So, I’d like to start this week’s discussion with a shoutout to the Mods, especially those in the Open Threads for the game. That shit made my eyes bleed. I didn’t think that was possible.
Last time, we talked about the Siege of Rome in 508 BC, which was precipitated by the overthrow of the King of Rome, Tarquin, and the establishment of a Republic, led by the Senate of Rome, and its yearly elected pair of Consuls. While the siege preserved the Republic for the moment, Tarquin was still out there, and there was still plenty of trouble to be had all around.
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The Latin War
While the Republic had, for the moment, peace with the leading Etruscan cities by its treaty with Lars Porsena, there were still plenty of enemies about. This included the Sabines, who lived to the south and east of the Latins and Romans. The Romans and the Sabines had, at least in legend, a rather violent past- during the founding of Rome itself, the men who founded the city had raided Sabine territory to carry off several wives to help found the city. The Latins, who were the larger tribe to which the Romans were related, had fought with Tarquin in 508, and didn’t seem to friendly afterwards.
In 505, after being thrown out of Cisilium by Lars Potenia, Tarquin headed to the territory of the Sabines, He convinced the Sabines to head for war against the Romans. There was a battle in 505 that the Romans won, but the real action came in 504, when the Romans moved to take the town of Fidnae. There, the Sabines under Tarquin marched against the Romans, and one night, Tarquin decided to take the Roman camp by surprise. However, the Romans knew full well he was coming, and waited silently behind the walls of their camp. As the Sabines crossed the wall, they were silently killed in near total darkness. Thinking that they had totally surprised the Romans, the Sabines kept coming, until the moon rose and they could see the piles of Sabine bodies and the ranks of armed Romans. The Sabines fled, and the Romans crushed the fugitives. Afterwards, they devastated the Sabine territory, and exacted a terrible toll. Rome’s neighbors noticed.
Peace didn’t last long. In 503, two towns allied with Rome, Pometia and Cora, revolted against Roman rule, with the support of a tribe in Campania. The Romans went to war against these two towns shortly after, meeting their army outside Rome in 503. The Romans defeated this force, fighting in a particularly bloody and vicious battle that led to the slaughter of prisoners on both sides. The next year, the Romans attempted to storm Pometia, but failed. Settling into a siege, they were driven off by reinforcements to the town. The Romans returned later in the year, and before they could storm the town, Pometia surrendered. The Romans razed the down, and sold the citizens into slavery, raising concerns across the Latin League about their behavior.
Trouble flared again in 501, when a group of Sabines came to Rome during a festival. While there, they kidnapped a few women of their own. This led to a general brawl between Sabines and Romans in the city, and that led to concerns that war would come. Rather dissatisfied with how command had gone in the previous war with Pometia, the Romans decided to prepare for war by naming a dictator- someone who would have singular authority in the Republic. Concerned for what this forbode, the Sabines came to make peace. The Romans, however, demanded a too high a price for peace, and the two sides went to war. After no fighting, the two sides made peace later in the year, but not after the local towns took note.
These events of the previous couple of years had given ammunition to Octavius Mamillius of Tusculum. Octavius was one of the leading men of Tusculum, and was Tarquin’s son in law. After the failure of the Siege of Rome in 508, he went to Tusculum, and enlisted Mamilius in his efforts to regain the throne in Rome. Mamilius began a diplomatic effort to get the cities of the Latin League on his side, and to move against Rome. There was a war scare in 501, but Mamilius, sensing some shakiness among his allies, decided to back off. Things were more solid in 496 (Or maybe 499), and Mamilius and Tarquin whipped up the Latin states into war, attacking the town of Fidnae.
In response, the Romans mobilized for war. They named Aulus Postumius Albus dictator, and he marched out to meet the Latin Army. He found them outside of Lake Regillus, and the two sides clashed.
The Battle of Lake Regillus
Postumius stole a march on the Latin Army, and managed to get alongside the road leading to Roman territory. He took up position on a tall, hard to assault, hill, and prepared some defenses. The arrival of the Roman army led to discussion in the Latin camp. Several argued that they should assault the Romans rapidly, taking the Roman defensive position as a sign of weakness. Others argued that they should wait, knowing reinforcements from the Volsci people were on the way. While the Latins debated, another Roman army arrived, locking down the route forward. The Latins continued to delay, confused about Roman plans, all while short of food. While they delayed, Postimius sent a force behind the Latin army, cutting off their supply route.
The Latins had no choice but to attack the men astride their supply routes. The Romans, consisting mostly of light infantry and horsemen, staged a series of hit and run attacks to hold their position, and kept the Latin army back. This gave Posutmius time to form up the army and march to the battle, while Tarquin, Sextus and Titus Tarquiunius, his sons, and Mamilius organized the rest of the Latin army for the battle. The Latins deployed three forces of horse, one on each flank and one in the center, commanded by Sextus, Titus and Mamilius. The Romans formed up similarly, but were outnumbered: the Romans had about 23,000 infantry and 1000 horse, while the Latins had 40,000 infantry and 3000 horse.
The battle opened with a Roman attack against the Latin center, led by the best horsemen under the Dictator. In the fighting, Titus was greviously wounded with a javelin, and retired from the field. This caused the Latins in the center to start to give way, and they only stopped when troops from the flanks came in to give reinforcement. Mamillius’ Latin troops attacked, were driven back, stopped a Roman counter attack, then charged once more. Mamillius wounded the Roman commander on his flank, only to be slain in return just a little bit later. Over on the other flank, Sextus Tarquinius gave as good as he got, holding his own.
It was the action on Mamilius’ flank that got the ball rolling. The Latins launched a vicious counterattack, killing the Roman second in command, and then his replacement. These losses caused the Romans on this flank to flee, and Postimius had to dismount his best horsemen to go to that flank, and stop the Latin assault. While that happened, the other Roman flank began to give way, an Postimius had to lead a personal counterattack to stop them. This attack cracked Sextus’ men, and they fled. Postimus carried the counterattack into the flank of the Latin center, and then into the rest of the Latin army as it broke and fled. The route and pursuit nearly annihilated the Latin army- out of 43,000 men, fewer than 10,000 returned home, and Mamilius was not among them.
The Treaty of Cassius
The year after the Battle of Lake Regillus, Tarquin died in Cumae. Without him, or his sons, or Mamilius around to stoke up the Latins, the various cities of the League tried to repair their relationship with Rome. In 495, the Volsci tried to get the league to sign on for another war with the Romans. Rather than do so, the Latins decided to take the ambassadors prisoner and delivered them to the Romans, warning them of the coming attack so the Romans could defeat it. The next year, the various Latin towns gathered up some money, and offered a gold crown to the Romans to place in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
These steps cleared the way for a diplomatic approach by the Romans. In 493, Spurius Cassius Viscellinius, one of the consuls, called for a conference between the Romans and the other Latin towns. There, they hashed out a treaty. The Romans and the Latins would fight together in their wars, and help protect each other. They would divide up the booty amongst themselves in times of war. During wars, the Romans would take the leadership roles, since they provided the plurality of the troops. The Romans also had, overall, more say in how the alliance would work. They also agreed to not fight amongst themselves, and to settle disputes amongst their citizens according to an agreed process. In 486, the Hernici entered the alliance as well, strengthening it even more.
The treaty marked a major shift in Roman security in the rest of the 400s BC. The alliance of Rome, the Latins and the Hernici was just too much for any of the other tribes in Italy to overcome in any serious way without cooperating with each other- something they were not willing to do. That’s not to say that there weren’t wars for the rest of the 400s for the Romans- there were plenty, but they were not serious threats to the Roman state or their allies, so long as the Treaty held. Most of these wars came early in the Alliance history- the Fabian War against Veii, and the Volsci invasion led by the Roman defector, Coriolanus. However, neither group could muster near the force the Roman-Latin alliance could, and were easily defeated. There was low level war- raids and counter-raids- on the borders of Latin territory, but, for the next 100 years, Rome would not fight a significant battle.
That one, though, was a doozy.
