Note 141 — THE SECOND SAMNITE WAR.
Havilland Le Mesurier Chepmell translation
Herennius, as it seems, was on the whole considered as a model of wisdom among the Samnites. According to a passage in Cicero De Senectute, he occurs as a speaking personage together with Archytas in a philosophical dialogue of a Pythagorean: a remarkable proof how intimately those Italiote towns were connected with the Sabellian peoples, and how far they were from looking upon them as barbarians. They had a great contempt for the Ὀπικοί, and may therefore have made a broad distinction between them and the Samnites. This intercourse with the Greeks accounts for Numa, the fountain head of Sabellian wisdom, having been imagined to have been a Pythagorean. This is a truly Sabine tradition. They went so far in their friendly connection, that the Greeks affected to consider the Samnites as a Spartan colony.