The Samnites were then in the fulness of their strength: in extent of territory, and of population too, they were certainly far superior to Rome and her allies. Their tribes extended from the Lower sea, where they separated Campania from Lucania, right up to the Upper: towards the Liris, in the mountains of Lucania, and down upon the plains of Apulia, their territories embraced far more than the space, which bears the name of Samnium upon the maps: but the Campanians and Lucanians had become estranged from the mother people. Samnium itself however was not a single state, but a confederacy of different and independent countries, which were consequently jealous of their allies in maintaining their own independence. One of them, the Pentrians, took no part in one campaign in the midst of the war against the Romans: a part of the Samnites received the Roman municipium: namely, the Caudines, of whom Sp. Postumius was a municeps. According to all appearance there were four of these Samnite tribes, in accordance with the regulative number of the Sabellians, like that of the Marsian confederacy: the Caudines, Hirpinians, Pentrians, and Frentanians: the latter of whom had certainly not become separated from them yet, as they are at that time expressly reckoned among the Samnites by foreiners. The southern country from Surrentum to the Silarus may have contained none but allied or subject places, and not have formed a part of the confederacy.