20.
Among the Gauls a new and alarming spectacle was seen, by reason of their coming (such is the custom of the nation) in arms to the assembly.
[2]
When, extolling in their discourse the renown and valour of the Roman people, and the wide extent of their empire, they had requested that they would refuse a passage through their territory and cities to the Carthaginian invading Italy;
[3]
such laughter and yelling is [p. 719]said to have arisen, that the youths were with difficulty composed to order by the magistrates and old men.
[4]
So absurd and shameless did the request seem, to propose that the Gauls, rather than suffer the war to pass on to Italy, should turn it upon themselves and expose their own lands to be laid waste instead of those of others.
[5]
When the tumult was at length allayed, answer was returned to the ambassadors, “that they had neither experienced good from the Romans, nor wrong from the Carthaginians, on account of which they should either take up arms in behalf of the Romans, or against the Carthaginians.
[6]
On the contrary, they had heard that men of their nation had been driven from the lands and confines of Italy by the Roman people, that they had to pay a tribute, and suffered other indignities.”
[7]
Nearly the same was said and heard in the other assemblies of Gaul; nor did they hear any thing friendly or pacific before they came to Marseilles.
[8]
There, every thing found out by the care and fidelity of the allies was made known to them —“that the minds of the Gauls had been already prepossessed by Hannibal, but that not even by him would that nation be found very tractable, (so fierce and untameable are their dispositions,) unless the affections of the chiefs should every now and then be conciliated with gold, of which that people are most covetous.”
[9]
Having thus gone round through the tribes of Spain and Gaul, the ambassadors return to Rome not long after the consuls had set out for their provinces. They found the whole city on tiptoe in expectation of war, the report being sufficiently confirmed, that the Carthaginians had already passed the Iberus.
Livy. History of Rome by Titus Livius, books nine to twenty-six. literally translated, with notes and illustrations, by. D. Spillan. and. Cyrus Edmonds. York Street, Covent Garden, London. Henry G. Bohn. John Child and son, printers. 1849. 2.
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