Fabius Maximus Rullianus and the capture of Gavius Pontius: Livy’s book 11 and the last years of the Third Samnite War

Abstract In 292 BC, Fabius Maximus Rullianus and his son Fabius Gurges led an army against the Samnites in one of the last battles of the Third Samnite War (298–290). According to Periochae 11 and Orosius’ History against the Pagans (7.22), the Fabii captured none other than Gavius Pontius himself, who, thirty years earlier, had humiliated Rome at the Caudine Forks. This article demonstrates the untenability of two modern claims against the episode’s historicity, namely, that the cooperation of the Fabii can be dismissed entirely as a literary duplicate, and that this account of Pontius’ capture is as problematic as the annalistic claim that Pontius was captured in 318. The article argues for the broad reliability of the events described. It then discusses the Fabian-Pontian clash within the context of the last years of the Third Samnite War and considers the campaign’s significance to Roman expansion in the late 290s.