Forsythe also notes that Barbatus’ campaign in Etruria could be explained in three ways: 1) it could be fictive; 2) Barbatus could have campaigned in both Samnium and Etruria; 3) Barbatus participated in the campaigns linked to the front which led to the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BC, and that this may have included operations in Etruria in that year, but it might have been attributed by later historians to his consulship in 298 BC. As for the claim that Barbatus subdued all of Lucania, Forsythe suggests that this is "perhaps part truth and part a Roman aristocratic exaggeration." Oakley also points to two more problems with the sources. In Livy's account, Bovianum, the capital of the Pentri, the largest of the four Samnite tribes, was captured in the first year of the war, which seems unlikely. Frontinus records three stratagems employed by one "Fulvius Nobilior" while fighting against the Samnites in Lucania. The cognomen Nobilior is not otherwise recorded before 255 BC, forty-five years after the end of the Samnite Wars. A plausible explanation is therefore that Nobilior is a mistake and the stratagems should be attributed to the consul of 298 BC. The elections of the consuls for 297 BC took place amid rumours that the Etruscans and the Samnites were raising huge armies. The Romans turned to Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, Rome's most experienced military commander, who was not a candidate for election and refused the proposal. He then relented on condition that Publius Decius Mus, who had been consul with him in 308 BC, would be elected as his colleague. It is impossible to establish whether Livy had any evidence for the existence of these rumours, or if they are just conjecture by him or his sources. Livy is the only source for the events of 297 BC. He wrote that envoys from Sutrium, Nepete (Romans colonies) and Falerii in southern Etruria arrived in Rome with news that the Etruscan city-states were discussing suing for peace. This freed both consuls, who marched on Samnium, Quintus Fabius by way of Sora and Publius Decius through the land of the Sidicini. A Samnite army had prepared to confront them in a valley near Tifernum, but it was defeated by Quintus Fabius.