Sentinum 295 BC - Roman-Samnite Wars DOCUMENTARY 

Fun fact: the Second Samnite War began the same year Alexander's troops refused to conquer any further, and he turned around to begin the march back.

Me: *Im bored* Kings&Generals notification: *"No you are not!"*

"LEEEROY JENKINS!" - Publius Decius Mus, 295 BC

When your great-grandson is so famous that your name isnt even mentioned.

Honestly this self-sacrifice tradition is amazing. When other Generals screw up in a battle they leave their troops to die and limb back home only to blame it on anything other then themselves. But my boy Decius not only takes full responsibility, but even turns the battle back in the Romans favor. What a man.

Publius Decius Mus: "WITNESS ME!" His men: "WITNESSED!!"

1 guy:dies A whole entire Army:Rush B

Decius' devotio alone warrants a movie about this period.

"The Romans are a nation who know not how to remain quiet under defeat." Whether Livy's account of this quote is completely true or not (it probably isn't), it's certainly a good one. Hannibal ought to have learned the lesson. :^)

"...men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge." -Machiavelli

"The Romans are a nation who know not how to remain quiet under defeat. Whatever disgrace this present extremity burns into their souls will rankle there forever, and will allow them no rest until they have made you pay for it many times over" Wow Herennius was a man who possessed wisdom before his time.

Clearly at 3:06 the breaking of the alliance and not having a causus belli before declaring war caused Rome to suffer a 50% penalty hit to their stability which led to the rioting.

Options: 1. Let the romans go and forge an alliance 2.Destroy the Romans and end the war Samnites: Humiliate the Romans and get conquered by them

I come from Italy, in particular from a small town founded by The Pentri tribe. Despite my ancestors were conquered by the Roman republic, we are very proud of the victory in the Forche Caudine battle anyway. Nowadays our children still study it at school.

I hope you talked with your hands when you mentioned the Italic Tribe names, OfficiallyDevin.

This is one conflict that general history textbooks in high school cover in one sentence. Even though this basically is the most important conflict in Roman history.

Love the strategic and tactical detail. Fascinating!

Dies in the same way as father to secure family honour: *Eats himself to death*

Its amazing what boosting morale can do for a battle. The Romans seemed to be losing decisively and were under threat of being surrounded and one man suicides into the enemy saying my blood for theirs and the Romans believed it. The power of will when you truly believe something is more powerful then an army.

Time to adapt to mountain warfare. Lesson #1: Its always an ambush

“The gates of Janus remained open” sends chills down my spine every time 🤘

I find the pre-roman times fascinating. So many of thoses group had such different traditions and ways of thinking, I really wonder how history would have changed if any other rose to proeminence instead of the Romans

Here in Italy we still use the battle of the Caudine forks to simbolise a tremendous defeat/humiliation

Anytime I watch these videos it makes me want to play Total War

One the motives that I think Rome is so unique between other empires is because they lost or even were humiliated many times but never gaveup. They learned from the mistakes and aways incorpored what go right and discard what go wrong

18:44 Most Underrated Epic Bad-ass speech in antiquity

Tiny Roman Republic fielding an army equal to that of Medieval France in the 13th century be like

Damn, you guys PUMPIN' out high quality documentaries for us plebians! Thanks man. Really appreciated.

I could watch videos on ancient Rome all day and all night. But a video on the rise of the Borgia and Cesare or Somerled and the Kingdom of the Isles would be a welcome addition to the library...

I always hire Samnite mercenaries in my Rome Total War game, thanks Kings 👍

Imagine waking up and seeing a kurzgesagt video, finishing it, and then immediately seeing a kings and generals video, it is a good sunday today

This was a very good clear explanation of Romes earlier military wars that led to Rome becoming one if not the most important civilization of all time!

Can you do a video about the various populations and cultures of Italian peninsula during this period?

7:06 The Samnites won because they had the high ground.

I've never known of Decius' prophetic sacrifice in this battle, it is truly inspiring. I cannot thank you enough for this great content!

Man, Decius sounds like one hell of a badass.

this channel is seriously a gift to humanity

That sounds like Roman rhetoric: The young and rash council shall fall where the older and cautious will save the day.

I love the Samnites. they were strong and had balls

Finally Roman Samnite Wars. Thank you kings and generals, ❤️❤️

That was a Leeroy Jenkins moment in the last battle with the Samnites, a great sacrifice of the Roman general in leading his men to victory.

This was a brilliant video. After having read the book SPQR -which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Roman history- and the great contextualization of the birth of the Roman empire, the narrative, music and animations were outstanding. A truly remarkable work, good job Kings and Generals.

Give your loved ones the gift of Roman swag: The loved ones, in this case, may be you, thou and yourself :-)

One of your best videos yet, this was excellent, thanks for posting!

Imagine how the world would have turned out had one of Latin's Italic sister language state prevailed. How would the Oscan or Umbrian speaking nations dictate history with their tribal based politics?

You guys provide some of the best content on RU-vid. Keep up the work!

Gallic warriors: haha I killed your commander now you should route Romans: you underestimate my power

I love the Early Roman Republic series! Keep em coming brother!

9:00 to be honest the Samnites were actually very modern for sparing the romans can’t amazing many other situations in which ancient armies would just let their enemy surrender with the army intact.

Just in time. Thank you guys for the top notch quality and hard work, you’re really awesome!

Your julius caesar in gual and Britannia video is 1 of the 3 videos that got me into history over a year now and now I'm addicted to history thank you I love your channel keep it up.👍👍👍

You guys have the best and most consistent sponsor-to-content appropriateness I have ever seen. And you guys have **great** content too.

Pontius was one of those who knows how to win a battle but not a war

i cannot get over how good these videos are

its just great when you see the ad and the free-to-play ends in 3 minutes, great deal this is.

Well put together as always, love the artworks

My boys! Always refuse to accept the defeat and defend themselves with iron, not gold. Like true Romans should!

Interesting to see the relative huge timeline of these events, where so "little" happend. Meanwhile at the same time in greece and asia Alexander the Great was born, conquered Asia, died and the fourth diadoch war concluded. Just food for thought.

I love your guys channel! Full of good historical info and entertaining visuals to go along with the info.

Im addicted to this channel.... Keep it going.... Excellent job!!!

Kings and generals and Cold war have made my trendmill workout! Thanks!

Amazing, Amazing, amazing stuff! Love everything you are doing - the animation and maps/battle CG really bring the history to life. Thank you so much. Of course I now want one of your videos for every event (especially the Ancient World [Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt and all the other little known civilizations like Amorites, Gutians, etc) in history but to stay on topic for Rome 1) can you order the Roman History Playlist so that it is in chronological order so easier to move through the history systematically (can you also do this for all your playlists?) 2) you must be crazy busy but can you start to fill in some of the Roman History gaps - I do no think I saw the Punic Wars, pre-Caesar wars with the Gauls, Jugurthine War etc. 3) can you eventually do a video for each Roman emperor detailing their reign? Keep up the good fight!

Gee this videos are like movies! Thank you man, I really appreciate them. Very very nice job.

Thank you for this great work

I’ve been waiting a long time for this! 🥳

Feudal Japan: Samurai banzai charges. Decius 1600 years earlier: Am I a joke to you?

Honestly only here because of a video game called Expeditions: Rome, but man has it gotten me enthralled in Roman history! Watched all of Historia Civillis' videos on Rome and now I found a channel that may be even better. Cheers to history! May our ancestors and ancient human predecessors live on in our stories!

I been waiting for this for so long 🙏🏼🙌🏼🙏🏼

9:16 when you pick Quality and offensive ideas at the same time

Your maps and animations are always a pleasure to watch...and Roman/Samnite wars is a fascinating subject!👍

Good content very nice

This battle was such a grind!

Fun fact 10 km south of my city there is a small town called SAN MARTINO SULLA MARRUCCINA, so called for the Marruccina state road that passes nearby which takes its name from the ancient people of the Marruccini who lived in those lands, as is see on the map. Furthermore, in the 3rd Macedonian war between Rome and the Macedonian king Perseus, the final batlle battle of Caterini began thanks to a cohort of Marrucini who had been sent to fetch water from the river and had met with the Macedonians, yes the marrucini of the cohort, they came from the lands of my ancestors. This episode is reported in the book: THE GREAT BATTLES OF ANCIENT ROME written by Andrea Frediani, page 171. P.S. great video.

Finally, a video on the Samnite Wars

Very nice documentary!

Please more of samnite series!!

Loved the video as always. Personally, I would love to see more videos on the age of Charlemagne (a criminally unexplored time period) and things relating to the earlier French revolutionary wars, such as the battle of Valmy.

Awesome video!!

13:17 36,000 troups in 295 BC, yet armies hardly reached 10,000 in the middle ages. Always mind blowing to me.

Thx for the video as always.

8:00 and how right he was, the samnites wounded a beast that they couldn't kill

I play at the moment Total War Rome 2 Rise of the Republic, the Samnite Faction, this is awsome

what an awesome episode. always enjoy these high quality videos. well done.

The best Sunday is a Kings and Generals Sunday!!!

Unsurprisingly, another amazing video

This video is probably the most motivating content so far driving me to start Imperator. Lol Pretty sure I am not the only one, Paradox owe u one 😜

Well done. Good to see the old style return. .

Great video, a powerhouse was born! thanks K&G's

Well done thanks for this.

The samnite wars are my favorite

Superb video presentation and content. I love this channel! Keep it up.

Never seen the early stages of the republic examined in such detail and subsequent domination of Italy. Iv always been curious about how the Italian tribes were dealt with. Thanks for the lesson. See you on the next one

Another great video.

Always after listening on any of the documentaries I get urge to play a game in this time period, most likely will I play Rome 2 total war rise of the republic or I will play imperator Rome with the new good update.

Great video.

Love it, thanks for sharing! :)

This just goes to show how long a history the Romans had. 290BC, and they stand the masters of Italy, ready to expand abroad. But they have STILL not left Italy's borders. From the founding of the Republic, to that year is approximately 220 years. From the perspective of the United States, that's the year 1996. A slow, patient, and methodical advancement. No wonder their neighbors were terrified. They just know it was beyond the horizon. At some point, Rome was coming. "Soon."

Beautiful.

I'd really like to get a sense of Roman soldier's collective and personal discipline during battle. One does gets a strong impression that even under command of the very best tactical general/tyrant/Caesar/Emperor - whatever Julius Caesar's actual title at any given time period was, Roman soldiers could be, and were prone to outright disobeying direct orders, and not only in the midst of a vicious hard fought battle stretching out over multiple hours often times in smoldering heat where one side breaks and just cannot sustain it and they rout! Rather, there's more than a couple of examples when Caesar's own precious 10th disobey direct orders such as the battle of Pharsalus where Caesar finally coaxed Pompey out to form up , or, rather, Pompey's underling senators and young gun generals relentlessly "coaxed" insulted and mocked ( I suspect ) Pompey out in a head to head winner takes all battle he knew the army he had was not prepared for which is underscored by the actual scene across the battlefield and into Pompey's camp as the 10th witnessed confusion among ranks, seeing large groups of men, and war animals milling around between the camp and the rear guard. Caesar also, obviously saw what was happening, and yet he was seen to be taking a cautious approach, as this was for all the scalps, and Pompey was not to be taken lightly, and Caesar very nearly became trapped within the boundaries of his own trap after uncharacteristically bit into hook, line, and stinker believing rumors of certain legions who were ready to switch sides from Pompey's Legions into hos own. Caesar barely made it out with his skull still firmly attached to his body! That must have made some of his Legions a wee bit weary, "could the rumors be true? Could Caesar be human after all"!!?? The 10th were horny AKA "randy" to get in and start slicing and a dicing!! Caesar wanted a measured steady approach, he wanted to read the battle field and get a sense of Pompey's strategy, then the horns began blasting without Caesar's signal!! It was a general from the 10th and they were off like a Jewish foreskin! Another general would have been enraged, or would have lost sense of the field and mass confusion would have assured sound defeat! But Caesar was even able to use this spur of the moment, unpredictable turn of events to his advantage and he dug in the spurs, raised his Gladius Heavenward and charged into Pompey's terrified green ranks!! Pompey found his way back to his camp and a messenger came in with disturbing news of Caesar's men inside the camp!! Pompey "in the very camp"!!? Then Pompey bravely ran away al la "Sir Robin" Caesar's forces were outnumbered as USUAL! Caesar was being, in my humble, pleb level opinion, uncharacteristically cautious and I believe the facts Caesar was out numbered had very little to do with his main concern, which was A) Knowing Pompey was every bit the tactical general he himself was, and B) Caesar came a hair's width away from being outdueled by Pompey at Dyrrachium after history's witness (us) viewed this historical battle via written eye witness accounts. That battle had all the classic mega engineering porn I've come to expect and love about Caesar!! He may not have invented circumvallation, but he made it part and parcel of his war strategies and tactics!! I don't thin k I'm off the chart when I say Caesar's soldiers across the status board would have been the most physically powerful, and supremely knowledgeable as far as weapons, tactics, and battlefield, as well as social engineering skills. What I mean but that last bit is any one of Caesar's trained soldiers understood the importance of having, maintaining and guarding fresh water supplies from the land for military and civilian use. They would be equally educated in the fine art of screwing with your advocate's/enemy's water supplies. There are multiple historical accounts where Caesar's men would divert fair sized rivers away from "undesirables" !! Caesar's men were very well capable of marching for prolonged stretches very quickly and surprising the literal life out of the "bad guys"!! When I read accounts, for example, let's take Gaul. We read about The Helvetii taking numerous days to cross the Arar River using numerous rafts and boats, when Caesar arrived he was able to take out a large group of stranded Helvetii while their brothers at arms watched helplessly across the river. Where it took the Helvetii 20 days to cross the river, Caesar's men built a bridge and were able to cross in one day!! This is an element of Caesar's tactical, and logistical genius which although not unheard of at the time, Caesar's armies/Legions always seemed to be able to address obstacles which appeared insurmountable, even "impossible" and to overcome where other armies just weren't up to the challenge which meant certain, unpleasant death in that board game! Well, I guess I circumvallated my original thought!! I'd really like to see an explanation as to the discipline of soldiers of the era, and specifically within Caesar's own Legions. So, before I went off on a wild weasel tangent, I started to describe an example of Caesars own pet 10th at the final showdown battle between himself and Pompey when a horn blast came forward from the ranks of the 10th and it was on!! How often did these sort of breaches of command happen back in the day? What kind of picture can you provide of the command structures in relation to chain of command and following orders? Was this act by Caesar's pet 10th the exception? Had it been from the 4th would heads have rolled, would there be decimation? Apologies for the lengthy comment, I get rather long in the pie hole where Caesar is concerned, I just love history in general, and I greatly admire Caesar. Thank you for all these awesome, accurate and entertaining videos I really appreciate them, as a disabled manly ladies' man more or less trapped at home or in hospital for lengthy stretches, I don't know what I would do without these fantastic videos, so thank you very very much Kings & Generals!! Jack ~'()'~ Canada

Great video guys, keep it up! I would love to see more about how and when the Greeks made colonies in Italy. Cheers!