The Roman armies have been so successful…

The Roman armies have been so successful in the first years of the Second, or Great, Samnite War, that the Samnites sue for peace in 321 BCE, but the terms offered are so stringent that they are rejected and the war continues.

The Samnites are more comfortable fighting in mountainous terrain their Roman opponents.

In the same year, Romes’s two consuls, leading an invading force into Samnium, are trapped in a narrow mountain pass known as the Caudine Forks, near present Benevento, Campania, where they can neither advance nor retreat, and after a desperate struggle would have been annihilated if they had not submitted to the humiliating terms imposed by the Samnite victor Gaius Pontius.

In a major humiliation for the proud northerners, the troops are disarmed and compelled to pass 'under the yoke', man by man, as a foe vanquished and disgraced.

This ancient ritual is a form of subjugation by which the defeated have to bow and pass under a yoke used for oxen.

(In this case, it is a yoke made from Roman spears, as it is understood to be the greatest indignity to the Roman soldier to lose his spear).

Six hundred Equites have to be handed over as hostages.

Meanwhile, the captive consuls pledge themselves to a five-year treaty on the most favorable terms for the Samnites.

( Later Roman historians, however, will try to deny this humiliation by inventing stories of Rome's rejection of the peace and its revenge upon the Samnites.)