INTRODUCTION invasion of Italy: and its THREE centuries before the birth of Caesar, while patri- Gallic cian was still struggling with plebeian, while both were still contending with rival peoples for supremacy, the battle of Gauls first encountered their destined conquerors. For the Allia a generation or more, the Celtic wanderers, whose kins- results. men had already overflowed Gaul, crossed the Pyrenees, and passed into Britain and into Ireland, had been pouring, in a resistless stream, down the passes of the Alps. They spread over Lombardy. They drove the Etruscans from their strongholds in the north. They crossed the Po, and pushed further and further southward into Etruria itself. At length they overthrew a Roman army 390 B. C. in the battle of the Allia, and marched unopposed through the Colline Gate. The story of the sack and burning of the city was noised throughout the civilized world; yet the disaster itself, though it was never forgotten, hardly affected the history of Rome. It probably tended to rivet the bonds of union between her and the other cities of Latium, and to strengthen her claim to supremacy in Italy. From time to time during the next century the Gauls returned to plunder: but their incursions were repelled; and the champion of Italian civilization was Rome. tribes assist the enemies of Rome. But the Roman dread of the Gauls long remained; Gallic and more than once Rome's enemies enlisted their ser vices against her. In the last Samnite war Samnites, Etruscans, and Gauls made a desperate effort to crush the rising power; and after this attempt had been frustrated, the Etruscans once again rose in revolt, and their Gallic mercenaries destroyed a Roman army under the walls of Arretium. It was not until the Senones had in 283 B. C. 295 B. C. 282 B. C. The way to the Po; their turn been defeated and expelled from Italy, and the Boi, who hastened to avenge them, had been crushed near the Lake of Vadimo, that the republic was finally released from the fear of Gallic invasion. Years passed away. Rome became mistress of the fight their peninsula, and determined to vindicate her natural right to the rich plain on her own side of the Alpine barrier. The Gauls offered a strenuous resistance, and even assumed the offensive. Reinforced by a swarm of freelances from the valley of the upper Rhône, they boldly crossed the Apennines and plundered Etruria. The Romans were taken by surprise: but in the great battle of Telamon they checked the invasion; and within two years they fought their way to the right bank of the Po. The Insubres on the northern side still held out: but before the outbreak of the second Punic war Mediolanum, or Milan, their chief stronghold, was captured; and the fortresses of Placentia and Cremona were founded. 225 B.C. 222 B.C. and con- 200 B. C. 199 B. C. 196 B.C. 191 B.C. But the work of conquest was only half completed when Hannibal descended into the plain, and the exasperated Gauls rallied round him. When Rome emerged, victorious, from her great struggle, they knew what was in store for them, and made a last attempt to win back their liberty. Placentia was sacked, and Cremona was invested. The Roman army which marched to its relief gained a victory, but was in its turn almost annihilated by the Insubres. The Gauls, however, could never long act together their countrymen beyond the Alps gave them no help the league of the northern tribes was rent by discord and treachery; and the Insubres and Cenomani were compelled to accept a peace, which allowed them indeed to retain their constitution, but forbade them to acquire the Roman citizenship. South of the Po the Boi strove frantically to hold their own: but in a series of battles their fighting men were wellnigh exterminated the Romans insisted upon the cession of half : : their territory; and on both sides of the river the survivors were gradually lost among Italian settlers. tion of the in Trans alpine Eastward and southward and westward the empire of Formathe Romans spread. They conquered Greece. They Roman conquered Carthage. They conquered Spain. But be- Province tween the central and the western peninsula they had no means of communication by land save what was afforded Gaul. by the Greek colony of Massilia. It was an entreaty [Marseilles.] from the Massiliots for protection that gave occasion to the wars which resulted in the formation of the Province of Transalpine Gaul; and the natural willingness of the Senate to support their most faithful allies was doubtless stimulated by the desire to secure possession of the indispensable strip of coast between the Alps and the Pyrenees, partly also perhaps by the idea of creating a Greater Italy for the growing Italian population. In 155 B. C. the Romans stepped forward as the champions of Massilia against the Ligurian tribes between the Maritime Alps and the Rhône. The highlanders who inhabited the mountains above the Riviera were crushed in a single campaign; after an interval of thirty years their western neighbours, the Salyes, were forced to submit; and their seaboard, like that of the other tribes, was given to the Massiliots. But the Romans had come to stay. The Aedui, who dwelt in the Nivernais and western Burgundy, calculated that the support of the republic would 123 B. C. help them to secure ascendancy over their rivals; and by a treaty, fraught with unforeseen issues, they were recognized as Friends and Allies of the Roman people. The Allobroges, on the other hand, whose home was between the Lake of Geneva, the Rhône, and the Isère, refused to surrender the king of the Salyes, who had claimed their protection; and Bituitus, King of the Arverni, with all 121 B.C. the hosts of his dependent tribes, marched to support them. Just twenty years before the birth of Caesar a great battle was fought at the confluence of the Rhône [Narbonne.] and the Isère.1 The Gauls were beaten; and the bridges over the Rhône broke down beneath the multitude of the fugitives. This victory was, in the strictest sense, decisive. The Romans were now masters of the lower Rhône; and if they were ever to penetrate into Further Gaul, their base could be advanced some hundreds of miles. The Arverni, whose power had extended to the Rhine and the Mediterranean, had received a blow from which they never recovered. The Province which was now formed stretched from the Maritime Alps to the Rhône; but the frontier was rapidly extended until it ran along the Cevennes and the river Tarn down into the centre of the Pyrenees. The Gallic tribes were obliged to pay tribute and to furnish troops; and, although, in accordance with Roman principles, they were permitted to retain their own forms of government, their subjection was assured by the construction of roads and fortresses. The heavy exactions of the conquerors provoked frequent insurrections; but year by year the Provincials became steadily Romanized. Roman nobles acquired estates in the Province, and sent their stewards to manage them. Roman merchants built warehouses and counting-houses in the towns; and the language and civilization of Rome began to take root. Narbo with its spacious harbour was not only a powerful military station, but in commerce the rival of Massilia. Nor was the activity of the Romans confined to the Province itself. Catamantaloedis, King of the Sequani, whose territory lay north of the Allobroges, received from the Senate the title of Friend; and the same honour was bestowed upon an Aquitanian noble and upon Ollovico, King of the Nitiobroges, who ruled the upper valley of the Garonne. These distinctions were doubtless 1 M. Jullian (H. G., iii, 17, n. 4), rejecting the tradition, argues that the battle took place on the Rhône at Pont-St. Esprit. |