Livy, a Roman historian of the Augustan age, wrote this long History of Rome. Book 10 is the last surviving stretch of his early-Rome story, the climax of the wars for the Italian peninsula. In the book before this, Samnite highlanders trapped a Roman army in a mountain defile, sent it under the yoke in ritual disgrace, and Rome clawed its honor back in the oak woods while the Via Appia was driven toward Capua.

At Sentinum, in the Italian interior, the Samnites — mountain people of the south-center — join Gauls from the north, Etruscans of Tuscany, and Umbrians in one coalition meant to break Rome. Another Decius Mus repeats an ancestor’s self-sacrifice and goes down so the line will hold. Omens thicken first. Consuls — two officials elected to run Rome for a year — and dictators, emergency commanders, take turns. Fabius and his colleagues fight for the last independent highlands. By the close Rome is nearly master of Italy. Pyrrhus, a Greek king with elephants, is still over the horizon; the lost books that once followed would leap toward Hannibal. The Samnites remain as hard, free highlanders who almost held the mountains.