have them enclosed between two foes—herself and Latium on the north and west, and the Apulians and Greeks in the south and east. It seemed as if her power and prestige must continually go forward, or collapse altogether; the same alternative that faced the English in India in the eighteenth century and later. In neither case did the advancing power fully realise what the future was to be. The inevitable struggle with the Samnites came, and lasted many years. We need not pursue it in detail, and indeed the details are quite untrustworthy as they have come down to us; but one episode in it is told so explicitly and has become so famous, that it deserves a place in our sketch as showing that hard feeling of national self-interest, without a touch of chivalry, that is gradually emerging as the guide of Roman action in her progress towards universal dominion. A strong Roman army, under the command of both consuls, was pushing to the south through the mountains, and fell into a trap in a defile called the Caudine Forks,[3] a name never forgotten by the Romans. All attempts to escape were vain, and they were forced to capitulate. The terms dictated by Pontius the Samnite general were these: the consuls were to bind themselves on behalf of the Senate to agree to evacuate Samnium and Campania and the fortresses (_coloniæ_) which had been planted there, and to make peace with the Samnites as with an equal power. The consuls bound themselves by a solemn rite, and the army was allowed to go home, after being sent under the yoke, _i.e._ under a kind of archway consisting of one spear resting on two upright ones: this was an old Italian custom of dealing with a conquered army, which may have originally had a religious signification. When the disgraced legions reached Rome, and the consuls summoned the Senate to ratify their bond with Pontius, the Fathers, as they were called, positively refused to do so. The consuls and all who had made themselves responsible for the terms were sent back to Pontius as his prisoners, _but not the army_. His indignation was great, for he knew that Samnium had lost her chance, and would never have it again. The consuls, of course, had no power to bind the Senate, and the Samnite terms were such as the Senate could not accept as the result of a single disaster caused by a general’s blunder: that was not the way in which the Romans carried on war. But the disgraced army should have been sent back too, and the Senate and people knew it. The speech which the later Roman historian puts into the mouth of Pontius to express his indignation, shows that some feeling of shame at this dishonourable action had come down in the minds of many generations.