The Ancients - Rise of Rome: The First Samnite War

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

In this first episode of a two-parter on the Samnite Wars, we focus in on one of Rome’s greatest rivals in early Italy. Based in modern day Campania, who were the Samnites?With three wars between the Roman Republic and the Samnite armies, beginning in 343 BC and the ending with a Roman victory in 290 BC, what happened in those explosive 53 years?In part one, Tristan is joined by Dr Kathryn Lomas from Durham University to find out more about these conflicts and the effect they had on the rise of Rome as an ancient superpower.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, where we're talking all about the rise of Rome, focusing in on Rome's conquest of central slash southern Italy because today we're going to be talking all about the Romans versus the Samnites, one of their great early rivals in Italy based in the region around Campania, modern day Campania and also the ancient region of Samnium. Now to talk

through the Samnite wars I was delighted to chat to, a few months back, Dr Catherine Lomas, an honorary fellow from the University of Durham. This was a really fun chat with Catherine. We chatted for over an hour and so because of that we're going to divide this episode into two. In this first episode we're going to be talking about the background to the eruption of the first Samnite War in the mid-fourth century BC and we're going to be looking of the First Samnite War in the mid-4th century BC, and we're going to be looking at the First Samnite War itself. And in the second episode, we're going to continue the story, looking at the Second Samnite War and the final Third Samnite War. So enjoy this first of two episodes all about the Samnite Wars. And without further ado,

here's Catherine. Catherine, it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today. It's lovely to be asked. Thank you. Well, you're very welcome. How could I not ask about this topic? I've been waiting a long time to do this topic, the Samnite Wars, because before the Carthaginians, Macedonians, Seleucids, and all of that lot, Catherine, it's amazing to think you have this titanic set of conflicts for, can we say, control of Italy, or at least that's how it's shaped by our ancient author. Yeah, I think that's a good point. The whole of the second half of the fourth century and also into the third century is really shaped by a series of wars. Rome was always quite

belligerent. I mean, this isn't the start of Rome's expansion, but it's the point at which it really breaks out of central Italy and starts establishing Roman power a bit further on. So by the time you get to the end of the Pyrrhic War, which is the last of these big wars in 275, effectively what you've got is Roman control established over the whole of Italy as they understood it, which is basically anything south of the River Po. And so they're not just Samnite wars that are on a lot of other people, but they really lay the foundation for Rome's later expansion into the Mediterranean. Well, you mentioned how there's more people than just Samnites and Romans at this time. And so to set the background to this all, if we go to the mid-fourth century BC,

Catherine, what's the geopolitical situation in Italy at that time? Well, effectively, you've got Rome establishing itself as a major power in central Italy. Catherine, what's the geopolitical situation in Italy at that time? Well, effectively, you've got Rome establishing itself as a major power in central Italy. You've still got some quite powerful Etruscan states, particularly in the northern part of Etruria. Rome effectively controls most of the area up to the northern borders of Campania, so the whole of its immediate hinterland. It's a period of renewal effectively. There's quite a big recession in the 5th century and also a period of demographic instability during which there's a big outflow of population from the central Apennines down into Campania and other parts of southern Italy. And that is actually part of the background to this conflict

because these migrants from the sort of area which is later associated with the Samnites settle in places like Campania, Lucania, Brutium, and they bring new culture. They bring the Oscan language, which is their indigenous language, but they also merge with the existing population. So you've basically got a sort of hybrid of Greek, indigenous, and Oscan culture in places like Campania and Lucania, and also Brutium. So it's a period of a lot of flux and change in the late 5th and early 4th century as these people establish themselves. I should say they diversify

into distinct ethnic groups on the way, so you get people calling themselves Campania, Lucania, Brutiae, and so forth. And that's the period when really the Samnites start appearing as a distinct ethnic group as well. So that period of the transition from the 5th century into the 4th century is one of quite a lot of change. But by the middle of the 4th century, what you've effectively got is this cultural transformation of Apennine and Southern Italy. Rome was the growing power in the centre of Italy, but still quite a lot of powerful Etruscan cities on the block. And also, of course, the Greeks who settled around the coast of Italy, which Taras, Roman Tarentum, modern Taranto is the most important and powerful.

Economically, it's a period of sort of resurgence. There's quite a lot of evidence that settlements are growing. You get more monumentalization in cities. Trade and agriculture seem to be thriving. By the middle of the fourth century, we've got a period of growth, but also quite a lot of conflict. Because one of the outfalls from this big migration is that people like the Greeks, who were established in the south, have to really push back, because there's a lot more competition for land than resources.

So you've got a sort of narrative of ongoing wars between Tarentum and people like the Lucanians, for instance, to defend their northern borders. So it's one of the paradoxes. You know, if you talk about the ancient world as having a period of prosperity, you think, oh, it sounds quite peaceful and settled. But in fact, that and conflict tend to go together because the more goodies are out there, the more people want them and compete for them. It's such an interesting scene at that time isn't it katherine we'll go through some of these big players now before we go to the samnite wars proper and let's focus on the greek these greek city states the western greeks right now because it is so interesting when you look at

a map and you see these these mainly coastal settlements and how they're almost sometimes isolated and then surrounded by this whole huge different population, pushing in on them places like Naples, and you mentioned Tarentum. And it's so interesting, it almost feels like a ticking clock for these Greek city-states in the fact that surely these external pressures are just going to be more and more as time goes on. Yeah, one of the interesting things about the Greeks in the West is the diversity of them. And I should declare an interest in this, this is my specialist research area, area so if i go on too much tell me to dial it back a bit but basically places like

tarentum are although we kind of think greek historians tend to treat them as sort of quite peripheral to the greek world but in fact they're really big players in the western mediterranean i mean tarentum is a huge naval power it's got this massive harbor powerful navy likewise naples has the same. So we've got places which is, I mean, Tarentum is probably up there with Rome and Capua as one of the three biggest cities in Italy. So these are not negligible places, but they're very diverse because they spring over a very wide area. And they tend to have very different fortunes. I mean, Tarentum is very much the leader of the Greeks in Italy.

Naples does actually very nicely, thank you, after the Samnite Wars, which we'll come back to. But other places, and Cumae, which is the oldest Greek colony in Italy, which is just off the north end of the Bay of Naples, is overrun by the Oscan-speaking Campanians during part of this migration and basically becomes an Oscan-speaking community. Its Greek heritage is very dialed down. Naples becomes very much more mixed. I mean, the interesting one is Pistum because we have a lot of evidence from there. The sources describe the Lucanian takeover as being all about sort of blood and guts and warfare and people being slaughtered.

But if we look at the archaeology, you get a much more nuanced picture, which actually allows you to trace how this played out in practice with populations coexisting. I mean, Greek material culture, Greek names, Greek language is still there living alongside the Oskans. So it's obviously a mixed population rather than one replacing the other. I think what was likely to have happened is that the social elite got replaced and everyone else just stayed put. But Greek cults and Oskan cults coexist. There are two distinct cemetery areas, one which is in use contemporaneously, one Greek

and one Oskan, which have some fascinating tombs, which show us very much what the Oskan sort of cultural framework or at least for the elite was like, with lots of frescoes decorating these, showing these as sort of warriors with their breastplates on, their javelins and swords and spears and things and very flamboyant helmets so you get very much a sense of a sort of warrior aristocracy moving in and replacing whatever the previous greek aristocracy was but at the same time fundamentally the city keeps going and it just becomes a sort of cultural hybrid i mean well well there you go and we'll definitely come back to certain of these cities as we go on you mentioned of And we'll definitely come back to certain of these cities as we go on.

You mentioned, of course, Naples and Tarentum. Both will no doubt make an appearance in our podcast discussion today. But let's turn to Rome quickly now because in the mid-fourth century, just before the Samnite Wars break out, how powerful is Rome?

What's the geopolitical situation of Rome at this time? Well, as I said, it's mainly the dominant power in central Italy. In the late 5th and beginning of the 4th century, it finds a series of successful wars for the control of Latium. Most of Latium, as we know it, is now not in Roman hands because that wasn't how it controlled territory. It controlled things at arm's length, but it was very much the dominant power. because that wasn't how it controlled territory. It controlled things at arm's length, but it was very much the dominant power.

It's starting to encroach over the Tiber into southern Etruria. It's conquered Vey, for instance, the most southerly of the main Etruscan cities, and seized its territory. But at the same time, it does have ongoing problems. The 5th century is really dominated by an internal political power struggle conventionally called the Struggle of the Orders, which is part of the sort of teething problems and growing pains of the early republic. And that keeps ticking on well into the fourth century.

In fact, it's not actually definitively resolved until the beginning of the third. So part of the narrative is that this is punctuated by some outbreaks of handbags between different political groups within Rome. And also it has this massive setback right at the beginning of the 4th century when the Gauls invade, because the Roman Senate doesn't take this very seriously until the Gauls get to the River Alia, and then there's this huge battle at which the Roman army is wiped out. And the conventional narrative is that the Gauls then march on and sack Rome, and then depart, because they're basically a bunch of mercenaries wending their way south to gain employment in Syracuse.

We don't have an awful lot of archaeological evidence that would support the idea of a mass sack, but certainly it was a traumatic event for Rome. If Gauls appear on the scene, the Romans become scared stiff really quite quickly thereafter. But it initiated a period of civic renewal as the Romans sort of pulled themselves back from that. It involved sort of massively redefending the city.

The so-called Servian Wall, which is actually a fourth century, it's got nothing to do with Servius Tullius, which is still visible at the back of Termini Station in Rome. It's a verified piece of Hellenistic military architecture. You know, that gives a sort of insight into just how much money the Romans had available from presumably from the conquests and how much they were pouring it into revamping and redefending the city. And so at this time, what do we know about their relations? We've talked about them marching north,

you say, across the Tiber into southern Laturia, but what about their neighbours to the southeast, the Samnites? What do we know about their relations with the Samnites before war breaks out? The thing about the Samnites is that they live in a very, very different manner to Rome and in a very different area. Basically, these are the main people of Apennine Italy. So they're living, whereas Rome is living on the sort of low-lying area next to the Tiber, these are really upland peoples, and that very much shapes how they develop. If you take what Livy says about them, he talks about them as being sort of very brave, but ultimately rough and uncultivated mountain people.

You know, he presents them as basically a tribal society. And in fact, if you look at the archaeology, that's really underselling them. Because in many ways, they're not that different from other Italian peoples in terms of their social and political structures. The main difference is that because they live in this very upland area, they don't urbanize. Most of the rest of Italy is organized around the sort of city-state principle in the Greek manner of a sort of urban center with the surrounding territory. But of course, in upland areas, upland valleys, you don't have territory which can support big concentrations of population. So what we find is that effectively, they have a lot of the

structures of a city-state, but without the city bit, if you see what I mean. They're quite a complex society. They're dominated by, as all Italian societies were, by the social elite, who have a strong warrior identity and find lots of weapons in graves and things of that sort. And they have armies based around heavy infantry. And again, that's fairly typical. But they live in villages, mostly with an associated hill fort and a religious sanctuary, rather, other than urban centres. And the sort of things that you associate with city-state life, like legal hearings, meeting together to elect magistrates, making treaties, you know, and all the other stuff, really takes place at these religious centres. So instead of going to the forum to do all this, you wait for the next religious festival,

trek off to the nearest sanctuary, and then you meet together and help your diplomatic negotiations, elect your ruling magistrates, they were known as the medics, and so forth. And at this stage, what we seem to have is a situation where there are subdivisions within the area called tutel, each of which elect a magistrate so it's an elective i mean democracy would probably be selling it but it's it's very much like rome or capua or any of the other big cities where you've got an oligarchical class that sort of wields most of the power but you elect your head of state and living mentions subdivisions into five main samnite peoples of which the pantry are probably the most powerful.

But he also says that they're linked together into a league, which can field joint armies and have some sort of decision-making powers. That seems to be based at the sanctuary of Pietra Bandante, which is not far from modern Campo Basso, which became hugely monumentalized. There's obviously a massive amount of money being put into it, particularly a bit later on in the second century. So they're not unsophisticated people, what they are are non-urbanised, but that's not the same as tribal rule savages. It's an area with quite an intriguing hybrid of the city-state type organisation, but without the urbanisation bit. It's so striking how you described it there, because my mind instantly goes to something like the Etonian League or the Eetolians further east, right? And you can see the similarities and how they're kind of portrayed as different to the other Greeks in that area,

because they can retreat to their highland strongholds if an enemy army attacks Aetolians and stuff like that. Do you think that was not missed on these ancient writers? Perhaps these parallels between the Samnites and the Aetolians and how they want to be portrayed is quite different to those around them. Yeah, I think it probably is. I mean, it is an intriguing parallel, but there's definitely a division, particularly in the, I was about to say Roman mind, but I think possibly ancient mind as well, because the idea of being urbanized, living in a settled city-state in a more conventional sense, it's very much equated with civilisation, whereas living up in the mountains is equated with being a barbarian. You know, and it clearly is not because it's a wealthy and sophisticated culture. It just doesn't

look quite the same as the Greek culture. I suppose it's the same as the Atalians don't quite like, say, Athens or Sparta. Absolutely. I love getting those potential parallels in there. It's always interesting to mention. Have you ever wondered if those pointy medieval shoes gave you bunions? Would you be friends with someone who had leprosy in the Middle Ages?

And what on earth does that Bluetooth symbol on your phone have to do with the Vikings? I'm Dr Kat Jarman and on Gone Medieval we find those answers for you. Talking everything from saints to sacrifices, runes to relics, sex to science. Join me, Dr Kat Jarman, and my co-host Matt Lewis for everything from berserkers to battles and runes to raids. Subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. okay catherine so moving on from that then so we've established the samnites a bit of background to their culture their position at this time what do we know about their relations with rome before war breaks out well one of the things key things about this is that because of the migrations i

mentioned earlier the samnites have quite a lot of ties of i mean literallyinship between powerful families, but also just sort of a general ethnic and linguistic affinity with what's been going on in Campania, because Campanians are now, Boscombe speaking, mainly, people who've migrated a couple of generations earlier. The other thing is that, of course, Campania is a massively fertile area. Northern part of the region is where all the fine wines of the ancient world comes from. It's the sort of Bordeaux or Burgundy of the ancient world. And the farmland is incredibly fertile. Capua is a very rich, very luxurious city.

Lots of imports and exports and artistic production. It really rivals places like Rome and Tarentum for power. So the real sticking point here is Campania because both Rome and the Samnites are starting to sort of put out tentacles into northern Campania, looking for a foothold there because obviously it's a wealthy area. And what seems to happen is that this is a sort of gradual process until they get to the point of being sort of so in each other's face that a treaty is needed to kind of demarcate the spheres of influence. And in 354, this treaty is signed between the Samnites and the Romans, which establishes the rivalries, which is in modern Campania, is the boundary between their respective spheres of influence. But the real flashpoint is that they're continually pushing the boundaries. And by the 340s, Rome is developing interests well south of the Liris.

So they try and demarcate the boundary, but that doesn't work. They're both trying it on a bit. And keeping on that, on the River Liris, how do we know all of this information, for instance, on treaties and all of that? What are our main sources for all these events that are happening so far back in ancient history? Well, the main source is Livy, but of course, Livy's writing in the year of the Emperor Augustus. And when we think about sources of sources who might Livy have been relying on, Roman history doesn't really get going until after the Samnite Wars. So who Livy was using in sources is another big question. I mean, there were earlier historians like Fabius Pictou and haven't survived, but again, it's where are they getting their information from? The other problem with Livy

is that really it's his sort of interest in his methods because he sees sort of character, both national and individual, as being the prime mover in history. That's what shapes events. Hence his interest in establishing the character of the Samnites as being these sort of hairy and rather uncivilised types from up in the mountains. But also he likes things to fit into neat chunks. He tends to sort of have a theme that he gives five books each to.

And one of those themes is, of course, Samnite Wars. And this, I think, has a slightly unfortunate effect because it creates a sort of spurious sort of coherent song, you know, what's really quite a sort of diverse and sort of bitty set of conflicts. So, here's our main one. We have him up to about 292, if I remember rightly. But then after that, after the end of book 10, we have 10 books which only exist in very short summary. So we don't have the end of the Samnite Wars and the subsequent Pyrrhic War. We have a set of Greek accounts, Dioenesis of Halicarnassus and Diodorus,

who were similar sort of era of Liby, both write about this. But again, they don't exist in form. Appian, who wrote in the second century AD, and obviously it's long gone after the events. The Greek biographer Plutarch has some information, and again, second century AD. And also some very late people like Zanaras writing in the Byzantine era who's summarizing the missing bits of Diodorus and Dionysius. So it's a bit of a ragbag, but we do have enough. And we have Livy, who poses his own interesting set of problems. But we also have Rome's own chronicles, things like the Fasti Triumphalis. So we have a sort of skeleton outline of events through battles and triumphs as

well, which sometimes acts as a sort of skeleton to pin things onto. All right, then. So we've got this source background as it were, we've been keeping everyone waiting long enough for the wars themselves. So Catherine, the first Samnite war, how does it come about? Well again, this is basically Campania as a flashpoint because according to Livy's narrative, and I qualify that, hopefully I'll come back to that, what happened was that the Samnites started raiding Campania and territory in 343, and Capua, the main city of Campania, then turns around and appeals to Rome for help. Rome refuses, as it generally ought to, because it has a treaty with Samnium, the Treaty of 354. So Capua resorts to a stratagem to force its hand by committing

what's known as Diditio, which is a formal act of surrender. It's a religious ritual and it puts you in, it literally sort of abases itself and puts itself in the power of Rome, and that forces Rome to protect it. Now, this is really, really odd because Capua is a really powerful city, so Diditio is usually the act of, you know, it's the last resort of an abjectly defeated enemy. So what on earth is going on here? It's very unclear indeed. And, you know, why does somewhere as powerful as Capua need Roman protection? You know, there's a lot of this that just does not make any sort of sense. We do know some Rome seems to have had some sort of military success in 342, but then it's forced to suspend hostilities because there's another blip up in the struggle of the orders, and that

seems to have spilled over into the army. We don't really know a lot of detail about what that's about, but there's a key piece of legislation called Lex Genukia, which is about patricians being forced to cede more power to the plebeians in 342. So it may be connected with that. And then they accept the offer of a treaty from the Samnites in 341, and the Lyric's Treaty of 354 is simply reinstated. So it's just a very short war, but it's a very odd episode indeed, because we don't… I mean, as told by Livy, there's a lot in that that just does not make sense. And in fact, some scholars think that the First Samnite War simply didn't exist. They think that what happened was that Livy was confusing some of the events of the Latin

War, which happens around the same time, with some of the events of the later Samnite Wars, kind of putting two and two together and getting five and a half, inventing a complete separate war. I'm not sure that I'd go along with it being completely invented, but what I think possibly happened was that there were a series of sort of very ill-defined sort of raids and conflicts, which involved Samnites, Latins, Campanians, and Livy was trying to put a sort of spuriously sort and involvement of Capua, if, as you said a bit earlier, at that time, and I didn't realise this at all, alongside Rome and Tarentum, it's one of the biggest cities in Italy. So how it gets dragged in is insane to think. What really makes absolutely no sense at all is why Livy is presenting this as having committed

Diditio, because that is really quite a powerful thing. And it's really quite extreme. You know, why would a city that's kind of almost up there with Rome in terms of its ability to look after itself go and do that sort of thing? I mean, it does force Rome to break its treaty with the Samnites, but that in a sense might be why Livy's presenting it like this, because one of the things he's very keen on is that the Romans are always right. And of course, if the Romans are treaty breakers, they're doing something which is really quite wrong. It seems to be a sort of really rather extreme way of justifying something that Rome shouldn't have done. It should have stuck with the Samnites and held its treaty, but instead,

it just took the main chance to help itself to another chunk of the Campania, which is, you know, effectively not what it seems to be up to. Yes, putting the Roman spin on it, indeed. I mean, okay, before we move on to the next Samnite war, let's talk about this other event which you mentioned and highlighted right there, which also does seem important, its importance, which is the Latin war, which seems to then break out. What is this and why is it so important? In a sense, it's a lot more important than the First Sunlight War. It's a war between Rome and, effectively, the Latin League, which is a

confederation of states in relation to which Rome actually belongs. A lot of areas in Italy have these little leagues of states, which are effectively about religious and ethnic identity. The idea is that you have a key central sanctuary for the ethnots and you have to go there every now and again and participate in things which are designed to celebrate identity. But they develop into military alliances in some cases, usually quite loose-knit. But the idea is that League members have to pay subscriptions and they have leaders that they elect, and they could ask other League members to wheel out their armies to support them if they need it. And Rome was a member of the Latin League as one of the Latin states, but it was becoming too over-dominant, and the other Latin government

was getting very fed up with it. So what happens in 340 is that, more or less contemporary with the First Samnite War, the Latin states, supported by some Campanians and Etruscans, declare war on Rome. And there's a short war that ends in 338 with Rome winning. But the real significance of this is not so much the war itself, it's the fact that the settlement at the end of the war is something which really provides a blueprint for how Rome goes on to control Italy. Because obviously, Rome only has the administrative mechanisms of the city-state.

It can't go directly administering vast quantities of territory because it doesn't have that sort of capability. So what happens in 338 is that the Latin League is broken up. And again, that's typical because Rome likes breaking up other organizations so that it doesn't have any focus of opposition. It dishes out Roman citizenship to some communities, and it dishes out Latin status, which is a package of legal... It's nothing to do with ethnicity. It's a package of legal rights and privileges to some others. And then it ties the rest to Rome via bilateral alliances, which mean that they have to offer military assistance to Rome in return for Roman protection.

And that does two key things. One is that it detaches the idea of Roman citizenship and Latin status from ethnicity, so they become legally transferable rights. And that's something that Rome basically uses in other contexts. And it also means that Rome has a series of alliances, which means that the Romans can help themselves to allied military power as and when they need to. So it gives Rome access to this huge pool of military manpower. And that's really the basis of how it controls Italy and one of its big strengths and how it then goes on to conquer the world. The settlement at the end of the war is really the basis of the Roman Empire in the long term. Interesting to think now, isn't it? It's a symbol of things to come.

Well, there you go. There was Dr. Catherine Lomas explaining all about the background to and the first Samnite war itself. This first great conflict between Romans and Samnites. But, as hinted at, there is plenty more to come. There are two more official wars between the Romans and the Samnites in the late 4th, early 3rd centuries, and it's those conflicts which we're going to be covering in the next episode. So stay tuned for that. Catherine will be back to continue the story. Once again, I do hope you enjoyed the episode. Now, last but certainly not least for me, if you'd like more Ancients content in the meantime,

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