[2] The Latins did not have any central government, but were divided into a number of self-governing towns and cities with a shared language, culture and some legal and religious institutions.

[3] In the 5th century BC, these city-states had formed a mutual military alliance, the Foedus Cassianum, primarily to resist the raids and invasions of two neighbouring peoples, the Aequi and the Volsci.

Unable to resist, the Sidicini appealed to the Campanians, who were led by the famously wealthy city-state of Capua, but these were also defeated and the Samnites invaded Campania.

At this point the Campanians decided to surrender themselves unconditionally into the power of Rome, following which the Romans felt compelled to intervene to protect their new subjects against Samnite attacks.

The Roman senate gave an ambiguous reply, being both unwilling to acknowledge that they could no longer control the Latins and afraid of alienating them further by ordering them to stop their attacks on the Samnites.

[21] The annually elected consuls were the chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and responsible for commanding Rome's armies in times of war.

Modern historians have not put much credence in these events supposed to have taken place following the end of the First Samnite War, believing them to be largely invented.

[25] As there could be no doubt what the real reasons for summoning these men to Rome were, the Latins held a council meeting to decide what their leaders should reply to the questions they expected the Romans to ask.

In a speech to the senate, Annius presented the demands of the Latins to which he received a furious reply from the consul, T. Manlius Torquatus.

[28] Livy writes that, according to tradition, while the senators were invoking the gods as guardians of their treaties with the Latins, Annius was heard dismissing the divine power of the Roman Jupiter.

[30] There is a general resemblance between the rhetoric of the speeches Livy has written for L. Annius and the complaints and demands made by Rome's Italian allies in the years before the Social War.

[33] Later, in his account of the Second Punic War, Livy mentions that some of his sources claimed that the Capuans, after the Battle of Cannae, had similarly sent an embassy and demanded to receive an equal share in the government of the Roman Republic.

[36] By the early 1st century BC, Rome had risen to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean and Roman citizenship was a highly desired favour.

In 340, Rome was still only a local power in Latium, but whose aggressiveness and recent expansion into Campania was an increasing threat to the independence of the smaller Latin communities who risked becoming entirely surrounded by Roman territory.

In this endeavour they were joined by the Volsci, who were in much the same situation as the Latins, and the Campani, Sidicini and Aurunci, three peoples who all risked being squeezed between the growing powers of Central Italy, Rome and the Samnites.