[Sidenote: B.C. 267 (_a.u._ 487)] Next they made a campaign into the district now called Calabria. Their excuse was that the people had harbored Pyrrhus and had been overrunning their allied territory, but as a fact they wanted to gain sole possession of Brundusium, since there was a fine harbor and for the traffic with Illyricum and Greece the town had an approach and landing-place of such a character that vessels would sometimes come to land and put out to sea wafted by the same wind. [Sidenote: B.C. 266 (_a.u._ 488)] They captured it and sent colonists to it and to other settlements as well. While the accomplishment of these exploits [Sidenote: FRAG. 42] RAISED THEM TO A HIGHER PLANE OF PROSPERITY, THEY SHOWED NO HAUGHTINESS: ON THE CONTRARY THEY SURRENDERED TO THE APOLLONIATIANS ON THE IONIAN GULF QUINTUS FABIUS, A SENATOR, BECAUSE HE HAD INSULTED THEIR AMBASSADORS. BUT THESE ON RECEIVING HIM SENT HIM BACK HOME AGAIN UNHARMED. [Sidenote: B.C. 265 (_a.u._ 489)] In the year of the consulship of Quintus Fabius and AEmilius they went on a campaign to the Volsinii to secure the freedom of the latter, for they were under treaty obligations to them. These people were originally a branch of the Etruscans, and they gathered power and erected an extremely strong rampart; they enjoyed also a government guided by good laws. For these reasons once, when they were involved in war with the Romans, they offered resistance for a very long time. When they had been subdued, they deteriorated into a state of effeminacy, left the management of the city to their servants and let those servants, as a rule, also carry on their campaigns. Finally they encouraged them to such an extent that the servants possessed both spirit and power, and thought they had a right to freedom. In the course of time their efforts to obtain it were crowned with success. After that they were accustomed to wed their mistresses, to inherit their masters, to be enrolled in the senate, to secure the offices, and to hold the entire authority themselves. Indeed, it was usual, when insults were offered them by their masters, for them to requite the authors of them with rather unbecoming speed. Hence the old-fashioned citizens, not being able to endure them and yet possessing no power of their own to repress them, despatched envoys by stealth to Rome. The envoys urged the senate to convene with secrecy at night in a private house, so that no report might get abroad, and they obtained their request. The meeting accordingly deliberated under the idea that no one was listening: but a sick Samnite, who was being entertained as a guest of the master of the house, kept his bed unnoticed, learned what was voted, and gave information to those against whom charges were preferred. The latter seized and tortured the envoys on their return; when they found out what was on foot they killed the messengers and also some of the foremost men.