The Path to the First Punic War

A History of Mankind (152)

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In the Third Samnite War, what had started as an uprising against Rome evolved into an interlocking set of anti-Roman alliances and a link-up between Samnite, Gaul and Etruscan rebels, including help from Umbria.

A Roman victory in Etruria in 296 BC against a combined enemy army relieved some of the pressure; that year, Caecus dedicated the first temple to Bellona, the Roman goddess of war and one that likely gained prominence over the previous century, in the Campus Martius just outside the city¹.

However, Samnite raids in Campania became evidence that the war was far from over: the next year, the largest Roman army ever assembled – with some 40,000 men, perhaps half of them Roman allies, led by the city’s best military commanders, Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius Mus – faced a similarly-sized Samnite-Gaul army near Sentinum in Umbria.