ABSTRACT
Whether or not Rome had already crossed swords with her Samnite allies, the days when such a conflict would blaze up were fast approaching. Though distracted by the presence of Alexander of Epirus in southern Italy, the Samnites coveted the fertile plain of Campania and would not be held at bay for ever; and the Latin revolt had already drawn the Romans into the vortex of Campanian politics. Rome had granted half-citizenship to several cities there: Fundi, Formiae, Capua, Suessula and Cumae. The Sidicini were still unpunished for their participation in the Latin war: those around Teanum were attacked in 336 and granted alliance with Rome, while Cales was stormed and received a Latin colony (334). This outpost, which commanded the valley between Latium and Campania, protected the Campanian plain from the Sidicini and formed a buffer state between the Samnites on the east and the Roman possessions on the west. Despite the recent Latin revolt Rome wisely continued her policy of founding Latin colonies, in which all her allies were allowed to share; Cales received 2,500 colonists and was granted the right of coinage. In 332 Acerrae was granted the Roman civitas sine suffragio, and soon afterwards Rome entered into alliance with Fabrateria and Frusino, which lay in and above the Trerus valley not far from the Samnite frontier (c. 330). In 329 Privernum was taken and the anti-Roman leaders were banished; it was granted civitas sine suffragio, part of its territory was confiscated and was later formed into a Roman tribe, the Oufentina (318). In the same year Tarracina, which commanded the coast road, received a Roman colony, and in 328 a Latin colony was settled at Fregellae to block the north-western entrance to the fertile plain of the middle Liris. Thus the Romans gradually extended the bounds of their new confederacy and created a barrier against the north-west frontier of the Samnites.
