e Roman conquered and stormed the
strongholds where the Samnites had sought refuge for themselves and
their property. Even after this great defeat the confederates still
for years resisted the ever-increasing superiority of the enemy with
unparalleled perseverance in their fastnesses and mountains, and still
achieved various isolated advantages. The experienced arm of the old
Rullianus was once more called into the field against them (462), and
Gavius Pontius, a son perhaps of the victor of Caudium, even gained
for his nation a last victory, which the Romans meanly enough avenged
by causing him when subsequently taken to be executed in prison (463).
But there was no further symptom of movement in Italy; for the war,
which Falerii began in 461, scarcely deserves such a name. The
Samnites doubtless turned with longing eyes towards Tarentum, which
alone was still in a position to grant them aid; but it held aloof.
The same causes as before occasioned its inaction--internal
misgovernment, and the passing over of the Lucanians once more to the
Roman party in the year 456; to which fell to be added a not unfounded
dread of Agathocles of Syracuse, who just at that time had reached the
height of his power and began to turn his views towards Italy.
About 455 the latter established himself in Corcyra whence Cleonymus
had been expelled by Demetrius Poliorcetes, and now threatened the
Tarentines from the Adriatic as well as from the Ionian sea.
The cession of the island to king Pyrrhus of Epirus in 459 certainly
removed to a great extent the apprehensions which they had cherished;
but the affairs of Corcyra continued to occupy the Tarentines--in the
year 464, for instance, they helped to protect Pyrrhus in possession
of the island against Demetrius--and in like manner Agathocles did not
cease to give the Tarentines uneasiness by his Italian policy. When
he died (465) and with him the power of the Syracusans in Italy went
to wreck, it was too late; Samnium, weary of the thirty-seven years'
struggle, had concluded peace in the previous year (464) with the
Roman consul Manius Curius Dentatus, and had in form renewed its
league with Rome. On this occasion, as in the peace of 450, no
disgraceful or destructive conditions were imposed on the brave people
by the Romans; no cessions even of territory seem to have taken place.
The political sagacity of Rome preferred to follow the path which it
had hitherto pursued, and to attach in the