  ’Tis a pleasant thing to turn from the present, with its turmoil and its noise, its clank of engines and its pallid artizans, its political strife and its social disorganization, to the calm and quiet records of the past—to the contemplation of bygone greatness: of kingdoms which have passed away,—of cities whose site is marked only by the mouldering column and the time-worn wall—of men with whose name the world once rang, but whose very tombs are now unknown. If there is any thing calculated to enlarge the mind, it is this; for it is only by a careful study of the past that we come to know how duly to appreciate the present. Without this we magnify the present; we imagine that the future will be like unto it; we form our ideas, we base our calculations upon it alone; we forget the maxim of the Eastern sage, that “this too shall pass away.” It is by the study of history that we overcome this otherwise inevitable tendency; we learn from it, that other nations have been as great as we, and that they are now forgotten—that a former civilization, a fair and costly edifice which seemed to be perfect of its kind, has crumbled before the assaults of time, and left not a trace behind. There is a still small voice issuing forth from the ruins of Babylon, which will teach more to the thinking mind than all the dogmas and theories of modern speculators. When we turn to the study of ancient history, our attention is immediately riveted on the mighty name of Rome. Even the history of Greece cannot compare with it in interest. Greece was always great in the arts, and for long she was eminent in arms: but the arms of her citizens were too often turned against each other; and the mind gets fatigued and perplexed in attempting to follow the endless maze of politics, and the constant succession of unimportant wars. There are, indeed, many splendid episodes in her history—such as the Persian war, the retreat of the Ten Thousand, a few actions in the Peloponnesian contest, and the whole of the Theban campaigns of Epaminondas; but the intervening periods have but a faint interest to the general reader, till we come down to the period of the Macedonian monarchy. This, indeed, is the great act in the drama of Grecian history. Who can peruse without interest the accounts of the glorious reign of Alexander; of that man who, issuing from the mountains of Macedonia, riveted the fetters of despotism on Greece, which had grown unworthy of freedom, and carried his victorious arms over the fertile plains of Palestine, till he stood a conqueror amidst the palaces of Persepolis, and finally halted only on the frontiers of Hindostan, arrested in his progress not by the arms of his enemies but by the revolt of his soldiers? He flung a halo of glory around the last days of Greece, like the bright light of a meteor, whose course he resembled equally in the rapidity and brilliancy of his career. With him dies the interest of Grecian story: the intrigues and disputes of his successors, destitute of general interest, served but to pave the way for the progress of a mightier power. Of greater interest even than this is the history of Rome. Her conquests were not merely the glorious and dazzling achievements of one man, which owed their existence to his talents, and crumbled to pieces at his death; they were slow and gradual in their progress—the effects of a deep and firm policy: they were not made in a day, but they endured for a thousand years. No country presents such interest to the politician and the soldier. To the one, the rise and progress of her constitution; her internal struggles; the balance of political power in the state; her policy, her principles of government; the administration and treatment of the many nations which composed her vast empire, must ever be the subject of deep and careful study: while to the other, the campaigns of Hannibal, the But there is one subject connected with the progress of the Roman empire which has been unduly neglected, and without a perfect understanding of which we cannot justly appreciate either the civil or military policy of that state. We mean the history of the nations who came in contact with her—viz. the Carthaginians, the Gauls, the Spaniards. The ancient historians belonged exclusively to Greece or Rome: they looked upon all other nations except themselves as barbarous; and they never related their history except incidentally, and in so far as it was connected with that of those two countries. Modern historians, following in their track, and attracted by the splendour of their names, deviated not from the beaten path; and a thick veil still hung over the semi-barbarous neighbours and enemies of Rome. The history of no one of those nations was more interesting, or in many points involved in greater obscurity, than that of the Gauls. Nowhere amongst the ancient writers could any connected account of the origin or progress of this nation be found; scattered notices of them alone could be discovered interspersed incidentally amongst other matter, and these notices were frequently inconsistent. This is particularly the case as regards their early history: in later times, when they came into more immediate contact with the Romans, a more connected and minute account of them has been preserved. In the lively pages of Livy, and in the more accurate narrative of Polybius, a considerable mass of information on this subject maybe found; while a clear light has been thrown on many parts of their latter history by the narrative of Appian, the Lives of Plutarch, and, above all, by the Commentaries of CÆsar. But all this information, scattered over a multiplicity of authors, could give us no conception of their history as a people. An author was still wanting to collect all these together, so as to present us with something like a continuous history. But to do this was no easy task: the materials were scanty and often contradictory; they were all written in a spirit hostile to the Gauls; a deep vein of prejudice and national partiality ran through and tarnished them all; the motives of that people were misrepresented, their actions falsified, the historians often understood little of their institutions and their character. From such materials it required no common man to be able to deduce a clear and impartial narrative; it required great talent and deep research—the accuracy of the scholar and the spirit of the philosopher, the acuteness of the critic joined to the eye of the painter. Such a man has been found in AmadÉe Thierry. His History of the Gauls is a work of rare merit—a work which must ever be in the hand of every one who would understand the history of antiquity. It is little to the credit of the literature of this country, that his work has not yet appeared in an English translation. He has traced the progress of the Gauls, from their earliest appearance on the stage of the world till their final subjection to the Roman power, in a manner worthy of a scholar and a philosopher. His narrative is clear, animated, and distinct; he possesses in an eminent degree the power of giving breadth to his pictures; of drawing the attention of his readers to the important events, whilst the remainder are thrown into shade. His mode of treating his authorities is perhaps the best that can be imagined; he neither clogs his pages with long extracts, nor does he leave them unsupported by a reference to the original authors. At the end of each paragraph a reference is given to the authorities followed, to whom the reader may at once turn if he wish to verify the conclusions arrived at; and where the points are involved in obscurity, the passages founded on are quoted generally in a note, and never in the text, except when their importance really justified such an interruption of the narrative. His style is always animated and graphic, occasionally rising to elevated flights of eloquence, while his subject is one of a deep and varied interest; for in following the checkered fortunes of the Gauls, he is brought in contact with One of the most interesting parts of Thierry’s work is the Introduction. He there gives a brief view of the character of the Gaulish race; its division into two great branches, the Gaul and the Kimry, and the periods into which the history of this people naturally divides itself. A considerable part of it is taken up in proving that this people do in reality consist of two great branches, the Gaul and the Kimry. This, we think, he has clearly and satisfactorily shown, by evidence drawn both from the language and from the historical accounts which have been preserved to us regarding them. His character of the Gauls as a people is ably and well given; but here we must let him speak for himself:— “The salient characteristics of the Gaulish family—those which distinguish it the most, in my opinion, from the other races of men—may be thus summed up:—A personal bravery unequaled amongst the people of antiquity; a spirit frank, impetuous, open to every impression, eminently intelligent; but joined to that an extreme frivolity, want of constancy, a marked repugnance to the ideas of discipline and order so strong in the German race, much ostentation—in fine, a perpetual disunion, the consequence of excessive vanity. If we wish to compare, in a few words, the Gaulish family with that German family to whom we have just alluded, we may say that the personal sentiment, the individual I, is too much developed amongst the former, and that amongst the latter it is not sufficiently so. Thus we find, in every page of Gaulish story, original characters who strongly excite and concentrate upon themselves our sympathy, causing us to forget the masses; whilst, in the history of the Germans, it is generally the masses who produce the effect. Such is the general character of the people of the Gaulish blood; but in that character itself, an observation of facts leads us to recognise two distinct shades corresponding to two distinct branches of the family, or to use the expression consecrated by history, to two distinct races. One of those races—that which I designate by the name of the Gauls—presents in the most marked manner all the natural dispositions, all the faults and all the virtues, of the family; to it belong, in their purest state, the individual types of the Gaul. The other, the Kimry, less active, less spiritual perhaps, possesses in return more weight and stability: it is in its bosom principally that we remark the institutions of classification How important and how little attended to is this character of the different races of men! How perfectly is it preserved under all situations and under all circumstances! No lapse of time can change, no distance can efface it. Nowhere do we see this more distinctly than in America: there how marked is the difference of the Spanish race in the south and the Anglo-Saxon in the north! And from this we may draw a deeply important practical lesson; viz. the danger of attempting to force on one race institutions fitted to another. Under a free government, the Anglo-Saxon in the north flourished and increased, and became a mighty people. Under a despotic sway, the Spaniard in the south was slowly but surely treading that path which would ultimately have led to national greatness, when a revolution, nourished by English gold, and rendered victorious by English arms, inflicted what was to him the curse of free institutions. Under their influence, commerce has fled from the shores of New Spain; the gold-mines of Peru lie unworked; population has retrograded; the fertile land has returned to a state of nature; and anarchy, usurping the place of government, has involved the country in ruin and desolation. Nor is this the only instance of the effect of free institutions on the Spanish race. In Old Spain the same experiment has been tried, and has produced the same result. Under their withering effect, the empire of Spain and the Indies has passed away; the mother country, torn by internal dissensions, has fallen from her proud estate, and can with difficulty drag on a precarious existence amidst all the tumult and blood of incessant revolutions. How long will it be ere we learn that free institutions are the Amreeta cup of nations—the greatest of all blessings or the greatest of all curses, according to the race on which it is conferred! The history of the Gauls, in Thierry’s opinion, divides itself naturally into four great periods: his brief resumÉ of the state of the nation, during each of those periods, is so animated that we cannot refrain from quoting his own words:— “The first period contains the adventures of the Gaulish nations in the nomad state. No race of the West has accomplished a more agitated and brilliant career. Its wanderings embrace Europe, Asia, and Africa: its name is inscribed with terror in the annals of almost every people. It burned Rome: it conquered Macedonia from the veteran phalanxes of Alexander, forced ThermopylÆ, and pillaged Delphi: afterwards it planted its tents on the ruins of ancient Troy, in the public places of Miletus, on the banks of the Sangarius, and on those of the Nile: it besieged Carthage, threatened Memphis, reckoned among its tributaries the most powerful monarchs of the East: on two occasions it founded in Upper Italy a mighty dominion, and it raised up in the bosom of Phrygia that other empire of the Galatians which so long ruled Asia Minor. “In the second period—that of the sedentary state—we observe the same race every where developing itself, or permanently settled, with social, religious, and political institutions, suited to its particular character—original institutions, and civilization full of life and movement, of which Transalpine Gaul offers a model the purest and the most complete. One would say, to follow the animated scenes of that picture, that the theocracy of India, the feudality of the Middle Ages, and the Athenian democracy, had resorted to the same soil, there to combat and rule over one and other in turn. Soon that civilization mixes and alters: foreign elements introduce themselves, imported by commerce, by the relations of vicinity, by the reaction of the conquered population. Hence various and other strange combinations: in Italy it is the Roman influence which makes itself felt in the manners of the Cisalpines: in the south of Transalpine Gaul it is at first the influence of the Greeks of Massalia, afterwards that of the Italian colonies: and in Galatia there springs up the most singular combination of Gaulish, Phrygian and Greek civilization. “Next follows the period of national strife and of conquest. By a chance worthy of notice, it is always under the sword of the Roman that the power of the Gaulish nations falls: in proportion as the Roman dominion extends, the Gaulish dominion, up to that time firmly established, recoils and declines: one would say that the conquerors and the “The fourth period comprises the organization of Gaul into a Roman province, and the slow and successive assimilation of Transalpine manners to the manners and institutions of Italy—a labour commenced by Augustus, continued with success by Claudius, completed in latter times. That transference from one civilization to another was not made without violence and without checks: numerous revolts are suppressed by Augustus—a great insurrection fails against Tiberius. The distractions and the impending ruin of Rome during the civil wars of Galba, of Otho, of Vitellius, and of Vespasian, gave room for a sudden explosion of the spirit of independence to the north of the Alps. The Gaulish nations again took up arms, the senates reformed themselves, the proscribed druids reappeared, the Roman legions cantoned on the Rhine are defeated or gained over, an empire of the Gauls is constructed in haste: but soon Gaul perceives that it is already at bottom entirely Roman, and that a return to the ancient order of things is no longer either desirable for its happiness, or even possible; it resigns itself therefore to its irrevocable destiny, and reunites without a murmur into the community of the Roman empire.”—(I. 6-10) Here indeed is a noble field for history—many such exist not in the world; it joins the colours of romance to the truth of narrative—it embraces within its range all countries, from the snow-clad mountains of the north to the waterless deserts of the south. When the first light of history dawns upon the Gallic race, we find them settled in that territory which is bounded by the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, and the ocean, and in the British isles. There they lived, leading a pastoral life, wandering about from place to place, and ready to descend with their flocks and herds wherever cupidity might lead, or fancy direct them. They first turned their footsteps towards Spain; tribe after tribe crossed the Pyrenees, and either expelled or amalgamated with the aboriginal inhabitants. Their efforts were principally directed towards the centre and west; in consequence of which, the native Spaniards, displaced and driven back upon the Mediterranean coast, soon opened a way for themselves across the eastern passes of the mountains, and, traversing the shores of southern Gaul, entered Italy. There they took the name of the Ligures, and established themselves along the whole line of sea-coast from the Pyrenees to the mouth of the Arno. The road to Italy being thus laid bare by the Spaniards, the Gauls soon followed on their footsteps, and, crossing the Alps, poured down into Such is the truth regarding this famous invasion, which has been the subject of a falsification probably without a parallel in the annals of history; by it defeat was transformed into victory, and the day when Rome suffered her greatest humiliation by the ransom of her capital, was turned into almost the most famous day of her existence, when her most successful enemy was humbled to the dust. In the pages of a Greek historian the truth has been preserved; while the annals of the state are filled with a very different tale, embellished with all the eloquence and genius of the national historian. Such a sacrifice of historical veracity, in order to appease the insatiable cravings of national vanity, naturally casts a shade of doubt and suspicion on all the early records of her victories and triumphs. Freed from her enemies, Rome revived and emerged unconquered from the strife; she had been forced to bend before misfortune, but she was not broken by adversity: a new city sprung up on the ruins of the old, and the legions once more issued from the ramparts to carry her victorious banners to the capitals of a conquered world. We have not space to trace the various fortunes of Cisalpine Gaul during the early struggles which it carried on with the now increasing power of Rome. Suffice it to say, that when the Latins united in a league against her, the Cisalpines joined them; an engagement took place at Sentinum, where victory crowned the efforts of the Romans; but though defeated, the Gauls maintained their high character for valour during that fatal day. This success was followed up by a vigorous attack on the powerful Gaulish tribe of the Senones, who were almost exterminated, and on their territory was established a Roman colony: this was the first permanent settlement made by that people amongst the Gaulish tribes of Italy. We must refer the reader to M. Thierry’s work for the account of the causes which led the Gauls and Kimry to press upon, and finally invade northern Greece, and the relation of the defeat of their first attack under the Brenn. We shall dwell somewhat longer on their second invasion, which forms one of the most interesting episodes of their history:— “In the year 280 B.C., the Gauls, under a celebrated chief whose title was the Brenn, prepared to invade Greece. Their army, composed of various tribes of Gauls and Kimry, amounted to 152,000 infantry and 61,000 cavalry. When this immense array reached the frontiers of Macedonia, a division broke out amongst their chiefs, and 20,000 men, detaching themselves from the main army, advanced into Thrace. The remainder, under the Brenn, The dÉnouement of the tragedy we shall give in Thierry’s own words:— “During the night, Delphi received from all sides, by the mountain paths, numerous reinforcements from the neighbouring people. There arrived successively 1200 well-armed Ætolians, 400 heavy-armed men from Amplussa, and a detachment of Phocians, who, with the citizens of Delphi, formed a body of 4000 men. At the same time, they learned that the brave Ætolian army, after having defeated Comlutis, had retaken the road to Elatia, and, increased by bands of the Phocians and Boeotians, laboured to prevent the junction of the Gaulish army of Heraclea with the division which besieged Delphi. “During the same night, the camp of the Gauls was the theatre of the greatest debauchery; and when day dawned, the greater portion of them were still intoxicated: nevertheless, it was necessary to make the assault without loss of time, for the Brenn already perceived how much the delay of a few hours had cost him. He drew out his troops then in battle array, enumerating to them anew all the treasures which they had before their eyes, and those which awaited them in the temple: he then gave the signal for the escalade. The attack was vigorous, and was sustained by the Greeks with firmness. From the summit of the narrow and steep slope by which the assailants had to ascend in order to approach the town, the besieged poured down a multitude of arrows and stones, not one of which fell harmless. Several times the Gauls covered the ascent with their dead; but every time they returned to the charge with courage, and at last forced the passage. The besieged, obliged to beat a retreat, withdrew to the nearest streets of the town, leaving the approach which conducted to the temple free: the Gaulish race rushed on: soon the whole multitude was occupied in pillaging the oratories which adjoined the temple, and, in fine, the temple itself. “It was then autumn, and during the combat one of those sudden storms so frequent in the lofty chains of Hellas had gathered; suddenly it burst, discharging on the mountain torrents of rain and hail. The priests attached to the temple of Apollo, seized upon an incident so fitted to strike the superstitious spirit of the Greeks. With haggard eyes, with disheveled locks, with frenzied minds, they spread out through the town, and through the ranks of the army, crying that the god had arrived. ‘He is here!’ said they; ‘we have seen him pass across the vault of the temple, which is cloven beneath his feet; two armed virgins, Minerva and Diana, accompany him. We have heard the whistling of their bows, and the clang of their lances. Hasten, O Greeks! upon the steps of your gods, if you wish to partake of their victory!’ That spectacle, those exhortations pronounced amidst the rolling of the thunder, and by the glare of the lightning, filled the Hellenes with a supernatural enthusiasm; they reformed in battle array, and precipitated themselves sword in hand upon the enemy. The same circumstances operated not less strongly, but in a contrary way, upon the victorious bands; the Gauls believed that they recognised the power of a divinity, but of an enraged divinity. The thunderbolts had frequently struck their battalions, and its reports, repeated by the echoes, produced around them such a reverberation, that they no longer heard the commands of their chiefs. Those who penetrated into the interior of the temple, had felt the pavement tremble under their steps; they had been seized by a thick and mephitic vapour, which overpowered them, and threw them into a violent delirium. The historians relate, that amidst this tumult they beheld three warriors of a sinister aspect, of more than human stature, covered with old armour, and who slaughtered the Gauls with their lances, appear. The Delphians recognised, say they, the shades of three heroes, Hyperochus and Zorodocus, whose tombs adjoined the temple, and Pyrrhus the son of Achilles. As to the Gauls, a wild panic hurried them in disorder to their camp, which they attained only with great difficulty, overwhelmed by the arrows of the “To that disastrous day succeeded, for the Kimry-Gauls, a night not less terrible; the cold was excessive, and snow fell in abundance; besides, fragments of rock falling incessantly in their camp, which was situated too near the mountain, crushed the soldiers not by one or two at a time, but by bodies of thirty and forty, as often as they assembled to maintain guard or to seek repose. The sun no sooner rose, than the Greeks who were within the town made a vigorous sally, whilst those who were in the country fell upon the rear of the enemy. At the same time, the Phocians, crossing the snow by paths known but to themselves, took them in flank, and assailed them with arrows and stones, without exposing themselves to the slightest danger. Hemmed in on all sides, discouraged, and, moreover, extremely incommoded by the cold, which had cut off many of their number during the night, the Gauls began to yield. They were sustained for some time by the intrepidity of the chosen band who combated around the Brenn, and acted as his guard. The strength, the stature, the courage of that guard, struck the Greeks with astonishment. In the end, the Brenn having been dangerously wounded, those brave men dreamed only of making a rampart of their bodies for him, and of carrying him from the field. The chiefs then gave the signal of retreat, and to prevent the wounded from falling into the hands of the enemy, they caused those who were not in a condition to follow, to be put to death. The army halted when the night overtook it. “The first watch of that second night had hardly commenced, when the soldiers who were on guard imagined that they heard the tumult of a night march, and the distant tramp of horses. The darkness, already profound, did not permit them to discover their mistake; they gave the alarm, and cried out that they were surprised—that the enemy was upon them. The famine, the dangers, and the extraordinary occurrences which had befallen them during the last two days, had much shattered all their imaginations. At that cry, ‘The enemy is at hand!’ the Gauls, suddenly aroused, seized their arms, and believing the camp already entered, they threw themselves upon, and mutually slaughtered, each other. Their consternation was so great, that they believed that each word which struck their ears was uttered in Greek; as if they had forgotten their own proper tongue. Besides, the darkness of the night did not permit them either to recognise each other, or to distinguish the shape of their bucklers. Day put an end to that frightful mÊlÉe; but during the night the Phocian shepherds, who remained in the fields to watch their flocks, ran to inform the Greeks of the disorder which was evident in the Gaulish camp. They attributed so unexpected an event to the intervention of the god Pan, from whom, according to the religious faith of the Greeks, alarms without any real cause proceeded; full of ardour and of confidence, they attacked the rearguard of the enemy. The Gauls had already resumed their march, but with languor, as men discouraged, worn out by diseases, famine, and fatigue. On their line of march the population carried off the cattle and provisions, so that they could not procure any subsistence without the utmost difficulty, and at the point of the sword. The historians reckon at 10,000 the number of those who sank under these misfortunes; the cold and the nocturnal combat had cut off as many more, and 6000 had perished at the assault of Delphi: there remained then to the Brenn no more than 35,000 men when he rejoined the main body of his army, in the plains watered by the Cephisus, on the day after his departure from ThermopylÆ.”—(I. 171-178.) The Brenn, overwhelmed with grief at his misfortune, no sooner saw his army free from immediate danger than he put himself to death. His successor, following his dying advice, slaughtered 10,000 of the wounded, and continued his retreat:— “As he approached ThermopylÆ, the Greeks, issuing forth from an ambuscade, threw themselves on his rearguard, which they cut to pieces. It was in this miserable state that the Gauls gained the camp of Heraclea. They remained there for a few days before setting out on their northward route. All the bridges of the Sperchius had been broken down, and the left bank of the river was occupied by the Thessalians, who had collected en masse; A band of Tectosages joined to the Tolistoboies, and a horde of Gauls, united, and traversing Thrace with fire and sword, passed over into Asia Minor. They found it distracted by the quarrels of Alexander’s successors. Summoned in an evil hour by Nicomedes to aid him and the Greek states of Asia Minor in their struggle against the SeleucidÆ, they soon established him on the throne of Bithynia. But they now turned their victorious arms against the nations of that unhappy country. Their armies, increased by reinforcements drawn from Thrace, had divided themselves into three hordes: the Tectosages, the Tolistoboies, and the Trocmes. To avoid dispute, they distributed the whole of Asia Minor into three parts: of these the Trocmes possessed the Hellespont and Troas; the Tolistoboies, Æolida and Ionia; the Tectosages, the coast of the Mediterranean from the west of Mount Taurus. They now overran and subdued all Asia Minor; every country, every town, was obliged to pay them tribute; or soon the fertile land was reduced to an arid desert, watered only by the blood of its inhabitants, and the costly city, stormed by the fierce warriors of the north, became a heap of smoking ruins. At last the Tectosages came in contact with Antiochus, king of Syria, and were totally defeated at the battle of the Taurus; the Syrian king, following up his victory, compelled them to resign their conquests, and to establish themselves on the banks of the Halys, near the town of Ancyra, in Upper Phrygia, where they dwelt, too weak again to enter on the career of conquest. Internal war prevented the Asiatics for some time from pursuing their successes, and the Trocmes and Tolistoboies continued still to pillage and oppress all the maritime provinces. Nay, their power was actually increased by those wars, as each of the contending parties purchased the mercenary services of large bands of those brave, though turbulent warriors. But the end of the Gaulish rule in Asia Minor was at hand. The small state of Pergamus, under the able rule of Eumenes, emerged from its obscurity, and inflicted a severe wound upon the Gauls by the defeat of Antiochus, king of Syria, with whom a great number of them served as mercenaries. His son Attalus, on his accession to the throne, immediately marched against and defeated the Tolistoboies. Ionia, which had long groaned under their oppression, seizing the opportunity, rose up against them; the Tolistoboies, beaten in several engagements, were driven beyond Mount Taurus; and the Trocmes, after a vain attempt to maintain themselves in Troas, were forced to retreat and unite with their defeated countrymen. Attacked now by the whole population of Asia Minor, the two hordes were driven by degrees into Upper Phrygia, where the Tectosages had formerly settled. Here the three hordes united, and here they founded the empire of Galatia. “Thus ended in Asia Minor the dominion of this people in their character of nomad conquerors; another period of existence now commenced for them. Abandoning their wandering life, they mixed with the indigenous population, who were themselves a mixture of Greek colonists and Asiatics. That blending together of three races, unequal in power and in civilization, produced a mixed nation, that of the Gallo-Greeks, whose civil, political, and religious institutions, carry the triple stamp of Gaulish, Greek, and Phrygian manners. The regular influence which the Gauls are destined to act in Asia Minor, as an Asiatic power, will prove not to be inferior to that of which they have been deprived; and we shall see them defend, almost to the last, the liberty of the East against the Roman arms.”—(I. 203-204.) We have not space to follow M. Hardly had the Cisalpines laid down their arms, when there arrived amongst them emissaries sent by Hannibal to excite them to a renewal of the war, and to engage them in an alliance with Carthage, by promising to guarantee to them the liberty of their country, and by exciting their cupidity with the prospect of the spoils of Rome and southern Italy. They were well received, and secret armaments soon began to take place, especially amongst the Boian confederacy. But what immediately caused the outbreak was an attempt of the Romans to found two colonies, one at Cremona, and the other at Placentia. Enraged at this, the Boians took up arms, and attacking the colonists of Placentia, dispersed them, whilst the Insubrians expelled those who had advanced to Cremona. The Boians and Insubrians now uniting their forces, laid siege to Mutina, but in vain. This check, however, was more than counterbalanced by the defeat of a Roman army under the orders of Manlius. While affairs were in this state, the columns of Hannibal, descending from the Alps, arrived on the Insubrian territory. The result of the late successes of the Gauls in their disposition towards Hannibal, is well explained by Thierry:— “Two factions then divided all Cisalpine Gaul. The one composed of the Venetes, the Cremonas, and the Ligures of the Alps, gained over to the Roman cause, opposed with vigour every movement in favour of Hannibal. The other, which included the Ligures of the Apennines, the Insubrians, and the people of the Boian confederation, had embraced the Carthaginian side, but without much ardour. The affairs of Gaul had undergone a great change. At the time when the propositions of Hannibal were received with enthusiasm, Gaul was humiliated and conquered; Roman troops occupied her territory—Roman colonies assembled in her towns. But since the dispersion of the colonies of Cremona and Placentia—since the defeat of L. Manlius in the forest of Mutina, the Boians and Insubrians, satisfied at having recovered their independence with their own forces, cared little to compromise themselves for the advantage of strangers, whose appearance and numbers inspired them with but slight confidence.”—(I. 284-285.) Hannibal felt all the importance of deciding the wavering sentiments of this people; on them his future success or defeat depended; to do this nothing but victory was requisite. He accordingly advanced rapidly against the Romans, and first engaged them in a cavalry action at the Ticinus. Victory declared for the Carthaginians. The horse of Numidia routed the cavalry of Rome. This success, unimportant as it was, revealed Hannibal to the eyes of the Gauls; influenced by it, the Insubrian chiefs hastened to supply him with provisions and troops. Hardly had the Carthaginians arrived in sight of the Roman camp at Placentia, when a large body of the Gaulish contingent revolted from Scipio, and contrived, though much reduced in numbers, to cut their way through in spite of all opposition, and join Hannibal. The famous battle of the Trebia—the first of those great victories which have rendered immortal the genius of the Carthaginian chief—soon followed; it at once decided the course of Cisalpine Gaul. Its immediate and ultimate effects on the power and operations of Hannibal are well developed by our author:— “The fortune of Hannibal was then consolidated; more than 60,000 Boians, Insubrians, and Ligures flocked in a few days to his standards, and raised his forces to 100,000 men. With such a disproportion between the nucleus of the We cannot follow the steps of the great conqueror in his memorable campaigns—in his fatal march over the fens of Etruria, or through the glorious field of Thrasymene. But the share which the Gauls had in the mighty victory of CannÆ, and the change of the seat of war, with the results which followed from it, are of such importance, and the remarks made upon them by M. Thierry are so just, that we shall give the whole of his account of this event at full length:— “From the field of Thrasymene Hannibal passed into southern Italy, and gave battle a third time to the Romans, near the village of CannÆ, on the banks of the Aufidus, now called the Offanto. He had then under his banners 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry; and of these 50,000 combatants, at least 30,000 were Gauls. In his order of battle, he placed their cavalry on the right wing, and in the centre their infantry, whom he united to the Spanish infantry, and whom he commanded in person: the Gaulish foot, as was their custom on all occasions when they were determined to conquer or die, threw off their tunic and sagum, and fought naked from their waist upwards, armed with their long and pointless sabres. They commenced the action; and their cavalry and that of the Numidians terminated it. We know how dreadful the carnage was in that celebrated battle—the most glorious of the victories of Hannibal—the most disastrous of the defeat of Rome. When the Carthaginian general, moved with pity, called to his soldiers ‘to halt, and to spare the vanquished,’ without doubt the Gauls, bloodthirsty in the destruction of their mortal enemies, carried to that butchery more than the ordinary irritation of wars, the satisfaction of a vengeance ardently wished for, and long deferred. There 70,000 Romans perished; the loss on the side of the conquerors was 5500, of which 4000 were Gauls. Out of 60,000 Gauls, whom Hannibal had enumerated around him after the combat of the Trebia, 25,000 only remained; battle, sickness, above all, the fatal passage over the marshes of Etruria, had cut off all the rest; for up to this period they had supported almost exclusively the weight of the war. The victory of CannÆ brought to the Carthaginians other auxiliaries; a crowd of men from Campania, Lucania, Brutium, and Apulia, filled his camp; but it was not that warlike race which he formerly recruited on the banks of the Po. CannÆ was the term of his success; and assuredly the fault ought not to be imputed to his genius, more admirable even in adverse than in good fortune—his army only had changed. For two thousand years history has accused him with bitterness for his inaction after the battle of Aufidus, and for his delay at Capua; perhaps it might reproach him more justly for having removed from the north of Italy, and for having allowed his communications with the soldiers who had conquered under him at Thrasymene and CannÆ, to be cut off. Rome perceived the fault of Hannibal, and hastened to profit by it. Two armies in Échelon, the one to the north, and the other to the south, intercepted the communication between the Cisalpines and Magna GrÆcia. That of the north, by its incursions and by its threatening attitude, occupied the Gauls at their own hearths, whilst the second made head against the Carthaginians.”—(I. 297-300.) It has been said by the most renowned conqueror of modern times, that, give him but the Gallic infantry The efforts of the Gauls did not cease with the battle of CannÆ; they defeated an army under Posthumius, which invaded their territory. When Hasdrubal led his ill-fated expedition to strew their bodies on the Italian plains, he was accompanied by large bands of those brave adventurers; and when Carthage, making a last effort to succour her general, disembarked 14,000 men under the command of Mago, Hannibal’s brother, at Genoa, numerous bodies of Gauls flocked to his standards. And this general, though unable to effect his junction with Hannibal, yet maintained his ground for ten years, till at last, defeated in the territory of the Insubrians, he retired to Genoa. There he received orders to return to the defence of Africa:— “His brother also, recalled by the Carthaginian senate, was obliged to embark at the other extremity of Italy. The Gaulish and Ligurian soldiers, who had faithfully served Hannibal during seventeen years, abandoned him not in his days of misfortune; re-united to their compatriots who had followed Mago, they formed still a third part of the Carthaginian army at Zama, in the celebrated day which terminated that long war to the advantage of the Romans, and displayed to the world the genius of Hannibal humbled before the fortune of Scipio. The ferocity with which the Gauls fought has been recorded by the historian: ‘They showed themselves,’ says Titus Livy, ‘inflamed with that inborn hate against the Roman people, peculiar to their race.’”—(I. 310-311.) The war in Cisalpine Gaul did not cease with the departure of Hannibal. Under the orders of Carthaginian officer, the Gauls again took the field—Placentia fell beneath their arms; but they received a severe defeat from L. Furius, in the year 200 B.C., when the Carthaginian general Amilcar perished. From this period till the year 191 B.C., the Gaulish nations were involved in a constant succession of wars, in which, though occasionally victorious, they were upon the whole unsuccessful. Exposed to the incessant incursions of the Romans, their strength gradually wasted away; each year left them in a state more exhausted and unfit to renew the war than the preceding. Nation after nation laid down their arms in despair, till at last the Boian confederacy stood alone in its resistance of a foreign yoke; but their ravaged lands and reduced numbers were unequal to the struggle, and when, in the year 190 B.C., the Roman armies advanced into the heart of their exhausted territory, the few remaining inhabitants determined to abandon the land of their birth, and to seek, amidst ruder nations, and beneath a more ungenial sky, for that liberty in defence of which their fathers had so often bled. Accordingly, the wreck of a hundred and twelve Boian tribes, rising en masse, united, and wending their weary steps over the snow-clad summits of the Alps, and through the pathless forests of Germany, they found at last, on the banks of the distant Danube, a resting-place far removed from the hated name of Rome. All resistance from Cisalpine Gaul now ceased. Occasionally, indeed, a few tribes from the Transalpine would cross the Alps and descend into Italy, but they could not withstand the shock of the legions. The conquered territory was declared a Roman province, which it ever afterwards remained. We have not space to follow M. Thierry in his account of the progress and fall of that strange Gaulish kingdom of Galatia. From the year 241 to the year 190 B.C., it maintained its independence unshaken, amidst the degenerate sons of Greece and the effeminate Asiatics. But the Roman power, beneath which the Gaulish race was ever doomed to bend, overtook them even amidst the mountains “The Romans had annihilated, at Magnesia, the Asiatic and Greek forces: yet the conquest of the country appeared to them still incomplete. They had encountered, beneath the banners of Antiochus, some bands of a force less easily conquered than the Syrians or the Phrygians: by the armour, by the lofty stature, by the yellow or reddish locks, by the war-cry, by the rattling clash of arms, by the dauntless valour above all, the legions had easily recognised that old enemy of Rome whom they had been brought up to fear. Before deciding any thing as to the lot of the vanquished, the Roman generals then determined to carry the war into Galatia.”—(I. 360-361.) Accordingly, in the spring of 189 B.C., Cn. Manlius, with 22,000 legionaries and an auxiliary army furnished by the King of Pergamus, invaded Galatia: at his approach the Tolistoboies and Tectosages intrenched themselves upon Mount Olympus, and the Trocmes upon Mount Megalon, and there awaited the attack. The consul first advanced to Mount Olympus. He led his troops to attack the Gaulish position in three columns; the principal column, under his own orders, was to advance on the Gauls in front, the other two were to try and turn their position on either flank. The column which he led first engaged. “His velites advanced in front of the standards, with the Cretan archers of Attalus, the slingers, and the corps of Trulles and of the Thracians. The infantry of the legions followed with slow steps, as the steepness of the declivity rendered necessary, sheltered beneath their bucklers, so as to avoid stones and arrows. At a considerable distance the combat began with discharges of arrows, and at first with equal success. The Gauls had the advantage in position, the Romans in the number and variety of their arms. The action continued, the equality no longer remained. The narrow and flat bucklers of the Gauls protected them insufficiently: soon having expended their darts and javelins, they found themselves altogether disarmed: for at that distance their sabres were useless. As they had made no selection of flints and stones beforehand, they seized the first which chance threw in their way, which were for the most part too large to be easily wielded, or for inexperienced arms to throw with effect. The Romans, meanwhile, poured down upon them a murderous hail of arrows, javelins, and leaden balls, which wounded them, without their having any possibility of avoiding the approach. **** A great number had bit the dust, others adopted the course of rushing right on the enemy, and they, at least, did not perish unavenged. It was the corps of the Roman velites who did them most harm. These velites carried on their left arm a buckler three feet in size, in their right hand javelins, which they threw from afar, at their girdle a Spanish sword; when it was necessary to engage in close contact, they transferred their javelins to the left hand, and drew their sword. Few Gauls now remained on foot: seeing then the legions advance to the charge, they fled precipitately to their camp, which the alarm of the multitude of women, children and old men who were shut up within it, already filled with tumult and confusion.”—(I. 373-376.) The other two columns had, from the difficult nature of the ground, been unable to make any progress. Manlius now led on his legionaries to assault the intrenchment, which they carried at the sword’s point. A few days after this victory, Manlius advanced with his triumphant army to attack the Trocmes, who were intrenched on Mount Megalon. This battle resembled much, both in its progress and in its termination, the one which preceded it. The Trocmes were driven with slaughter from the field, and their camp taken. Dispirited by this double defeat, the Galatians, who had rallied their scattered forces behind the Halys, sued for peace. The Romans, desiring rather to conciliate than to irritate this warlike people, merely exacted that they should surrender the land which they had taken from the allies of Rome, and that they should give up their wandering and predatory habits, so injurious to all their neighbours. Under the influence of the forced peace in which the subjection of Asia to the Romans kept During twenty years peace subsisted between the Galatians and their Asiatic neighbours. At the end of that period, however, a war broke out, and pillaging bands once more began to traverse the plains of Asia Minor; when Rome interposed, and by her mediation peace was restored. Mithridates, uniting beneath his sway all the powers of the East, drove back for a while the Roman eagles, and seemed about to restore their ancient glory to the Asiatics. The Galatians joined with him; but their fidelity became suspected, and he seized upon sixty of their nobles as hostages. Enraged at this treatment, they formed a plot to assassinate him; it was frustrated, and the conspirators were almost all treacherously put to death at a banquet. His troops then advancing, took possession of Galatia, which was governed by one of his officers with insolence and oppression for twelve years. At last a revolt broke out; his armies were driven from the country; Galatia was once more free. The defeat of Mithridates by the Roman arms ensured their independence for a short time; but the rest of Asia was now subject to the Romans. Surrounded, enveloped on all sides by their power, Galatia yielded at last, and was reduced to the form of a Roman province in the time of Augustus. Here M. Thierry ends the first part of his History of the Gauls; and thus far we have followed him step by step, because we considered this both the least known and the most interesting portion of Gaulish history. The two periods which follow are more familiar to historical readers: because, during them, Rome was the great enemy of the Gauls; and if she has often palliated her defeats, she has at least never failed to chronicle her victories. Henceforth, therefore, we shall no longer attempt to follow the thread of his narrative. The victories of Marius, the campaigns of CÆsar, stand in no need of our attention being directed to them, as to the wars of the Brenn in Greece, or the conquests of the horde in Asia Minor. Here we take leave of the Gaul as the conquering nomad; we have seen him wandering through the land of the stranger with fire and sword; but the hour of vengeance has now come, and we shall see him bleed in vain on his native soil for that liberty of which he had so often deprived others. M. Thierry opens his history of the second period with an exceedingly interesting account of the state of Gaul during the second and third centuries before our era. Gaul was then inhabited by three distinct families or races. By the Iberian family—divided into the Aquitains and the Ligures. By the Gaulish family—divided into the Gauls, the Kimry, and the Belgians. And by the Ionian-Greek family, or the inhabitants of the powerful and flourishing maritime and commercial state of Massalia. The Iberian and Ionian-Greeks, families occupying comparatively but a small portion of Gaul, need not detain us. With the Gauls we have more to do. Our author gives the following account of the way in which their territory was divided amongst the three different bands of this family:— “A line which, setting out from the mouth of the Tann, follows the course of that river, then that of the Rhone, the Iser, the Alps, the Rhine, the Vosges, the Ædnian hills, the Loire, the Vienne, and comes at last to rejoin the Garonne, by turning the plateau of Arvernia: that line would nearly circumscribe He then enters into a long and most interesting description of the domestic manners, and political and religious institutions, of the Gauls. After having traced the Gaul for so long in the field, we love to follow him into his cabin—to observe his appearance, his pursuits, his habits—to mark the manly figure, the fair complexion, the flowing yellow locks, the glittering helmet surmounted with the antlers of the stag, the buckler covered with all the colours of the rainbow, the polished cuirass flashing back the rays of the morning sun, the heavy sabre hanging from the gold-bespangled belt, the precious necklace, the rich armlets, the bright and variegated hues of the martial sagum or mantle, of the noble Gaulish warrior. We follow him as he turns away from his clay-built mansion, and, regardless of the silent tears and entreating looks of his submissive, perhaps ill-used wife, hurries into the noise and excitement of the battle-field. Observe the wild frenzy that there seems to seize him, as he rushes with dauntless courage on the bristling phalanx of his enemies; as, amidst the clouds of dust which float overhead, and the horrid cries which resound on all sides, he tears and widens with savage ferocity the fearful gash he has just received; as, a moment after, overcoming in personal conflict yon stalwart chief, he decapitates, with one blow of his heavy sabre, the yet palpitating corpse, and waves the gory head with demoniac triumph in the air; and as he returns home, yet reeking with blood and intoxicated with victory, and suspends above his threshold the ghastly trophy. Look again—the scene is changed—the glittering arms are flung aside. With his mantle floating in the breeze, his light spear quivering in his hand, he plunges into the pathless forest; with fearless step he pursues his way through the leafy shade, and traverses the treacherous surface of the morass. Beneath yon giant oak he has encountered the fiercest inhabitant of those solitudes—the wild bull; but it has fallen beneath his javelin, which yet protrudes from it bushy neck, and, as it lies struggling on the greensward, making the wood ring again with its bellowings, his dagger is raised to give it the final stroke.—Observe him once more in the council of his nation. The warriors stand in an attentive circle leaning on their arms; he has risen to address them; his action is animated, his words are vehement; the polished accents, the finished periods of the Greek, flow not from his lips, but there is eagerness in his eye, there is earnestness in his speech, his language is figurative in the extreme, a thousand picturesque and striking images illustrate his meaning; his metaphors, drawn from the battle and the chase, thrill to the bosom of all his listeners; and the clash and clang of their arms, amidst which he sits down, proclaims alike their assent to his proposition and their admiration of his eloquence. It is amidst scenes like these that we love to follow the Gaul, to picture to ourselves an old race and an old civilization, which combined in so strange a way the greatness and the savageness, the heroism in danger and weakness under temptation, of primeval and half-civilized man. To comprehend clearly the internal and external history of the Gauls, we must understand the political condition of their country. This is unfolded in a clear and masterly manner by our author, in the following passage:— “In Gaul, two privileged orders ruled the rest of the people—the elective order of the priests, who recruited themselves indiscriminately from all ranks, and the hereditary order of the nobles or knights. This latter was composed of the ancient royal families of the tribes, and of those men who had been M. Thierry recognises in the Gauls the traces of two distinct religions. He says— “When we examine attentively the character of the facts relative to the religious belief of the Gauls, we are led to recognise two systems of ideas, two bodies of symbols and superstitions altogether distinct—in a word, two religions: the one altogether sensible, derived from the adoration of natural phenomena, and by its forms, as well as by its literal development, reminding us of the polytheism of the Greeks; the other founded upon a material pantheism, metaphysical, mysterious, sacerdotal, and presenting the most astonishing conformity with the religions of the East. That last has received the name of druidism, from the druids who were its founders and priests. We shall give to the first the name of the Gaulish polytheism.”—(II. 73-74.) Thierry thinks that this polytheism originally prevailed amongst the Gauls, but that the Kimry introduced druidism, which soon became the dominant religion over the whole of Gaul, though the original polytheism ingrafted upon it more or less, in different places, some of its tenets and ceremonies. The great seat of the religion of the druids was Armorika, and, above all, Britain; there existed the most powerful of their sacerdotal colleges—there were celebrated the most secret of their mysteries. It is wondrous thing, that religion of the ancient druids! A solemn mystery enshrouds it—all the efforts of modern science cannot lift the veil. When we look on yon circle of stones which, grey with the lapse of ages, stands in lonely majesty upon the dreary moor, near which no sound is ever heard, save the distant and sullen roar of the ocean, as it breaks in sheets of foam on the rock-bound coast—the fitful cry of curlew, as it wings over them its solitary way—or the occasional low moaning of the wind, as, stealing through amidst the rocks, it seems to pour forth a mournful dirge for the shades of departed greatness:—when we look on a scene like this, we have before our gaze all that is known of these men of the olden time. Their blood-stained rites, their solemn mysteries, are forgotten; but their simple temples still stand imperishable as the God to whom they were erected. From the study of the ancient authors little or no information can be gleaned; a few descriptions of their bloody sacrifices, an account of some of their more public ceremonials, is all that they have handed down to us. But the real nature of their religion is unknown: more of its spirit is taught to us by those silent stones than by all other accounts put together. The choice of the situations for those sacred monuments amidst the melancholy waste, or buried deep in the recesses of some vast forest, where the wide-spreading branches of their sacred tree (the oak) casts its deep shadows When Massalia was hard pressed by two Gaulish nations, she summoned, in an evil hour, Rome to her aid. By the Roman arms her assailants were repelled, but these allies maintained their footing in the country. They soon subdued Liguria, and founded the town of AquÆ SextiÆ; the Gaulish nation of the Ædues united with the strangers; a defensive league entered into by the Allobroges and the Arvernes to drive them from their shores, was defeated. The territory acquired by these victories was organized into a Transalpine province; this province gradually went on increasing; its communications with Italy were assured, by the Romans obtaining possession of the passes of the Alps. In the year 118 B.C., the first Roman colony in Gaul was founded at Narbonne; hither, in course of time, came the great maritime commerce which had raised Massalia to her greatness; hither, too, flowed much of the internal traffic of Gaul. The ships of Massalia lay rotting in her harbours, her extensive quays lost their busy multitudes. In the fall of her naval power, in the loss of her commercial policy, she received a just reward for having wafted to her shores, and assisted with her forces, the stranger who was destined to rule over the Gaulish people. The organization of the province was completed; and from Narbonne, Roman emissaries issuing forth, laboured, by augmenting the quarrels and dissensions of the native tribes, to afford an opportunity for her to extend the limits of the empire. Driven from the shores of the Baltic by an inroad of the ocean, the two tribes of the Kimry and the Teutones uniting, precipitated themselves, to the number of 300,000 fighting men, upon the more southern countries. In the course of their wanderings they came upon the Roman province of Norica, which they laid waste with fire and sword, and where they defeated the consul, Papirius Carbon, with great loss. Without taking advantage of this opportunity to enter Italy, which now lay open to their attack, they entered the country of the Helvetii, where they were joined by the tribes of that people, the Ambrones, the Tigurines, and the Teutones; descending now upon Gaul like a devastating torrent, they wasted it as far as the Belgian frontier; here, however, the resistance of the inhabitants prevented them from advancing further. Turning now upon the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, they defeated three Roman armies under Silanus, Cassius, and Scaurus; and here they were joined by that portion of the Tectosages who had formerly returned from the disastrous invasion of Greece. The Roman generals, Cepio and Manlius, who had advanced against them, were utterly routed, and great part of the province laid waste. From hence the Kimry penetrated into Spain, where they remained for two years, pillaging and wasting the country, till, having received a check from the Celtiberians, they repassed the Pyrenees, and united with their confederated in the plains of Gaul. The united bands now prepared to march upon Italy; this they did in two divisions: one, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, directed its steps Rome was not unprepared for this invasion; to meet it, Marius had been recalled from his command in Africa, and invested with the consular power. When the division of the Ambrones and the Teutones reached the Maritime Alps, they found that general encamped in a position which lay directly in their line of march. Assaulted for three successive days, the Romans maintained themselves in their intrenchments: at last the Gauls, giving up the attempt to force them, passed on and soon reached AquÆ SextiÆ, whither they were followed by Marius. Marius encamped on a hill opposite the quarter of the Ambrones; between them flowed a river. The sutlers of the Roman army having descended to obtain water, encountered, in the bed of the torrent, some Gauls. A skirmish began; the Ambrones flocked in great numbers to support their comrades; soon they assembled their whole force and advanced upon the Romans. In crossing the stream they were vigorously opposed by the auxiliaries. Marius, seeing the favourable opportunity, led down his legions to the attack. Unable to withstand the shock, the Ambrones were driven back with great loss; the river ran red with their blood; the plain was covered with fugitives; and their routed forces halted not till they reached the neighbouring quarter of the Teutones. In their camp the Romans experienced more resistance from the women, who, rather than fall into the hands of their enemies, flung themselves on the hostile ranks, or perished by their own hands. Marius drew off his troops before night, and retreated to his former position on the hill. The next night he sent round 3000 men to occupy a wood in the rear of the position of the Teutones. The following morning he drew out his legions in battle array upon the slope of the hill, and sent forward his cavalry to skirmish with the enemy, and induce them to engage with him. They fell into the snare: pursuing his cavalry, they advanced to the river’s edge, and there, in an evil hour, crossed it and attacked the Roman army. The contest which ensued was long and desperate; the Gauls had the advantage in numbers, the Romans in discipline and position. But while victory still hung in the balance, the 3000 Romans, issuing forth from their ambuscade, fell upon the rear of the Teutones: this produced irremediable confusion in the ranks of the Gauls. The Romans redoubled the energy of their attack, and the victory was no longer doubtful. Many perished in the field, more in the pursuit; the remainder were cut off in detail by the peasants, who assailed them on all sides. Meanwhile the other divisions of the Gauls, consisting of the Kimry and the Tigurines, after traversing Helvetia and Norica, arrived at the Tridentine passes of the Alps at the end of winter. To keep possession of these passes the Tigurines halted upon the summits of the ridge, while the Kimry, continuing their march, descended into the valley of the Adige. On their approach the consul Catulus, who was charged with the defence of this part of Italy, retreated behind the Adige; and when the Gauls advanced to attack him, his legions were seized with such a panic, that, abandoning their camp, they fled, and halted not till they had placed the Po between themselves and the enemy. The Kimry now spread themselves over the whole territory beyond the Po, and occupied the land without opposition: here they determined to await the arrival of the other column. This delay saved Italy; for it afforded time for Marius and his army to cross the Alps, and effect a junction with Catulus and his troops. In the July of 101 B.C., Marius and Catulus advanced to meet the Kimry on the banks of the Po. On the 30th of July the hostile armies met to decide the fate of Italy in the Campus Ranolius. The battle which ensued was long and bloody; but overcome by the heat of the day and the immense clouds of dust, and exposed by their imperfect defensive armour to all the strokes of the enemy, the Kimry were in the end totally defeated. When the Romans, in the course of the pursuit, came to their camp, the same We pass in silence over the various occurrences in Gaul till we come to the year 58 B.C. This was the year when CÆsar commenced his career of victory. His first achievement was the defeat of the Helvetii, who, rising en masse, wished to abandon their sterile country, and gain by the sword a more fertile land. He next advanced against Ariovistus and his Germans, who were ravaging with fire and sword the eastern portions of Gaul: these he likewise totally routed—thus delivering the inhabitants from a withering scourge. But their joy at this event was soon changed into sadness, when they saw that the Romans had no intention of retreating from their territory. Establishing himself amongst the Sequanes, CÆsar levied contributions and collected provisions from all the neighbouring nations. Their discontent soon burst forth; they flew to arms, and prepared to make a desperate fight in defence of their liberties. We have no room to follow the Roman through his various campaigns; to trace the long and gallant stand made by the Gauls in defence of their native land; or the great and admirable genius of CÆsar, nowhere displayed so greatly as in his Gaulish campaigns, though perfidy sometimes tainted his councils, and torrents of innocent blood too often stained his arms. Suffice it to say, that after three campaigns, the north and west had submitted to his forces, and he had made his first descent on the British shores. In his fourth campaign he undertook his second expedition against Britain, and subdued some more of the continental tribes. But a general movement now took place over nearly the whole of Gaul against the Romans, who at first suffered some severe checks; but the military skill of CÆsar, in the course of a fifth campaign, again triumphed. Though so often vanquished, these brave people were not yet subdued. A new league was entered into by their cities; the war broke out afresh; and an able general, Vercingeto-rix, now directed their movements. It was during the course of his sixth campaign, which now followed, that CÆsar ran the greatest danger and achieved the greatest triumphs. The surprise of Genatum, the capture of Avaricum, seemed at first to promise a speedy victory to his arms; but a repulse which he suffered before the walls of Geronia was the signal for the whole of Gaul to unite with the insurgents. A victory which he gained over Vercingeto-rix soon afterwards, checked for the moment, but did not dispirit, the Gauls; and the whole weight of the war was soon collected around the ramparts of Alexia. Both parties felt that the contest which would now ensue must decide the fate of the campaign, and both made the most strenuous exertions to prepare for it. The gigantic lines of CÆsar were soon surrounded by the whole force of the enemy, and a combined attack was made upon them both from within and without. Great and imminent was the peril; but the steadiness of the legions, and the gallantry of their chief, surmounted it, and the banners of Rome finally waved triumphant over the hard-fought field. The fruits of this victory were immense. Alexia capitulated; the Gaulish nations who had been most active in the war submitted; and Vercingeto-rix was given up to the conquerors. Yet was a great part of the country still unsubdued; and when in the ensuing year, B.C. 51, CÆsar took the field in his seventh and last campaign in this country, he found a powerful and numerous confederacy in arms. Taught by the experience of the past, they no longer attempted to unite their whole forces and defeat him in general engagements, but endeavoured to exhaust his resources, and wear out his troops by a protracted defensive warfare. They fortified and garrisoned their towns so as to impose on him the Throughout the whole of his history, Thierry sustains the interest well; but nowhere is his narrative more animated than in his account of the wars of CÆsar; and no wonder, for a nobler field could not lie before him. His book is altogether one of the most curious and interesting which we possess on the history of ancient times. A great work it cannot be called. M. Thierry is more a man of talent than of genius; and accordingly, in his work, we are more struck with the interest of his narrative than with the profoundness of his reflections: it contains not the philosophy of Guizot, nor the originality of Michelet, yet it is a valuable addition to modern literature. Would that we saw a few more such in our own country! FOOTNOTES |
|
