ty," says Polybius, "the Gauls fell back, but merely a few
leagues from Rome, to the environs of Tibur; and thence, for the space of
twelve years, they attacked the Roman territory, renewing the campaign
every year, often reaching the very gates of the city, and being repulsed
indeed, but never farther than Tibur and its slopes." Rome, however, made
great efforts, every war with the Gauls was previously proclaimed a
tumult, which involved a levy in mass of the citizens, without any
exemption, even for old men and priests. A treasure, specially dedicated
to Gallic wars, was laid by in the Capitol, and religious denunciations
of the most awful kind hung over the head of whoever should dare to touch
it, no matter what the exigency might be. To this epoch belonged those
marvels of daring recorded in Roman tradition, those acts of heroism
tinged with fable, which are met with amongst so many peoples, either in
their earliest age, or in their days of great peril. In the year 361
B.C., Titus Manlius, son of him who had saved the Capitol from the night
attack of the Gauls, and twelve years later M. Valerius, a young military
tribune, were, it will be remembered, the two Roman heroes who vanquished
in single combat the two Gallic giants who insolently defied Rome. The
gratitude towards them was general and of long duration, for two
centuries afterwards (in the year 167 B.C.) the head of the Gaul with his
tongue out still appeared at Rome, above the shop of a money-changer, on
a circular sign-board, called "the Kymrian shield" (scutum Cimbricum).
After seventeen years' stay in Latium, the Gauls at last withdrew, and
returned to their adopted country in those lovely valleys of the Po which
already bore the name of Cisalpine Gaul. They began to get disgusted
with a wandering life. Their population multiplied; their towns spread;
their fields were better cultivated; their manners became less barbarous.
For fifty years there was scarcely any trace of hostility or even contact
between them and the Romans. But at the beginning of the third century
before our era, the coalition of the Samnites and Etruscans against Rome
was near its climax; they eagerly pressed the Gauls to join, and the
latter assented easily. Then commenced the second period of struggles
between the two peoples. Rome had taken breath, and had grown much more
rapidly than her rivals. Instead of shutting herself up, as heretofore,
within her walls, she forthwith