to rise, and threatened the important Cales; even in Capua the party opposed to Rome was vigorously stirring.  A Samnite army advanced into Campania and encamped before the city, in the hope that its vicinity might place the national party in the ascendant (440).  But Sora was immediately attacked by the Romans and recaptured after the defeat of a Samnite relieving force (440).  The movements among the Ausonians were suppressed with cruel rigour ere the insurrection fairly broke out, and at the same time a special dictator was nominated to institute and decide political processes against the leaders of the Samnite party in Capua, so that the most illustrious of them died a voluntary death to escape from the Roman executioner (440).  The Samnite army before Capua was defeated and compelled to retreat from Campania; the Romans, following close at the heels of the enemy, crossed the Matese and encamped in the winter of 440 before Bovianum, the:  capital of Samnium.  Nola was abandoned by its allies; and the Romans had the sagacity to detach the town for ever from the Samnite party by a very favourable convention, similar to that concluded with Neapolis (441).  Fregellae, which after the catastrophe of Caudium had fallen into the hands of the party adverse to Rome and had been their chief stronghold in the district on the Liris, finally fell in the eighth year after its occupation by the Samnites (441); two hundred of the citizens, the chief members of the national party, were conveyed to Rome, and there openly beheaded in the Forum as an example and a warning to the patriots who were everywhere bestirring themselves.

New Fortresses in Apulia and Campania

Apulia and Campania were thus in the hands of the Romans.  In order finally to secure and permanently to command the conquered territory, several new fortresses were founded in it during the years 440-442:  Luceria in Apulia, to which on account of its isolated and exposed situation half a legion was sent as a permanent garrison; Pontiae (the Ponza islands) for the securing of the Campanian waters; Saticula on the Campano-Samnite frontier, as a bulwark against Samnium; and lastly Interamna (near Monte Cassino) and Suessa Aurunca (Sessa) on the road from Rome to Capua.  Garrisons moreover were sent to Caiatia (Cajazzo), Sora, and other stations of military importance.  The great military road from Rome to Capua, which with the necessary embankment for it across the Pomptine marshes the censor Appius Claudius caused to be constructed in 442, completed the securing of Campania.  The designs of the Romans were more and more fully developed; their object was the subjugation of Italy, which was enveloped more closely from year to year in a network of Roman fortresses and roads.  The Samnites were already on both sides surrounded by the Roman meshes; already the line from Rome to Luceria severed north and south Italy from each other, as the fortresses of Norba and Signia had formerly severed the Volsci and Aequi; and Rome now rested on the Arpani, as it formerly rested on the Hernici.  The Italians could not but see that the freedom of all of them was gone if Samnium succumbed, and that it was high time at length to hasten with all their might to the help of the brave mountain people which had now for fifteen years singly sustained the unequal struggle with the Romans.