1.41 to 1.45

Another strong foe in central Italy still remained to be reckoned with, the Samnites, who were also of Italic stock. The first conflict with this warlike people (343-341 BC) had been interrupted by the Latin revolt. The truce then made was broken a few years later (326 BC). A desperate struggle continued, with interruptions, until the decisive battle of Sentinum (295 BC) made Rome supreme over all central and northern Italy. Only southern Italy, occupied by a disunited group of Greek city-states, remained independent. Its fate was not long delayed. Alarmed at the spread of Roman power, the Greek cities appealed to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus in Greece. He inflicted two telling defeats on the Roman army and then crossed to Sicily to aid the Greek cities there to throw off the yoke of Carthage. Encouraged by the arrival of a Carthaginian fleet, Rome renewed the struggle, and in 275 BC defeated Pyrrhus in the battle of Beneventum (see Pyrrhus). One by one the Greek cities were taken, and Rome was ruler of all Italy. Creation of the Roman Confederacy The Roman genius was great. Nowhere was its skill shown better than in the development of the system which gradually welded the lands conquered by the Romans into a single nation, contented and unified. Rome could have exploited the conquered cities of Italy for its own interests. Instead it granted many of them the privileges of Roman citizenship, in full or in part, as it had done for the Latin cities. Most of these people were given the status of allies. They had self-government and the right to trade and intermarry in Rome. They did not, however, have the right to vote.