Incidents of War - Gaius Pontius' Dilemma

Although Romans fought many enemies during their long history, a good case can be made that no people came closer to defeating them than did the Samnites, nor resisted longer, from the first known clash between the two peoples in 343 B.C. to the last, in 80 B.C.; at least 29 Roman generals celebrated triumphs for victories over the Samnites, more than those earned fighting any other enemy.

Perhaps Rome came closest to defeat during the Second or "Great" Samnite War (326-304 B.C.).  In 321 B.C. the entire Roman Army fell into a trap at a mountain pass known as the Caudine Forks and was forced to surrender.   

The Samnite commander at the Caudine Forks was Gaius Pontius.  Having captured the entire Roman Army, including both consuls, he couldn't figure out what to do with them. 

So he sent a courier to consult his father, Herennius Pontius.  And the old man told him to free the captives.  This didn't seem appropriate, so Gaius once again asked his father for advice.  This time Herennius said that the Romans should all be killed.

That still didn't satisfy Gaius, so he went in person to ask his father if there was a "middle way."  The old man explained that choosing a middle way might inflame the Romans even more without harming their fighting power.  A noble gesture, such as freeing the Romans without penalty might cause a reconciliation between the two peoples, or, deciding upon the equally dramatic gesture of slaughtering their entire army might injure Roman power for generations.   

Instead, Gaius decided to conduct a formal surrender ceremony, during which the Romans had to lay down their arms and then pass under the "yoke," an elaborate construct of spears that symbolized defeat.  Gaius then extracted a five years' truce from the Romans and freed them. 

Gaius' "middle way" so humiliated the Romans -- after all, only oxen are subject to the yoke -- that they burned for vengeance, and would ultimately exact it by repeated defeats of the Samnites until they almost literally exterminated their last army before the gates of Rome in 80 B.C.  By then, of course, Gaius Pontius was long dead, having been captured by the Romans late in the Great War and executed.

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