It was moreover owing to the awkwardness and inefficiency of the Samnite government, that the Samnites were not prepared when the war was declared, and that they conducted their preparations so slowly, that neither was any attempt made to relieve Neapolis, nor were the Romans stopt by an army in the taking of Allifæ and other places, when they entered Samnium across the Vulturnus from the Volscian frontier. This expedition belongs to the earlier months of the year 423 (428): the taking of Palæpolis to the first months of the year 424 (429).

That the army which blockaded the two Greek towns, might not be left without a commander, since the comitia had been protracted for two months without producing any result in consequence of the renewed obstinacy of the patricians, proconsular power was given to Q. Publilius Philo by an ordinance of the senate and a plebiscitum, in order to bring the war against the Greeks to a close. This power conferred the auspices and the full imperium of a consul, and not merely the supreme command of an army and the right as general to reward and punish, but jurisdiction also. But as the power of the tribunes only extended a mile beyond the city, so on the other hand the city and this its immediate vicinity were exempted from the proconsular power, which was conferred without the auspices by a mere decree of the two governing powers, and not by the lawful comitia for election.