Editing Samnite Wars (section)

====293 BC-290 BC:  Defeat of Samnium====
In 293 BC, fresh troops were levied throughout Samnium. Forty thousand men met in [[Battle of Aquilonia|Aquilonia]]. The consul [[Spurius Carvilius Maximus]] took on veteran legions which Marcus Atilius had left at Interamna Lirenas in the middle Liris valley and went on to seize Amiternum in Samnium (not to be confused with Amiternum in Sabina). The other consul, Lucius Papirius Cursor (the son of the Lucius Papirius of the Second Samnite War), levied a new army and took Duronia by storm. The two consuls then went where the main Samnite forces were stationed. Spurius Carvilius went to Cominium and engaged in skirmishes. Lucius Papirius besieged Aquilonia. Both towns were in north-western Samnium. The consuls decided to attack both at the same time. Lucius Papirius was informed by a deserter that twenty contingents of 400 men each of the Samnite elite forces which, in desperation, had been recruited under the lex sacrata (in which soldiers swore not to flee the battle under pain of death) were heading for Cominium. He informed his colleague and then set out to intercept them with part of his forces, defeating them. Meanwhile, the other part of his forces attacked Aquilonia. Lucius Pairius re-joined them and the city was taken. Meanwhile, at Cominium, when Spurius Carvilius heard about the twenty elite Samnite contingents (not knowing about their defeat by his colleague), he sent a legion and some auxiliaries to keep them at bay and went ahead with his planned attack on the city, which eventually surrendered.<ref>Livy, 10.39–44</ref> Forsythe writes that the Battle of Aquilonia "was the last great battle of the war, and it sealed the fate of the Samnites."<ref>Forsythe, 2006, p. 334</ref>

With the Samnite armies destroyed, the consuls decided to storm towns. Spurius Carvilius took Velia, Palumbinum and Herculaneum (locations unknown). Lucius Papirius took [[Saepinum]] (modern Altilia), one of Samnium's main towns. Meanwhile, the Etruscans attacked Roman allies and the Faliscans defected to the Etruscans. With the winter setting in and the snow falling, the Romans withdrew from Samnium. Lucius Papirius went to Rome for his triumph and then went to [[Vescia]] (in Campania) to winter and to protect the locals from Samnite raids. Spurius Carvilius went to Etruria. He seized Troilum (location unknown) and took five fortresses by storm. The Faliscans sued for peace and were fined heavily and granted a one-year truce.<ref>Livy, 10.45–46</ref>

Livy's narrative of the Third Samnite War ends here, with the end of Book 10. Books 11–20 have been lost. For Book 11 we only have a brief summary which is part of the Periochae, a summary of his 142 books (except for 136 and 137). There is mention of the consul Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges being defeated in Samnium and being spared a recall from the army and humiliation by the intervention of his father, Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, who promised to help him as deputy. The two men defeated the Samnites and captured Gaius Pontius, the Samnite commander, who was paraded in the triumph and beheaded. Gurges had moved against the Caudini and according to Eutropius his army was nearly destroyed and lost 3,000 men.<ref name="auto1">Eutropius, Abridgment of Roman History, 2.9.3</ref> Salmon thinks that this setback was probably an exaggeration because the next year Gurges was appointed proconsul and he was consul again in 276 BC, during the Pyrrhic War. He thinks that his subsequent victory was also magnified and is a fictitious anticipation of the father and son partnership between Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator and his son during the Second Punic War.<ref>Salmon, 1967, pp. 274–275</ref>

In 291 BC Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges, as proconsul, defeated the Pentri, the largest Samnite tribe, and took their stronghold of Cominium Ocritum. The consul Lucius Postimius Megellus operating from Apulia attacked the Hirpini tribe of the Samnites and seized their large town of Venusia. Because its location offered control over Lucania and Apulia as well as Samnium the Romans founded the largest colony they ever established. Dionysius of Halicarnassus gave a figure of 20,000 colonists, which is impossibly high.<ref>Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman antiquities, 17/18.4.5</ref> Details for 290 BC are scant, but the little surviving information suggests that the consuls [[Manius Curius Dentatus]] and Publius Cornelius Rufinus campaigned  to mop up the last pockets of resistance throughout Samnium and according to Eutropius this involved some large scale fighting.<ref name="auto1"/><ref>Salmon, 1967, pp. 275–276</ref>