Latin caput, capitis means head. The captain is the head of any group; the capital is the ‘head city’ of a state or nation; and to decapitate is to chop off someone’s head, a popular activity during the French Revolution after the guillotine was invented.
Latin capitulum is a little head, or, by extension, the heading, or title, of a chapter. So when you recapitulate, you go through the chapter heading again (re-), etymologically speaking, or you summarize or review the main points.
When you capitulate, etymologically you arrange in headings, or, as the meaning of the verb naturally evolved, you arrange conditions of surrender, as when an army capitulates to the enemy forces under prearranged conditions; or, by further natural extension, you stop resisting and give up, as in, ‘He realized there was no longer any point in resisting her advances, so he reluctantly capitulated’.
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