013 - The Latin War

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome. The outcome of the First Samnite War had been inconclusive. Yes, the Romans had gotten the better of it in battle, but nothing resembling a definitive conclusion was reached. The Samnites seemed content to consolidate their gains and not press the issue, and the Romans were disinclined to take the fight to the next level. They had done right by their allies and driven the Samnites out of Campania. They had no interest, for now, in invading Samnium and trying to conquer a strong-willed, capable, and well-supplied army. Plus, the winds of discontent were blowing in from Latium, and the Romans knew full well that if they got entangled with the Samnites, the Latin communities would be in a strong position to leverage concessions from the Romans. So a treaty of peace was concluded between the Romans and Samnites.

The Latins saw this as a tacit admission of weakness and, seeking a more personally beneficial arrangement with the Romans, decided to strike while the iron was hot. But before any sort of conflict with the Latins were joined, a further step was taken in the Poblian quest for a greater share in power. In 342 BC, not long after the mutiny of the garrisoned soldiers in Campania, the plebs pushed through another set of reforms that solidified their power. The package included the important provision that one of the consuls for each year not just could be a plebe, but had to be a plebe. But more importantly, it set the well-known and off-cited requirement that ten years must pass before a man could hold the same office twice. The move was designed, obviously, to prevent one man from gaining too much power, but at times the cure was worse than the disease, especially, for example, during the Second Punic War, when it became nearly impossible to run the war when the leadership kept changing. So though the ten-year requirement was followed and disregarded according to circumstance, it did set a cultural precedent strong enough that when, between 104 and 100 BC, Gaius Marius was elected consul five times in a row, it was a scandal that engendered enough ill will that the social fabric of the state began to unravel. But that is for a much later date, probably sometime early next year, at the pace we're going.

When the Romans withdrew from fighting the Samnites, the Companions and Latins both wanted to carry on with the fight. As I mentioned last week, the Samnites implored the Romans to put a stop to the aggression, but the Romans refused to order the Latins to do anything one way or the other. The Latins immediately took this to mean that if Rome did not feel strong enough to enforce its will, politics being the zero-sum game that it is, then that meant the Latins must be stronger than their supposed masters. They resolved to use this to their advantage. A delegation representing the Latin League was sent to Rome to demand a political reordering. Up to this point, the Latins had enjoyed varying degrees of Roman citizenship, usually trade and intermarriage rights, stopping short of full suffrage. The delegation asked of the Romans not just full suffrage, but also audaciously demanded that one of the two yearly consuls come from the Latin communities. The Romans were shocked and practically laughed the delegation out of the Senate. No Roman was going to submit himself to the rule of a mere Latin. The plebs had just guaranteed their own consulship and weren't about to give it up, while the patricians had just given up one of their consulships and weren't about to let go of the other. On the question of a Latin consul, the two classes were united. The Senate's, and I'm paraphrasing here, answer to the Latin delegation was, no, no. There will be no political reordering. We like things just the way they are, thank you very much. Do you not remember that we wiped the floor with you at Lake Regulus, and that's why things are the way they are? If you really want what you're asking for, then come take it, if you can. The Senate then immediately voted for war, to teach the impertinent Latins a lesson. Legions were raised and sent out to meet the Latin force that had been massing in anticipation of the Senate's rejection of Latin demands.

The consuls for that year were Titus Manlius Torquatus and, our old friend and hero of the first Samnite war, Publius Decius, he of the grass crown. On a brief tangent, the Romans dated the past by reference to the consuls for a given year, rather than by an arbitrary numbering system. So that, for example, last week's battles with the Samnites were said to have taken place in the consulship of Corvus and Causus, rather than in, say, 167, dating from the founding of the Republic, or 409, dating from the founding of the city. It seems a bit unwieldy to us, but the Romans liked it just fine. Down the road, this system of reference would lead to the Roman joke that events occurring in the year of Julius Caesar's consulship, 59 BC, took place not in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, but in the consulship of Julius and Caesar. Get it? The Romans could be a laugh riot when the mood struck.

Anyway, in the consulship of Decius and Manlius, 340 BC by our reckoning, war with the Latins began. In the beginning, the outcome was very much in doubt. It had been years since the Romans had fought an enemy that so evenly matched them. It was almost like facing a mirror. The Romans and Latin forces were nearly identical in size. They used all the same tactics, spoke the same language, prayed to the same gods, and in most cases knew each other personally. There would not be any surprises or innovative tactics, just a standard straight-ahead infantry battle and victory to the strongest or luckiest. Both sides knew it, and new heavy casualties loomed as force pitted itself against force.

Two legends emerged from the war, one revealing how the Romans were able to win a fight that seemed destined to produce a draw, the second hammering home the idea that obeying consular authority is paramount and the only way to maintain the critical discipline required for Rome to defeat its enemies. The first legend states that after the legions had built their camp near the Latin force and settled in for the night, both consuls had the same dream. In it, an apparition revealed that in the coming battle, the victorious side would sacrifice its commander, while the losing side would sacrifice its whole army. When they awoke, the two conferred and realized that they had had the same dream. They made a pact that each would lead one flank of the army, and whichever side began to fail first, that consul would charge into the enemy and seek death so the gods would grant their whole army victory.

The second legend states that the consul Manlius had given orders to his troops that no one should engage the Latins until he had given the okay. He wanted the battle to start at the time and place of his choosing and didn't want reckless brawling to spark a battle he wasn't prepared for. Manlius' son Titus, however, disobeyed the order while leading a cavalry detachment on patrol. They encountered a group of Latins, and Titus was challenged to single combat by one of them. Titus demurred, understanding his orders, but the Latins called him a coward and all sorts of other nasty names. His hackles raised, Titus accepted and proceeded to kill his challenger. Returning to camp with the spoils taken from his dead enemy, Titus was greeted by cheers, but the festive atmosphere died under the withering stare of his father, who ordered his son arrested. Manlius gave a brief speech in which he defended what he was about to do. His family, he said, would be torn apart by the punishment he was about to hand down, but that was far better than having the entire state torn apart by disobedience to consular authority. Then, without compassion and to the horror of his men, Manlius ordered his own son flogged and beheaded. Titus was given a hero's burial and the army, from that point on, hated their commander, but it was, to Manlius' credit, a far more disciplined and professional army that was doing the hating than before.

There is nothing new about either of these legends and they are both retreads of previous stories. Those of you who know Greek history will recognize the familiar elements of King Leonidas' vision that Sparta must either lose a king or its freedom to the Persians, which led him to make his suicidal last stand at Thermopylae to save his city. And those of you who have followed this podcast will note that Manlius' decision to execute his own son follows closely the story of the consul Brutus and his treasonous sons from the early days of the Republic. Roman analysts were enamored with the idea that Romans of the past displayed a dedication to the state that had fallen out of fashion and needed to be rekindled. To the later Romans, just as it is today and in most other times and places, the past became bathed in the golden light of simple nobility and selfless virtue, whether or not any such thing was true.

Legends aside, there was a battle, and it did take place, near the base of Mount Vesuvius. Yes, that Mount Vesuvius. The Latins and Romans lined up for battle and the fight was joined, with Decius leading the left flank and Manlius leading the right. The fighting was intense and evenly matched, but soon the Roman left began to buckle under the weight of the Latin advance. Supposedly, Decius, knowing what he must do, donned a ceremonial purple-tinged toga and veiled his face. Then, fully armed, he mounted his horse and charged into the opposing line. The Latins were at first terrified at the appearance of this mad, masked horseman, and Decius killed not an insignificant number before he was finally taken down by a shower of spears. Manlius, watching his colleague fall, knew that victory was within his grasp. He held back a reserve of veteran soldiers and, when the Latins were worn down, Manlius sent in the fresh troops and the Latins broke.

Returning to Rome, it is said that Manlius was greeted with acclaim by the older men, but shunned by the young, who hated him for executing Titus, a well-liked young noble. And whether it was Decius's sacrifice or Manlius's tactics, the Latins were beaten. Over the course of the next year and a half, the Romans pursued a policy of laying siege to each of the Latin cities one by one, dividing them so none could offer aid to any of the others. It was during this stage of the war that the Samnites provided auxiliary forces to the Roman effort, joining the two enemies briefly under the same banner. It was in both of their interests to put down the rising Latins before the Roman Samnite battle for Italian supremacy really got going. No sense in having some third-party wild card in the mix, they both agreed on that. Some of the Latin cities surrendered at the sight of the Roman army, some resisted a little and then gave up, and some fought to the bitter end. When it was over, Rome had subdued the entirety of Latium.

At this point the Latin League was abolished once and for all, and any independent Latin identity was destroyed forever. In the aftermath, the Senate gathered and decided the fate of each Latin tribe on a case-by-case basis. Those who gave up quickly, or never joined the rebellion, were given full Roman citizenship. Those who resisted some were allowed to keep intermarriage and trade rights, but denied the vote, while those who led the revolt were turned off their land and their holdings were colonized by Roman citizens. This treatment of the Latins was typical of Roman official policy. Anyone who was predisposed to friendship and did not resist Roman rule was welcomed openly into the empire and given an array of rights and privileges, while those predisposed to hostility and resistance were simply wiped off the map. Most nations and tribes fell into the former camp and found themselves well treated by their new Roman overlords. It was this policy of generosity that secured the longevity of the ethnically diverse empire. That and the ruthless extermination of those tribes and nations who fell into the latter camp.

The stage is now set for one of the most important wars in Roman history, the Second or Great Samnite War. It is comparable in historical importance to the Second Punic War, which saw the Romans defeat Carthage, and the Macedonian Wars, which brought Greece under Roman control. In the Second Samnite War, the Romans, for the first time, set themselves on a course of conscious expansion, with an eye on winning a far-reaching empire. It was a decades-long fight, and the Romans nearly lost a number of times, but when it was over, Rome found itself in control of all Italy.

But before we get into all that, I want to pause and give a fuller account of the Roman Legion, how it fought, how it operated, and how it was commanded. The Samnite Wars marked a period of transition for the army, and this is a good time to take a look at how the Romans had fought in the past, and how they would fight in the future. The strategy and tactics and formation of the Legion would remain in place for the next 200 odd years, until Marius came along and reorganized it yet again, and I want you to have a good picture in your mind of what things looked like as we move forward, because it will allow you to visualize the battles of the upcoming Punic Wars better, and later, to fully understand why the Romans were able to so decisively defeat the Greeks. So next week we will learn about the phalanx, its strengths and weaknesses, and why the Romans scrapped it in favor of the maniple system, how many men a centurion really led hint, the answer is not a hundred, and what the word Legion actually means.