The Samnites were a people who inhabited central and southern Italy, and had fought several wars against the Roman Republic before being subjugated in the third century BC. Pontius Telesinus claimed descent from Gaius Pontius, the Samnite leader who had humiliated the Romans at the Caudine Forks in 321 BC. The surname () "Telesinus" indicates an origin in Telesia. Several Roman sources list Pontius as one of the leaders of the Samnites during the Social War against Rome in 91 BC, holding the rank of "praetor", but no specific actions of his in the main part of the conflict are known. The rebellion collapsed by 88 BC, but Telesinus appears to have led the remnants of the Italian resistance to Rome in Lucania and Bruttium. In late 88 or early 87 BC, he and other remaining rebel leaders besieged Isiae in Bruttium and Rhegium on the strait of Messina, but were repelled by the Roman governor of Sicily, Gaius Norbanus. Nonetheless, they were able to make peace with Rome on favorable terms by siding with the Roman consul Cornelius Cinna in the civil war of 87 BC.