete
isolation from the rest of Italy; and in consequence, notwithstanding
the bravery of their inhabitants, they exercised less influence
than any other portion of the Italian nation on the development of
the history of the peninsula.

Their Political Development

On the other hand the Samnite people decidedly exhibited the highest
political development among the eastern Italian stock, as the Latin
nation did among the western. From an early period, perhaps from
its first immigration, a comparatively strong political bond held
together the Samnite nation, and gave to it the strength which
subsequently enabled it to contend with Rome on equal terms for the
first place in Italy. We are as ignorant of the time and manner of
the formation of the bond, as we are of its federal constitution;
but it is clear that in Samnium no single community was preponderant,
and still less was there any town to serve as a central rallying
point and bond of union for the Samnite stock, such as Rome was
for the Latins. The strength of the land lay in its -communes-
of husbandmen, and authority was vested in the assembly formed of
their representatives; it was this assembly which in case of need
nominated a federal commander-in-chief. In consequence of its
constitution the policy of this confederacy was not aggressive like
the Roman, but was limited to the defence of its own bounds; only
where the state forms a unity is power so concentrated and passion
so strong, that the extension of territory can be systematically
pursued. Accordingly the whole history of the two nations is
prefigured in their diametrically opposite systems of colonization.
Whatever the Romans gained, was a gain to the state: the conquests
of the Samnites were achieved by bands of volunteers who went
forth in search of plunder