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CAUDIUM

Volume 4 · 88 words · 1797 Edition

(anc. geog.), a town of Samnium, on the Via Appia, between Calatia and Beneventum: Caudinus, the epithet. The Caudinae Furcae, or Furculae, were memorable by the disgrace of the Romans; being spears disposed in the form of a gallows under which prisoners of war were made to pass, and gave name to a defile or narrow pass near Caudium, Livy; where the Samnites obliged the Roman army and the two consuls to lay down their arms and pass under the gallows, or yoke, as a token of submission.