The History of Rome by Theodor Mommsen (highly recommended books TXT) 📖

to combine a siege-warfare, which broke up their forces and consumed their time, with the protection of an extended frontier; and on the other hand the Romans could not well do otherwise than combat the insurrection, which had no proper centre, simultaneously in all the insurgent districts. In a military point of view the insurgent country fell into two divisions; in the northern, which reached from Picenum and the Abruzzi to the northern border of Campania and embraced the districts speaking Latin, the chief command was held on the Italian side by the Marsian Quintus Silo, on the Roman side by Publius Rutilius Lupus, both as consuls; in the southern, which included Campania, Samnium, and generally the regions speaking Sabellian, the Samnite Gaius Papius Mutilus commanded as consul of the insurgents, and Lucius Julius Caesar as the Roman consul. With each of the two commanders-in-chief there were associated on the Italian side six, on the Roman side five, lieutenant-commanders, each of whom conducted the attack or defence in a definite district, while the consular armies were destined to act more freely and to strike the decisive blow. The most esteemed Roman officers, such as Gaius Marius, Quintus Catulus, and the two consulars of experience in the Spanish war, Titus Didius and Publius Crassus, placed themselves at the disposal of the consuls for these posts; and though the Italians had not names so celebrated to oppose to them, yet the result showed that their leaders were in a military point of view nowise inferior to the Romans.

The offensive in this thoroughly desultory war was on the whole on the side of the Romans, but was nowhere decisively assumed even on their part. It is surprising that the Romans did not collect their troops for the purpose of attacking the insurgents with a superior force, and that the insurgents made no attempt to advance into Latium and to throw themselves on the hostile capital. We are how ever too little acquainted with their respective circumstances to judge whether or how they could have acted otherwise, or to what extent the remissness of the Roman government on the one hand and the looseness of the connection among the federate communities on the other contributed to this want of unity in the conduct of the war. It is easy to see that with such a system there would doubtless be victories and defeats, but the final settlement might be very long delayed; and it is no less plain that a clear and vivid picture of such a war—which resolved itself into a series of engagements on the part of individual corps operating at the same time, sometimes separately, sometimes in combination—cannot be prepared out of the remarkably fragmentary accounts which have come down to us.

Commencement of the War
The Fortresses
Caesar in Campania and Samnium
Aesernia Taken by the Insurgents
As also Nola
Campania for the Most Part Lost to the Romans

The first assault, as a matter of course, fell on the fortresses adhering to Rome in the insurgent districts, which in all haste closed their gates and carried in their moveable property from the country. Silo threw himself on the fortress designed to hold in check the Marsians, the strong Alba, Mutilus on the Latin town of Aesernia established in the heart of Samnium: in both cases they encountered the most resolute resistance. Similar conflicts probably raged in the north around Firmum, Atria, Pinna, in the south around Luceria, Beneventum, Nola, Paestum, before and while the Roman armies gathered on the borders of the insurgent country. After the southern army under Caesar had assembled in the spring of 664 in Campania which for the most part held by Rome, and had provided Capua—with its domain so important for the Roman finances—as well as the more important allied cities with garrisons, it attempted to assume the offensive and to come to the aid of the smaller divisions sent on before it to Samnium and Lucania under Marcus Marcellus and Publius Crassus. But Caesar was repulsed by the Samnites and Marsians under Publius Vettius Scato with severe loss, and the important town of Venafrum thereupon passed over to the insurgents, into whose hands it delivered its Roman garrison. By the defection of this town, which lay on the military road from Campania to Samnium, Aesernia was isolated, and that fortress already vigorously assailed found itself now exclusively dependent on the courage and perseverance of its defenders and their commandant Marcellus. It is true that an incursion, which Sulla happily carried out with the same artful audacity as formerly his expedition to Bocchus, relieved the hard-pressed Aesernians for a moment; nevertheless they were after an obstinate resistance compelled by the extremity of famine to capitulate towards the end of the year. In Lucania too Publius Crassus was defeated by Marcus Lamponius, and compelled to shut himself up in Grumentum, which fell after a long and obstinate siege. With these exceptions, they had been obliged to leave Apulia and the southern districts totally to themselves. The insurrection spread; when Mutilus advanced into Campania at the head of the Samnite army, the citizens of Nola surrendered to him their city and delivered up the Roman garrison, whose commander was executed by the orders of Mutilus, while the men were distributed through the victorious army. With the single exception of Nuceria, which adhered firmly to Rome, all Campania as far as Vesuvius was lost to the Romans; Salernum, Stabiae, Pompeii, Herculaneum declared for the insurgents; Mutilus was able to advance into the region to the north of Vesuvius, and to besiege Acerrae with his Samnito-Lucanian army. The Numidians, who were in great numbers in Caesar's army, began to pass over in troops to Mutilus or rather to Oxyntas, the son of Jugurtha, who on the surrender of Venusia had fallen into the hands of the Samnites and now appeared among their ranks in regal purple; so that Caesar found himself compelled to send home the whole African corps. Mutilus ventured even to attack the Roman camp; but he was repulsed, and the Samnites, who while retreating were assailed in the rear by the Roman cavalry, left nearly 6000 dead on the field of battle. It was the first notable success which the Romans gained in this war; the army proclaimed the general -imperator-, and the sunken courage of the capital began to revive. It is true that not long afterwards the victorious army was attacked in crossing a river by Marius Egnatius, and so emphatically defeated that it had to retreat as far as Teanum and to be reorganized there; but the exertions of the active consul succeeded in restoring his army to a serviceable condition even before the arrival of winter, and he reoccupied his old position under the walls of Acerrae, which the Samnite main army under Mutilus continued to besiege.

Combats with the Marsians
Defeat and Death of Lupus

At the same time operations had also begun in Central Italy, where the revolt of the Abruzzi and the region of the Fucine lake threatened the capital in dangerous proximity. An independent corps under Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo was sent into Picenum in order that, resting for support on Firmum and Falerio, it might threaten Asculum; but the main body of the Roman northern army took its position under the consul Lupus on the borders of the Latin and Marsian territories, where the Valerian and Salarian highways brought the enemy nearest to the capital; the rivulet Tolenus (Turano), which crosses the Valerian road between Tibur and Alba and falls into the Velino at Rieti, separated the two armies. The consul Lupus impatiently pressed for a decision, and did not listen to the disagreeable advice of Marius that he should exercise his men—unaccustomed to service—in the first instance in petty warfare. At the very outset the division of Gaius Perpenna, 10,000 strong, was totally defeated. The commander-in- chief deposed the defeated general from his command and united the remnant of the corps with that which was under the orders of Marius, but did not allow himself to be deterred from assuming the offensive and crossing the Tolenus in two divisions, led partly by himself, partly by Marius, on two bridges constructed not far from each other. Publius Scato with the Marsians confronted them; he had pitched his camp at the spot where Marius crossed the brook, but, before the passage took place, he had withdrawn thence, leaving behind the mere posts that guarded the camp, and had taken a position in ambush farther up the river. There he attacked the other Roman corps under Lupus unexpectedly during the crossing, and partly cut it down, partly drove it into the river (11th June 664). The consul in person and 8000 of his troops fell. It could scarcely be called a compensation that Marius, becoming at length aware of Scato's departure, had crossed the river and not without loss to the enemy occupied their camp. Yet this passage of the river, and a victory at the same time obtained over the Paelignians by the general Servius Sulpicius, compelled the Marsians to draw their line of defence somewhat back, and Marius, who by decree of the senate succeeded Lupus as commander-in-chief, at least prevented the enemy from gaining further successes. But, when Quintus Caepio was soon afterwards associated in the command with equal powers, not so much on account of a conflict which he had successfully sustained, as because he had recommended himself to the equites then leading the politics of Rome by his vehement opposition to Drusus, he allowed himself to be lured into an ambush by Silo on the pretext that the latter wished to betray to him his army, and was cut to pieces with a great part of his force by the Marsians and Vestinians. Marius, after Caepio's fall once more sole commander-in-chief, through his tenacious resistance prevented his antagonist from profiting by the advantages which he had gained, and gradually penetrated far into the Marsian territory. He long refused battle; when he at length gave it, he vanquished his impetuous opponent, who left on the battle— field among other dead Herius Asinius the chieftain of the Marrucini. In a second engagement the army of Marius and the corps of Sulla which belonged to the army of the south co-operated to inflict on the Marsians a still more considerable defeat, which cost them 6000 men; but the glory of this day remained with the younger officer, for, while Marius had given and gained the battle, Sulla had intercepted the retreat of the fugitives and destroyed them.

Picenian War

While the conflict was proceeding thus warmly and with varying success at the Fucine lake, the Picenian corps under Strabo had also fought with alternations of fortune. The insurgent chiefs, Gaius Iudacilius from Asculum, Publius Vettius Scato, and Titus Lafrenius, had assailed it with their united forces, defeated it, and compelled it to throw itself into Firmum, where Lafrenius kept Strabo besieged, while Iudacilius moved into Apulia and induced Canusium, Venusia, and the other towns still adhering to Rome in that quarter to join the insurgents. But on the Roman side Servius Sulpicius by his victory over the Paeligni cleared the way for his advancing into Picenum and rendering aid to Strabo; Lafrenius was attacked by Strabo in front and taken in rear by Sulpicius, and his camp was set on fire; he himself fell, the remnant of his troops fled in disorder and threw themselves into Asculum. So completely had the state of affairs changed in Picenum, that the Italians now found themselves confined to Asculum as the Romans were previously to Firmum, and the war was thus once more converted into a siege.

Umbro-Etruscan Conflicts

Lastly, there was added in the course of the year to the two difficult and straggling wars in southern and central Italy a third in the north. The state of matters apparently so dangerous for Rome after the first months of the war had induced a great portion of the Umbrian, and isolated Etruscan, communities to declare for the insurrection; so that it became necessary to despatch against the Umbrians Aulus Plotius, and against the Etruscans Lucius Porcius Cato. Here however the Romans encountered a far less energetic resistance than in the Marsian and Samnite countries, and maintained a most decided superiority in the field.

Disadvantageous Aggregate Result of the First Year of the War

Thus the severe first year of the war came to an end, leaving behind it, both in a military and political point of view, sorrowful memories and dubious prospects. In a military point of view both armies of the Romans, the Marsian as well as the Campanian, had been weakened and discouraged by severe defeats; the northern army had been compelled especially to attend to the protection of the capital, the southern army at Neapolis had been seriously threatened in its communications,