in attempts at bribery than in the arts of negotiation. Upon his attempting by large offers of gold to win Fabricius, who had been intrusted by the Senate with an important embassy, the sturdy old Roman replied, "Poverty, with an honest name, is more to be desired than wealth."
After a second victory, as disastrous as his first, Pyrrhus crossed over into Sicily, to aid the Grecians there in their struggle with the Carthaginians. At first he was everywhere successful; but finally fortune turned against him, and he was glad to escape from the island. Recrossing the straits into Italy, he once more engaged the Romans, but at the battle of Beneventum suffered a disastrous and final defeat at the hands of the consul Curius Dentatus (274 B.C.). Leaving a sufficient force to garrison Tarentum, the baffled and disappointed king set sail for Epirus. He had scarcely embarked before Tarentum surrendered to the Romans (272 B.C.). This ended the struggles for the mastery of Italy. Rome was now mistress of all the peninsula south of the Arnus and the Rubicon. It was now her care to consolidate these possessions, and to fasten her hold upon them, by means of a perfect network of colonies [1] and military roads.
- ↑ "Colonies were not all of the same character. They must be distinguished into two classes—the colonies of Roman citizens and the Latin colonies. The colonies of Roman citizens consisted usually of three hundred men of approved military experience, who went forth with their families to occupy conquered cities of no great magnitude, but which were important as military positions, being usually on the sea-coast. These three hundred families formed a sort of patrician caste, while the old inhabitants sank into the condition formerly occupied by the plebeians at Rome. The heads of these families retained all their rights as Roman citizens, and might repair to Rome to vote in the popular assemblies."—Liddell's History of Rome.
The Latin colonies numbered about thirty at the time of the Second Punic War. A few of these were colonies that had been founded by the old Latin Confederacy; but the most were towns that had been established by Rome subsequent to the dissolution of the League (see p. 244). The term Latin was applied to these later colonies of purely Roman origin, for the reason that they enjoyed the same rights as the Latin towns that had retained their independence. Thus the inhabitants of a Latin colony possessed some of the most valuable of the private rights of Roman citizens, but they had no political rights at the capital.
