The Samnites and the Alternative to Rome

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We tend to think of Rome's rise to power in Italy as inevitable, but it was far from guaranteed. Their most fearsome enemies within the Italian peninsula were the Samnites, hill-people from the mountainous central regions. But what made the Samnites so formidable, and how were they able to hold out for so long? The answer lies in the fact that they offered a genuine alternative to the Roman way of doing things.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to Tides of History early and ad free right now.
0:04.4	Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. The track through the Apennine Mountains couldn't have been called a road,
0:21.0	at least not by anybody who had ever been acquainted with the real thing
0:25.2	it was more of a winding shepherd's path beaten into the dirt and scree of the hillsides following the
0:30.7	curve of the landscape as it moved upward through the trees and brushed
0:33.7	toward the next line of ridges. The dozen soldiers cursed as their shoes slid along the
0:38.9	loose surface. They were all nursing cuts and bruises from their numerous slips.
0:44.0	Several had turned an ankle and one was certain he'd broken his wrist in a particularly nasty fall.
0:49.0	Their iron-tipped javelins and rectangular shields felt heavy in their hands.
0:54.4	The swords and daggers sheathed in their belts threatened to pull them to the ground.
0:58.4	At least in theory, they were looking for Samnites, enemies of their city, Rome. The mountains were supposed to be thick with them, but they'd
1:05.7	barely seen a sign of their foes since they started the climb from the broad plains of Campania.
1:10.0	There were just shepherds and their flocks grazing and stubbled pastures,
1:14.2	occasional farmsteads and clusters of a few houses, and high up on promontories and
1:19.6	hilltops walled enclosures looking down on them.
1:23.0	Why were they even here?
1:24.0	thought the young soldier leading the group.
1:26.0	He hadn't seen anything worth looting yet.
1:29.0	For that matter, he hadn't even seen a Sam Knight.
1:32.0	Danger was everywhere in this country, the older soldiers had told him the ones who had been here
1:36.2	time and again over the last 20 years.
1:39.0	Ambushes, rock slides, villagers who would welcome you one moment and then stab you in the back the next, all of them
	...

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