The aggressive nature of Roman warfare commenced with Samnium. The Samnites were a warlike and pastoral people who inhabited the rugged mountain district between the valleys of the Vulturnus and the Calor, but they were nevertheless barbarians, and the contest between them and the Romans was for the sovereignty of Italy. I need not mention the alleged causes, or the details of a sanguinary war. The alleged causes were not the true ones, and the details are complicated and obscure. We deal with results. The war began B.C. 326, and lasted, with short intervals of peace, thirty-six years. The Roman heroes were M. Valerius Corvus, L. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius Maximus, and P. Decius the younger. All of these were great generals, and were consuls or dictators. As in all great contests, lasting a whole generation, there was alternate victory and defeat, disgraced by treachery and bad faith. The Romans fought, assisted by Latins, Campanians, and Apulians. The Samnites defended themselves in their mountain fastnesses with inflexible obstinacy, and obtained no assistance from allies until nearly worn out, when Umbrians, Etrurians, and Senonian Gauls came to the rescue. About sixty thousand men fought on each side. The battle of Sentinum determined the fate of Samnium and Italy, gained by Fabius and Decius, and the Samnites laid down their arms and yielded to their rivals. Their brave general, Pontius, was beheaded in the prison under the capitol,--an act of inhumanity which sullied the laurels of Fabius. The Roman power is now established over central and lower Italy, and with the exception of a few Greek cities on the coast, Latium, Campania, Apulia, and Samnium are added to the territories of the republic. [Sidenote: Works of Appius Claudius.] In the mean time the political inequality between Patricians and Plebeians had been removed, and a plebeian nobility had grown up, created by success in war and domestic factions. The great man in civil history, during this war, was Appius Claudius the Censor, a proud and inflexible Patrician. His, great works were the Appian road and aqueduct. The road led to Capua through the Pontine marshes one hundred and twenty miles, and was paved with blocks of basalt; the aqueduct passed under ground, and was the first of those vast works which supplied the city with water. About ten years elapsed between the conquest of the Samnites and the landing of Pyrrhus in Italy, B.C. 280, during which the Romans were brought in contact with Magna Grecia and Syracuse. [Sidenote: Tarentum invokes the aid of Phyrrus.]