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Volscian Wars


The Roman-Volscian wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Volsci, an ancient Italic people. Volscian migration into southern Latium led to conflict with that region's old inhabitants, the Latins under leadership of Rome, the region's dominant city-state. By the late 5th century BC, the Volsci were increasingly on the defensive and by the end of the Samnite Wars had been incorporated into the Roman Republic. The ancient historians devoted considerable space to Volscian wars in their accounts of the early Roman Republic, but the historical accuracy of much of this material has been questioned by modern historians.

According to Rome's early semi-legendary history, Rome's seventh and last king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the first to go to war against the Volsci, commencing two centuries of a relationship of conflict between the two states. Tarquinius took the wealthy town of Suessa Pometia, the spoils of which he used to construct the great Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. He celebrated a triumph for his victory.

During the 5th century BC the Volsci and the Aequi, a related people, invaded Latium, as part of a larger pattern of Sabellian-speaking peoples migrating out of the Apennines and into the plains. Several peripheral Latin communities appear to have been overrun. In response the Latins formed the Foedus Cassianum, a mutual military alliance between the Latin cities with Rome as the leading partner. The ancient sources record fighting against either the Aequi, the Volsci, or both almost every year during the first half of the 5th century BC. Famously the Roman nobleman Gaius Marcius Coriolanus is supposed to have gone over to the Volsci after being spurned by his countrymen. This annual warfare would have been dominated by raids and counter-raids rather than the pitched battles described by the ancient sources.


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