r
283 B.C. the Gauls destroyed one of her armies near Aretium (Arezzo),
and advanced to the Roman frontier, saying, "We are bound for Rome; the
Gauls know how to take it." Seventy-two years afterwards the Cisalpine
Gauls swore they would not put off their baldricks till they had mounted
the Capitol, and they arrived within three days' march of Rome. At every
appearance of this formidable enemy the alarm at Rome was great. The
senate raised all its forces and summoned its allies. The people
demanded a consultation of the Sibylline books, sacred volumes sold, it
was said, to Tarquinius Priscus by the sibyl Amalthea, and containing the
secret of the destinies of the Republic. They were actually opened in
the year 228 B.C., and it was with terror found that the Gauls would
twice take possession of the soil of Rome. On the advice of the priests,
there was dug within the city, in the middle of the cattle-market, a huge
pit, in which two Gauls, a man and a woman, were entombed alive; for thus
they took possession of the soil of Rome, the oracle was fulfilled, and
the mishap averted. Thirteen years afterwards, on occasion of the
disaster at Cann, the same atrocity was again committed, at the same
place and for the same cause. And by a strange contrast, there was at
the committing of this barbarous act, "which was against Roman usage,"
says Livy, a secret feeling of horror, for, to appease the manes of the
victims, a sacrifice was instituted, which was celebrated every year at
the pit, in the month of November.

In spite of sometimes urgent peril, in spite of popular alarms, Rome,
during the course of this period, from 299 to 258 B.C., maintained an
increasing ascendency over the Gauls. She always cleared them off her
territory, several times ravaged theirs, on the two banks of the Po,--
called respectively Transpadan and Cispadan Gaul, and gained the majority
of the great battles she had to fight. Finally in the year 283 B.C., the
proprietor Drusus, after having ravaged the country of the Senonic Gauls,
carried off the very ingots and jewels, it was said, which had been given
to their ancestors as the price of their retreat. Solemn proclamation
was made that the ransom of the Capitol had returned within its walls;
and, sixty years afterwards, the Consul M. Cl. Marcellus, having defeated
at Clastidium a numerous army of Gauls, and with his own hand slain their
general, Virdumar, had the honor of dedicating to the temp