023: Children of Mars - The Roman Unification of Central Italy & the Polybian Legion (390 - 282 BC)

Hello everybody, this is Trevor Culley, host of the History of Persia podcast. You can think of me as a prequel to the Hellenistic Age. Before Alexander the Great spread Hellenism across the Near East, most of that space was occupied by the Achaemenid Persians. The Achaemenids pioneered the concept of a truly multinational empire that incorporated people from as far away as India and Greece, the future Hellenistic world, under the banner of a single empire for over 200 years. The story of Persia discusses the fall of ancient civilizations, the origins of endurance racing, 300 Spartans, the March of the Ten Thousand, and at least one evil priest who replaced and impersonated the king. All before the Achaemenids come to a dramatic close with the story of being on the losing side of Alexander's conquests. Then, I will also start to deal with Hellenism under the Seleucid kings. If that story and the cultures that surround it sound interesting to you, check out The History of Persia at historyofpersiapodcast.wordpress.com or wherever you find your favorite podcasts, like the Hellenistic Age. The year was 390 BC, or 387, depending on which date you prefer. Amidst the smoking ruins of what was formerly the city of Rome, the forces of the invaders, a Celtic tribe known as the Senones, watched as carts carried various forms of gold, statues, plates, talismans. The surviving citizens of Rome, having successfully defended the main capital after being besieged for seven months, arranged a settlement with the Celtic warchief, Brennus. The Romans offered to pay a ransom to get the Celts to leave the city, 1,000 pounds worth of gold. As the gold was being weighed upon the scales, they discovered that the Celts had sabotaged the measurements using false weights. Indignant, the Roman officials claimed that this wasn't part of the bargain. Brennus, laughing, tossed his sword onto the scale to counterbalance it even further, uttering, waiuitus, woe to the vanquished. This story ends in a number of different ways. A triumphant rescue and defeat of the Senones by the heroic Marcus Furius Camillus, returning the treasure to rightful Roman hands. Other writers suggest that the Celts returned north with booty and plunder in hand. Some modern scholars even question the extent of the damage inflicted upon the city. But the sack of Rome would leave her citizens shaken to the core, a trauma that would scar the psyche of the Roman people for centuries afterwards. Woe to the vanquished. The Romans would take those words to heart and vow never to let anything so terrible to occur to them ever again. In the wake of the city sack, the Romans were struggling to come to terms with the precarious situation they found themselves in. Before, she was the premier power in the region of Latia, but the recent incursion of the Senones left her vulnerable to attack. The surrounding tribes, the Volsci, Ernici, and even some of the Latin tribes had attempted to strike at Rome in a decade following the sack. The man who would see Rome through would be known as the second founder after Romulus, Marcus Furius Camillus. His story is one of drama, and is the linchpin of Lydie's first ten books of his history. Camillus was something of a hero before the sack, capturing the Etruscan city of Veia in 396, and greatly increasing Rome's territorial extent. He was in this region managing the initial settlement of the colonists when word came of the disaster of the Alia River in 391 and summoned a force to try and fight off the Senones who besieged Rome. Whether he was successful or managed the negotiation to pay off the Celtic invaders, Camillus was left in charge of the rebuilding process. Declared dictator, Camillus would lead army after army against the invading forces. In time, the city would recover, being rebuilt after one year. But according to tradition, the hastiness of the construction resulted in Rome being horribly disorganized in terms of urban sprawl, and by 378, the Romans would also expand the city in terms of an enclosed wall, known as the Servian Wall, which would serve as the defenses against potential besiegers, and would thus make the size of the city comparable to the more wealthy Syracuse in Sicily. Through such turbulent times, the Romans managed to unite against such daunting foes. Yet, they were not free of internal struggles. The difficulties of rebuilding and repeated years of warfare had left social agitation in the form of rising debt among the lower classes. Perhaps due to the rise of chattel slavery from years of successful campaigning, and the gradual absorption of more and more territory, this turmoil would leave opportunities for change, both legal and illegal. The hero of the galaxy, Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, had attempted to rally support of the plebeians and impoverished soldiers to aspire for control over the state in 385, but he was arrested and later executed, tossed from the Tarpian Rock, where he had ironically fought to defend Rome a few years prior. The depiction of Manlius by Livy strikes a close resemblance to the demagogues of the late Republic, especially of Catiline and the Catiline Conspiracy, but it reveals the initial growing pains of the Republic's expansion, and the origins of the so-called struggle of the orders. A way to address these issues would come from the so-called Lycanian-Sextian Laws of 367, one of the first recorded instances of an attempt to control the size of land ownership and the burdens of debt. In addition to making the demand that consuls must be comprised of at least one plebeian, though how much this last point was actually mandatory remains to be seen. The other great legislation of this period would be the Gnusian Law of 342, which would expand upon the Lycanian-Sextian Laws in regards to issues of debt, but it would also make it so that the consuls could be both of plebeian rank, and it also limited the chance of a re-election to a position of office once every 10 years. In the words of Professor Gary Forsyth, author of the invaluable work, A Critical History of Early Rome, he likened the first 60 years of the 4th century as the establishment of the aristocratic order that would come to dominate Roman society. The relationships of patron and client, the steps of the cursus on order, and most importantly, the social mobility that allowed wealthy plebeians to become part of the nobility, an openness that would be attractive to the growing body of Roman citizens, as the Republic incorporated more and more of Italy. In addition to the increasing complexity of the Roman state, the range of which Rome came into contact with the peoples of Italy began to expand outwards. One of the most striking instances was her renewed treaty with the Phoenician state of Carthage in 348. Renewed? Why, yes. The Carthaginians and Romans, long before their great wars in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, had been subject to a diplomatic relationship since 509, according to a treaty that Polybius records as dating back to the foundation of the Republic. Carthage had long been interested in the affairs of Italy, since battling for control of Sicily against the Greeks of Syracuse, and thus keeping the Latin and other Italic tribes from allying with Magna Graecia was in their best interests. But now with Rome as the dominant power in Eastern Italy, continuing such ties would be important. With less diplomatic interests, the Romans would continue to exert greater control over the Latin tribes and warring with the non-Latins. They would also fight with the various warbands of Celts, who were still scattered around Italy, perhaps attempting to recover their injured pride after the sack. The Romans would assert dominance over the Etruscan cities of Etruria by imposing treaties and one-sided truces, and repeatedly took captives from the Volsci and Urnici before conquering them too. Perhaps the most significant Italian force that Rome came into conflict with would be the Samnites. The Samnites were the descendants of Oscan-speaking peoples based in the Apennine mountains of central and southern Italy in what is now known as Samnium. But the term Samnite is merely a designation of a larger confederacy comprised of a number of tribes, and one of the largest political bodies in Italy. They weren't very wealthy, given the poor agricultural soil and the farmland of the regions they occupied, and they still possessed a rudimentary government that mimicked some of the basic structures of the Roman Republic. Still, they were a band of phenomenal fighters and quickly earned the ire of the Romans. In Livy's account, the First Samnite War only begins because of Rome's vested interest in protecting her ally, the city of Capua, a casus belli, as if there were ever needed to be one. But the possibility of imperial interests are present, the degree of which we will never know. But the First Samnite War would begin in 343 and end with their Roman victory in 341 BC. On the heels of this war came her final stumbling block to control over her Latin allies. The Latin League that Rome had made herself the head of after the Battle of Lake Regilius in 496 had left the Latin tribes subject to the Romans, but still nominally autonomous. The growing power of Rome had frightened the Latin leaders, believing that their independence, or whatever was left of them, was on the verge of collapse. They made one last great effort. The Latin War of 340-338, but failed to overcome Roman military might. As punishment, but also as an attempt to coerce further loyalty, the Romans abolished the Latin League, absorbing the Latin tribe and making them directly part of Roman territory. But the Romans extended the rights of citizenship to the Latins, allowing them to be treated fairly under the law if they were to enter Roman jurisdiction, and promises of mutual protection should one nation be attacked. The ramifications of this will be discussed later in the episode when we talk about the Roman army, but it is important to note. But disaster was soon to strike the Romans. Despite their success with the other Italian tribes so far, they would deal with the Samnites once again, who were in control of a vast area of territory, fresh from fighting off the invasion of Alexander I of Molossia, the uncle of Alexander the Great, who attempted to intervene and protect the Greek colonists of Italy against the encroachment of the Samnite confederation in 334. In 326, the Samnites and Romans violently disagreed over territory, and the Second Samnite War broke out. The Romans, perhaps in their arrogance, continued to wage seasonal campaigns against Samnian, despite the Samnites attempting to negotiate a peace settlement. The elected consuls managed to numb the mass in an army numbering approximately 25,000 men, intent on delivering the final blow. The elected general of the Samnites, a man that comes down to us known as Gavius Pontius, devised a way to outbox the Roman commanders through the use of Samnite soldiers disguised as local shepherds, who reported to the Romans that the Samnite army was somewhere in the Apennine Mountains, ready to be ambushed. Thicker heads prevailed, and the consuls led their forces through a forked pass in the mountains known as the Caudine Forks, which seems to have no real-life analogue as far as we know of. As we still haven't found it, but that's what the story suggests. Upon reaching the end of one of these forks, which was blockaded with rocks, trees, and other debris, the Romans quickly discovered that they were not alone, and the Samnites had surrounded their army along the hills and backed the way they came. Realizing they had no other option, the consuls surrendered their army for the sake of their men. Gavius Pontius, instead of either killing or enslaving the Romans, nor releasing them as a gesture of goodwill, he had ordered every man to be stripped of his armour and weapons, wearing only their tunics and undergarments. They were then forced to march in file under the spears of the Samnite forces, under the yoke, as it is called, where they were spat upon and mocked. This would be a mistake on Pontius's part. Rome would never let this humiliation go unvenged, and would instead turn this into a transformative and self-reflective experience. While their armies and military might in the past had led them to victory, it was now time for the Romans to reinvent the wheel. Upon the disaster of the Caudine Forks, I think we need to make a bit of a segue from the narrative as a whole. It is during this period, roughly from the late 4th to the early 3rd century, that we see the gradual transformation of the Roman military order. You may have noticed how I have talked very little about how the Romans actually fought, or what their military system was like, beyond a few teasing comments. It would be odd to talk about the Romans without understanding the role of warfare. It was ingrained into every facet of their society, ranging from their religion, their system of government, and how members of society were viewed. When one thinks of the Roman army, the famous reliefs of Trajan's Column in Rome immediately come to mind. Great numbers of uniform and identical soldiers, wearing banded armor known as the Lorca Segmentata, that large rectangular shield with lightning bolts and wings, maybe even red tunics underneath. Remove that image from your head. The Roman army as an institution has undergone a number of transformations over its centuries-long existence. So let us trace it back to its earliest origins. The first recognizable forms of warfare in archaic Italy were not too dissimilar from the Greeks of Homos Iliad, groups of organized raiders led by noblemen to pillage and plunder. The patrician clan of the Fabii were famous for essentially hosting a private army, which was used to fight off the Etruscans before being cornered and slaughtered in 477 at the Battle of Cremera. As the city of Rome grew in size and organizational complexity, so too did its way of war. Traditionally, it has been argued by scholars that by the 5th century BC, through the contact of the Greek colonists of Magna Graecia to the south and the Philhellene Etruscans to the north, Rome underwent a transformation from bands of raiders to the adoption of the hoplite fighting system. The hoplite way of war was cultivated in Greece and was designed around an organized band of fighters wielding heavy shields and spears who bodied up in formation known as a phalanx. The members of the phalanx would use their shields as a protective barrier while using the spears to kill or keep the opposing army at arm's length or spear's length I suppose. There have been arguments by other scholars who believed that the Romans didn't necessarily need to adopt the rigid phalanx and were in fact more flexible but for the sake of convenience, we will stick to the traditional narrative. The introduction of the hoplite system also coincides with the more advanced political structure of the Republic. In Rome, much like the Greek poleis, every able-bodied male citizen of voting age had a duty to serve the state. You need to provide military service in order to be elected to office and you had to pay your way so to speak meaning your arms and armor were to be acquired at your own expense. But warfare wasn't restricted to the elite who could afford more and better equipment but it was also required of the lower class and the plebeians who would often form lighter skirmishing troops like slingers and javelin throwers or just simply not wear much armor at all. But the notion of duty was not only reinforced by the state, it was ingrained in the cultural and social makeup in Rome. In one of my absolutely favorite books, Soldiers and Ghosts, which looks at the psychology of ancient warfare, author J.E. Lendon writes about the numerous reasons why Romans went to war. Roman society was one of competition where the male members attempted to stand out through their displays of what the Romans called roughly translated as manliness or courage. This would be done mainly through actions in battle where you could receive awards and trophies for saving the life of a fellow citizen, being the first to leap over the siege walls or killing the enemy commander. These awards would be displayed at the home and would add to your family's honor and prestige. More than once does a Roman citizen bare his chest to display the wounds and scars he received while standing steadily at the battle line in order to prove his character and gain the sympathy of the crowd. The need for personal displays and bravado seems at odds with our preconceived notion of a strict system that demands the obedience of its soldiers, lest they be invoked with the right of decimation, where every one out of ten men in a unit would be beaten to death by his fellow comrades per unit into ordination. A personal pride in displays of glory through war would be the most important ways young Roman aristocrats would try to reach the upper echelons of political office. The waging of wars, as was done almost every year, would be a way for the aristocrat to achieve military success and spread his shared booty with both the state and the men who served under him, further bolstering political support. This mindset of warfare would gradually transform from the focus on the individual into something larger, a protoform of what could be called imperialism. The Romans liked to believe that every war they ever declared was in good faith, usually by way of defense of an ally or by deceit of an enemy, but the economic motives of capturing booty and slaves were readily apparent. As the 4th and 3rd centuries progressed, Roman warfare also began to show her promise in setting up systems of colonies, military land settlements that would be placed upon foreign territories to link the subject populations with Roman ones and provide a bit of security. The gradual conquest of Italy would be the testing ground for the system of imperial expansion that would swallow the Mediterranean over the next few hundred years, but I am going on a bit of a tangent. Despite the initial successes of the hoplite system, it wasn't meant to last. While Philip II and Alexander the Great were creating a revolution in phalanx warfare during the 350s and 320s BC, the Romans diverged from this evolutionary path. Their conflicts with two groups, the Celts and the Samnites, revealed weaknesses in the formation. Samnium's more uneven and mountainous terrain made the phalanx prone to being split apart and not as quick to respond to the hit-and-run tactics of the Samnites, while the ferocity of the Celts, as we see in the invasion of Greece in Asia Minor in the 280s, could overcome the phalanx's walls. Rome needed to change and change was something the Romans were very good at. By the end of the Samnite Wars, we see the rise of the Roman military system that would steamroll through the Hellenistic world, the Roman Manipular Legion. Our best source on the structure of the army of the Middle Republic comes from the Greek historian Polybius, who observed the Romans as a political hostage and later friend of the family of the Scipii during the 2nd century BC. For this reason, the Manipular Legion is nicknamed the Polybian Legion. Moving away from the more rigid phalanx, the Romans attempted to create a system that was more flexible, both in terms of leadership and structure. A Roman army was broken up into a number of groupings. Before we begin, I would like to direct you also to my website, which will contain maps and diagrams to help better visualize what I'm about to explain. A Roman army was broken up into a number of groupings. Starting from the top, a consular army would be headed by one of the two elected leaders of the state, the consuls, who would be given military command for 12 months. Unlike a standard Hellenistic army, where the king would serve as the commander-in-chief and be the ultimate director of affairs, total control was not rooted into one man. The consuls allowed for the Roman army to deal with multiple threats at once, thanks to the distribution of power. This also means that if a consul is killed in battle, the army doesn't shatter and fall apart. Though, in general, the consuls were not expected to lead from the front, unlike the Hellenistic kings, who would frequently get themselves killed in the midst of battle. This doesn't mean it was perfect, given that the consuls weren't always elected based upon their competency in military matters, and the 12-month limit would be increasingly problematic in terms of seasonal campaigning. Since the further out Rome expanded, the more time it would take to transport troops and supplies to these distant territories, and thus reduce the amount of campaigning this consul can do before the next election would occur, and lead to a change in strategy. This would be later rectified by the granting consuls extended power during long campaigns, but the problem still existed. If the consuls were in joint command of a larger combined army, then they would resolve the issue by switching primary leadership each day. This would lead to disaster, at least according to the retelling by Livy, where the incompetent consul Terentius Varro would ignore the wishes of his more talented co-consul Lucius Aemilius Paulus on his day of control, and engage with Hannibal Barca in the field of Cenni in 216 BC. I doubt I need to elaborate further. The consular army would be comprised of a number of formations, with the cavalry supporting on the wings of the army, and in the center would be comprised of the heavy infantry, formed by the legions. Theoretically, each legion would be staffed by 4,200 infantry and 300 cavalry. This is all largely on paper, and thanks to attrition through disease and injury, we probably would expect about 70-80% of its full strength. Technically, there would be two legions that would be in the center of the Roman battle line, comprised of Roman citizens, but next to the wings of the cavalry would be the legions comprised of the soccii, the allied Latins and Italians, and would be in slightly larger units, known as the alla, forming at least half of all consular armies. Within each legion, therein lies the main tactical unit that gives the manipular army its name, the manipul. This manipul would be roughly 120 men strong, but was very capable of operating independently from the rest of the army, thanks to its individual leadership by centurions, men chosen either through their social standing or their personal experience. Being a centurion was a prized, if dangerous, position in the army. And we have a number of examples in the written sources of named centurions who display extraordinary feats of bravery. One, for instance, plucked out his own wounded eye, threw it on the ground, and then stamped on it beneath his foot in order to continue fighting. These manipul arranged into a series of three lines, known as the triplex asses, which takes on the appearance of a checkerboard pattern, leaving a space between each manipul. Each line is differentiated by its economic and age status, with the poor and younger soldiers in the front line, and the older and wealthier in the back. The front line would be comprised of the hastati, men in their early twenties, who wield in one hand a stabbing and chopping sword known as the gladius, along with a large oval shield known as the scutum. The shield would be tall enough to protect most of the wielder's body, but provides the range of mobility that a typical hoplite shield would not. Scholars have likened the Roman line to a buzzsaw, up close and personal thrusting and chopping, while keeping the enemy at bay. Contrary to popular belief, the gladius wasn't just a stabbing weapon, since they were quite adept at chopping, as is told by the horrified reactions of the Macedonian survivors of Cynoscephalae, who saw their comrades' heads and limbs lopped off by angry Romans. The legionaries were also more free than a typical hoplite or phalange of the Macedonian phalanx, and were able to more effectively defend themselves from enemy attack on their immediate persons. The hastati would also carry with them one to two javelins, known as the pila. Usually, this would be thrown in order to soften up the enemy ranks or make their shields unusable prior to coming into contact. The kit of the hastati would be relatively light, given their lower economic status, often outfitted with a square bronze chest protector, a conical helmet, and maybe one to two greaves to protect the shins. The second line would be known as the principess, who would operate in a near-identical fashion to the hastati, but were far better equipped. They would be able to afford the better equipment, such as the lorica hamata, a suit of chainmail armor, or the lorica musculata, a bronze chest piece shaped like a heavy muscular torso. The third line, known as the triarii, would be the oldest and most wealthy members. They were a bit different, since they would not have to fight as much as the front two lines, and they would wield long spears with a shield, not dissimilar in appearance from a haplite. There's a Roman expression, ad triarios credisse, things have come down to the triarii, meaning that the situation doesn't appear to be good, since if the enemy have cut through the first two lines, then defeat is a serious possibility. In a way, the design of the triplex asses is a method to harness the competitive nature of the Roman soldiers. The younger members of society, eager to prove their bravery and vertus, would stay on the front line to get a chance to fight. A group of light skirmishers, known as the velites, would be 16, 17, or 18 years old, and wear wolfskins to make sure that they were seen by their commanders and centurions, running around the field to harass the enemy with javelins. There was a fine line between making sure that your personal bravery would not conflict with the strict obedience and orderly discipline of the army and functions. Although young Roman men would strive to be equal and vertus to their father, Titus Manlius Torquatus would behead his own son for leaving the battle line to go challenge a champion of the Latin army. One of the great successes of the Roman system was, despite their conservative culture, their willingness to adopt new technology and techniques from their neighbors and rivals and repurpose it for their own ends. By the middle of Republic, the Roman kit can be seen as something of a hodgepodge of various cultural designs. The use of pila and maniples were likely adopted from the Samnites, while the helmet, lorica hamata and gladius are all based upon Celtic designs. This adaptive nature would carry on for centuries, with their introduction to naval warfare by their way of wars with Carthage and the adoption of war elephants from Hannibal and Pyrrhus and much more. So, having laid out to you the structure of the Roman army of the mid-Republic, some of you ancient military buffs probably have a burning question to ask of me. What is my opinion on the legion versus the Macedonian phalanx? Well, those are some dangerous waters to wade into. In the mainstream view, largely on the insights offered by Polybius, the Macedonian phalanx was hampered by its inflexibility and couldn't compete with the Roman legion's more flexible maniple system, which was less cumbersome and more mobile. On the surface, this seems to be reinforced by the outcomes of the main battles between Rome and the Hellenistic powers, Pydna, Cynoscephalae, Magnesia, Thermopylae. However, when we eventually come to cover these wars, the details of the battle show that the phalanx actually manages to hold its own quite well against the legions. Victory usually results from errors committed by the Hellenistic commander, outblanking maneuvers, and mistakes within the Hellenistic armies. But that's probably the point. Victory isn't only gained from the successes of a system, but the exploitation of the opposing army's failures. And the Roman army was not as hampered by problems of centralizing power in a king who could be killed in battle and throw the troops into chaos. It was capable of operating independently and dealing with threats as they appeared. Ironically, the biggest factor for Rome's military success, in my opinion, was Rome's ability in diplomacy and the forging of alliances. Since her victory at Lake Regulus and the creation of the fetus Cassianum in the 490s, Rome had made herself head of a coalition of forces, including the Latins and surrounding Italic tribes. This would prove to be an enormous pool of manpower for the army, far greater than larger states like Macedon, the Seleucid Empire, or Carthage. According to the data provided by Polybius, the Roman military treaties by the Second Punic War in the 220s suggest that theoretically, the Romans were able to draw manpower from almost 750,000 men, with two-thirds of this being from the Socii. While it would never be able to supply and direct all of these men at any one time, this is an extraordinary reserve, which allowed the Romans to recover from the loss of army after army. This is why they would continue fighting, even after disasters like Ceni, Trasimene, the defeat at the hands of the Cimbri and Teutones, where they would lose 20, 30, or 40,000 men, numbers that would destroy the capabilities of other larger nations. At the time of Pyrrhus' invasion in the 270s, the size of manpower was definitely smaller, but Pyrrhus would also be exposed to the same problems of trying to fight the Romans. The Romans were also extremely good at maintaining the loyalty of their allies, even at extreme times like the Second Punic War. This was done through their extension of citizenship as a reward, a privilege restricted by the Greeks, and the establishment of military colonies to link the populations. Hellenistic armies were often loathed to equip their subject populations in Macedonian arms, and their understanding of warfare differed from the Romans. To the Hellenistic kings, the emphasis seemed to be on making the armies bigger, bigger phalanxes, bigger wonder weapons, whereas the Romans, though capable of fielding huge armies, found that having multiple armies of 30,000 men was more effective than having a mega-huge army like those fielded at Ipsus in 301. In addition, the Roman way of war was to secure total victory, with any treaty to be conducted as a superior to a subordinate. This philosophy would lead to some interesting clash of cultures. For instance, at Kynoscephala, the Macedonian phalangites attempted to surrender by raising up their sarissas to signal to the Romans, but the Romans either ignored it or didn't understand and proceeded to butcher them all. And again, this is why the Romans would recover psychologically from disasters like Kenny, because to them, it was victory or nothing. Having now covered the development of the Polybian Legion, let us return to our narrative. During the Second Samnite War, the Romans were also engaged with the further developments that would come to play a key part of Roman expansion. Firstly, the construction of the Via Appian, known as the Appian Way, a long road system that links Rome to the city of Capua, approximately 196 kilometers or 120 miles away, and would begin construction in 312. This road, the first of many that would eventually cover the landscape of wherever the Romans planted their feet, would act as a military highway used to carry supplies and men up and down central Italy. At the same time, the Romans improved their levy system due to the foundation of several military colonies which had been placed up and down the coast of Italy. These factors would be important when the last great efforts of the Etruscans would come down onto the Romans, since the former believed the latter was occupied with the Samnites. Amazingly, Rome was able to open up multiple fronts, pacifying Etruria by 308 and eventually defeating the Samnites in 305, ending the Second War. This escalation of large-scale wars would fill the Roman market with captives, gradually transforming Rome into the slave society that she was famous for. It must have been quite a volume of slaves because a tax was actually placed upon the owners for the act of manumission, granting slaves their freedom. The Samnites, not satisfied with the outcome of the Second War, would open up hostilities with Rome once again, starting in 298, lasting down to 290. The Samnites had decided to change their tactics and attempted to withstand the growing power of Rome by appealing to allies, something they hadn't tried before. They contracted the Truscans, bands of Celts, another Italian peoples known as the Umbrians, all aiming at one last final push. In 295, this combined force engaged with the Romans after the Battle of Centinium, but thanks to the valor of the Roman forces, along with a religious self-sacrifice by the Roman commander Publius Decimus Mus, who charged into the thick of the enemy line with his toga drawn over his head as an offering, they triumphed. The Romans then pushed into Samnium and finally broke Samnite resistance by 290, conquering it entirely. Down to 282 BC, the Romans consolidated the territories they had acquired and continued to face off against the remaining Celtic interlopers. In Polybius' opinion, they had regarded their confidence since their sack at the hands of Brennus over a hundred years before. With the final conquest of Samnium, Rome was now the undisputed power in most of Italy. To many, it may seem like Rome's rise to dominance was merely a natural progression. I disagree with that philosophy. Several times, Rome was threatened with destruction. With the losses of armies that would cripple larger city-states and territories, the disaster at the Caldine Forge and the subsequent Samnite attacks could have easily ended Rome right there and then. The same could be said of the earlier sack by Brennus. It is through their sheer tenacity they refused to accept defeat and continued to field armies despite suffering horrendous losses until they would achieve victory would help ensure their success. Combine that with their ability to adapt, their manpower accumulated through strategic alliances and generous citizenship, Rome had a combination that allowed them to challenge larger and seemingly more powerful nations. On the heels of their greatest victory, the Romans would be faced with an impending threat which would set them on a collision course with the larger Mediterranean and Hellenistic world. The King of Epirus, Pyrrhus, had set his sights on invading Italy. The Romans may have been able to handle the mountainous tribes of Samnium, but will they be able to match the army that conquered the Persian Empire and led by a man known as the Second Alexander? Firstly, thank you all for listening. I apologize if I sounded a little weird during this episode, I'm just fighting off a head cold but thankfully I still have my voice so silver lining. These episodes have been a lot of fun to research for and I couldn't have done it without some invaluable works. If you're looking for a one-volume overview of the Roman army in its entirety, you can't do any better than Adrian Goldsworthy's The Complete Roman Army. I've also been helped immensely in my look at early Rome through the use of Gary Forsythe's A Critical History of Early Rome. These works and the rest of my sources used are provided on my website in the show notes for this episode along with maps, diagrams, timelines, and images to help along with the material provided. I also highly recommend you all to check out The History of Persia podcast by Trevor Culley who appeared at the beginning of this episode. He's doing a great job covering the Achaean Persian Empire and Ancient Near East so far. I'll provide the links to his podcast and website for you to check out in the show notes. If you like what you've been listening to, consider subscribing to me on your podcast platform of choice and maybe leave a review. If you want to get into contact with me, you can hit me up on Twitter at twitter handle hellenisticpod or shoot me an email at hellenisticagepodcast at gmail.com. Our next topic will be a multi-part look at the life and career of King Pyrrhus and the Kingdom of Epirus as a whole. I'm not sure how long it's going to be, but we will play it by ear. So until next time, you've been listening to The Hellenistic Age Podcast.