more by means of treaties than by force of
arms, in preserving at least their existence and their nationality.
Tarentum alone remained thoroughly independent and powerful,
maintaining its ground in consequence of its more remote position
and its preparation for war--the result of its constant conflicts
with the Messapians. Even that city, however, had constantly to
fight for its existence with the Lucanians, and was compelled to
seek for alliances and mercenaries in the mother-country of Greece.

About the period when Veii and the Pomptine plain came into the hands
of Rome, the Samnite hordes were already in possession of all Lower
Italy, with the exception of a few unconnected Greek colonies, and
of the Apulo-Messapian coast. The Greek Periplus, composed about 418,
sets down the Samnites proper with their "five tongues" as reaching
from the one sea to the other; and specifies the Campanians as
adjoining them on the Tyrrhene sea to the north, and the Lucanians
to the south, amongst whom in this instance, as often, the Bruttii
are included, and who already had the whole coast apportioned among
them from Paestum on the Tyrrhene, to Thurii on the Ionic sea. In
fact to one who compares the achievements of the two great nations
of Italy, the Latins and the Samnites, before they came into contact,
the career of conquest on the part of the latter appears far wider
and more splendid than that of the former. But the character of their
conquests was essentially different. From the fixed urban centre
which Latium possessed in Rome the dominion of the Latin stock spread
slowly on all sides, and lay within limits comparatively narrow; but
it planted its foot firmly at every step, partly by founding fortified
towns of the Roman type with the rights of dependent allies, partly
by Romanizing the territory which it conquered. It was otherwise
with Samnium. There was in its case no single leading community and
therefore no policy of conquest. While the conquest of the Veientine
and Pomptine territories was for Rome a real enlargement of power,
Samnium was weakened rather than strengthened by the rise of the
Campanian cities and of the Lucanian and Bruttian confederacies; for
every swarm, which had sought and found new settlements, thenceforward
pursued a path of its own.

Relations between the Samnites and the Greeks

The Samnite tribes filled a disproportionately large space, while
yet they showed no disposition to make it t