Livy wrote this history of early Rome in the late first century BC. This is Book 8 of that long work. Book 7 left a still-small Rome fighting its neighbors on the Italian plain, Gallic raids still in living memory, and the Samnite hills coming into view.

The Latin War decides who leads Italy. Rome's nearest kin, the Latin cities that shared language, gods, and often a battlefield, refuse to remain junior partners. Consul Torquatus — one of two officials elected to run Rome for a year — beheads his own son for fighting against orders. At the Veseris, Decius Mus rides into the enemy line as a living sacrifice, offering his life to the gods for the army. Campania, the rich land around Naples, is the prize: grain, ports, and the road south. The old Latin League is broken into graded citizenships and unequal alliances. Private glory yields to public law, and Italy starts to look like a hierarchy with one city at the head.