Quintus Poppaedius Silo received the news of Drusus’s death in a letter written by Cornelia II” Scipionis; it reached him in Marruvium not two days after the disaster, yet one more testament to the remarkable fortitude and presence of mind the mother of Drusus owned. Having promised her son she would tell Silo before he could learn the news in a roundabout way, she did not forget.
Silo wept, but without surprise or genuine shock. Afterward, he found himself lighter, full of new purpose; the time of waiting and wondering was over at last. With the death of Marcus Livius Drusus, any hope of peacefully attaining Italian enfranchisement had evaporated.
Off went letters to Gaius Papius Mutilus of the Samnites, Herius Asinius of the Marrucini, Publius Praesenteius of the Paeligni, Gaius Vidacilius of the Picentines, Gaius Pontidius of the Frentani, Titus Lafrenius of the Vestini, and whoever was currently leading the Hirpini, a nation famous for changing its praetors frequently. Only where to meet? All the Italian nations were acutely aware of the two Roman praetors trundling around the peninsula enquiring into “the Italian question,” and suspicious of any place having Roman or Latin status. Somewhere central to the majority and off the Roman track, yet on a good road—a Roman road, that is. The answer loomed in Silo’s mind almost immediately, rocky and forbidding, fortified with high walls, nestling in the lap of the central Apennines and with access to unfailing water. Corfinium on the Via Valeria and the river Aternus, a city of the Paeligni adjoining the lands of the Marrucini.
There in Corfinium they met only days after the death of Drusus, the leaders of eight Italian nations, and many of their followers—the Marsi, the Samnites, the Marrucini, the Vestini, the Paeligni, the Frentani, the Picentes, and the Hirpini. Excited and determined.
“It’s war,” said Mutilus in the council, almost the first words to be spoken. “It must be war, fellow Italians! Rome refuses to accord us the dignity and standing our deeds and our might have earned us. We will forge for ourselves an independent country having no truck with Rome or Romans, we will take back the Roman and Latin colonies founded within our borders, we will find our own destiny with our own men and our own money!”