οἱ δ᾽ εἰσελθόντες χρόνον μέν τινα διετήρουν τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὴν ἑαυτῶν πίστιν …
… διορθοῦσθαι παρὰ τοῖς συμμάχοις τὴν αὑτῶν πίστιν. (Polybius 1.7.6 and 10)
The very first episode actually narrated in Polybius’ Histories doesn’t really let the Romans come off that well. The garrison they sent to Rhegium seizes the city for themselves rather than protecting it. This episode is set by Polybius in the back drop of the Pyrrhic War and he says after the war, as soon as they could, the Romans laid siege to the town and punished mercilessly their own garrison. The episode begins and ends with references to pistis (= fides = [good] faith). Now, Polybius is probably hazy on the details. See Walbank’s commentary (follow link above) for the nitty gritty details, but key points therefrom include:
” Dion. Hal. xx. 4 records that the garrison was against Bruttians, Lucanians, and Tarentines, and was sent in the consulship of C. Fabricius (282).”
“The Roman reduction of Rhegium (cf. 6. 8) is in 270; Dionysius (xx. 16) and Orosius (iv. 3. 3–6) attribute it to the consul C. Genucius, but his colleague Cn. Cornelius Blasio triumphed de Regineis (act. tr.).”
So 12 years is an awful long time to leave this rogue garrison hanging out in S. Italy… I also find the triumphal fasti entry interesting. We usually talk about funny business with the triumph in the civil wars and allied rebellions of the Late Republic but this appears to be a really early case of a Roman claiming to have defeated a foreign enemy when fighting other Roman, or former Roman, soldiers. And of course it made me think about this coin and its broadly Pyrrhic context and Locri’s status as a neighbor of Rhegium. The whole episode was quite an object lesson for the Locrians…:
Liv Mariah Yarrow 