Samnite Wars - First Samnite War (343 To 341 BC) - Three Roman Victories

Three Roman Victories

Accoriding to Livy, the two Roman consuls for 343, Marcus Valerius Corvus and Aulus Cornelius Cossus, both marched with armies against the Samnites. Valerius led his army into Campania and Cornelius his into Samnium where he camped at Saticula. Livy then goes on to narrate how Rome won three different battles against the Samnites. Valerius won the first battle, fought at Mount Gaurus near Cumae, only after a last desperate charge by Romans in fading daylight finally routed the Samnites after a day of hard fighting. The second battle almost ended in disaster for the Romans when the Samnites attempted to trap the other consul, Cornelius Cossus, and his army in a mountain pass. However one of Cornelius' military tribunes, Publius Decius Mus led a small detachment to seize a hilltop, distracting the Samnites and allowing the Roman army to escape the trap. Decius and his men slipped away to safety during the night, and the morning after the unprepared Samnites were attacked and defeated by the Romans. Still determined to seize victory, the Samnites collected their forces and laid siege to Suessula at the eastern edge of Campania. Leaving his baggage behind, Marcus Valerius took his army by forced marches to Suessula. Low on supplies, and underestimating the size of the Roman army, the Samnites scattered their army to forage for food. This gave Valerius the opportunity to win a third Roman victory when he first captured the Samnites' lightly defended camp and then scattered their foragers. These Roman successes against the Samnites convinced Falerii to convert her forty year's truce with Rome into a permanent peace treaty, and the Latins to abandon their planned war against Rome and instead campaign against the Paeligni. The friendly city-state of Carthage sent a congratulatory embassy to Rome with a twenty-five pound crown for the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Both consuls then celebrated triumphs over the Samnites. The Fasti Triumphales records that Valerius and Cornelius celebrated their triumphs over the Samnites on 21 September and 22 September respectively.

Modern historians have doubted the historical accuracy of Livy's description of these three battles. Livy's battle-scenes for this time period are mostly free reconstructions by him and his sources, and there are no reasons why these should be different. The amount Samnites killed and spoils taken by the Romans have clearly been exaggerated. Historians have noted the many similarities between the story of Publius Decius Mus, and an event said to have taken place on Sicily in 258 when the Romans were fighting the First Punic War against Carthage. According to the ancient sources, a Roman army was in danger of being trapped defile when a military tribune led a detachment of 300 men to seize a hilltop in the middle of the enemy. The Roman army escaped, but of the 300 only the tribune survived. It is unlikely that this latter, in ancient times more famous, episode has not influenced the descriptions of the former.

Salmon(1967) also found several other similarities between the campaigns of 343 and later events which he considered to be doublets. Both the First and the Second Samnite War starts with an invasion of Samnium by a Cornelius, the way in which a Roman army was led into a trap resembles the famous disaster at the Caudine Forks in 321, and there are similarities to the campaigns of Publius Cornelius Arvina in 306 and Publius Decius Mus (the son of the hero of Saticula) in 297. He also thought Valerius Corvus' two Campanian victories could be doublets of Roman operations against Hannibal in the same area in 215 On the other hand the entries in the Fasti Triumphales supports some measure of Roman success. In Salmon's reconstruction therefore there was only one battle in 343, perhaps fought on the outskirts of Capua near the shrine of Juno Gaura, and ending with a narrow Roman victory.

Oakley(1998) dismisses these claims of doublets and inclines towards believing there were three battles. The Samnites would have gained significant ground in Campania by the time the Romans arrived and Valerius' two victories could be the outcome of twin Samnite attacks on Capua and Cumae. And while Samnite ambushes are somewhat of a stock motif in Livy's narrative of the Samnite wars, this might simply reflect the mountainous terrain in which these wars were fought. The story of Decius as preserved has been patterned after that of the military tribune of 258, but Decius could still have performed some heroic act in 343, the memory of which became the origin of the later embellished tale.

Forsythe(2005) considers the episode with Cornelius Cossus and Decius Mus to have been invented, in part to foreshadow Decius' sacrifice in 340. P. Decius might have performed some heroic act which then enabled him to become the first of his family to reach the consulship in 340, but if so no detail of the historical event survives. Instead later annalists have combined the disaster at the Caudine Forks with the tale of the military tribune of 258 to produce the entirely fictitious story recorded by Livy, the difference being that while in the originals the Romans suffered defeat and death, here none of Decius' men are killed and the Romans win a great victory.