le of Jupiter
the third "grand spoils" taken since the foundation of Rome, and of
ascending the Capitol, himself conveying the armor of Virdumar, for he
had got hewn an oaken trunk, round which he had arranged the helmet,
tunic, and breastplate of the barbarian king.

Nor was war Rome's only weapon against her enemies. Besides the ability
of her generals and the discipline of her legions, she had the sagacity
of her Senate. The Gauls were not wanting in intelligence or dexterity,
but being too free to go quietly under a master's hand, and too barbarous
for self-government, carried away, as they were, by the interest or
passion of the moment, they could not long act either in concert or with
sameness of purpose. Far-sightedness and the spirit of persistence were,
on the contrary, the familiar virtues of the Roman Senate. So soon as
they had penetrated Cisalpine Gaul, they labored to gain there a
permanent footing, either by sowing dissension amongst the Gallic
peoplets that lived there, or by founding Roman colonies. In the year
283 B.C., several Roman families arrived, with colors flying and under
the guidance of three triumvirs or commissioners, on a territory to the
north-east, on the borders of the Adriatic. The triumvirs had a round
hole dug, and there deposited some fruits and a handful of earth brought
from Roman soil; then yoking to a plough, having a copper share, a white
bull and a white heifer, they marked out by a furrow a large enclosure.
The rest followed, flinging within the line the ridges thrown up by the
plough. When the line was finished, the bull and the heifer were
sacrificed with due pomp. It was a Roman colony come to settle at Sena,
on the very site of the chief town of those Senonic Gauls who had been
conquered and driven out. Fifteen years afterwards another Roman colony
was founded at Ariminum (Rimini), on the frontier of the Bolan Gauls.
Fifty years later still two others, on the two banks of the Po, Cremona
and Placentia (Plaisance). Rome had then, in the midst of her enemies,
garrisons, magazines of arms and provisions, and means of supervision and
communication. Thence proceeded at one time troops, at another
intrigues, to carry dismay or disunion amongst the Gauls.

Towards the close of the third century before our era, the triumph of
Rome in Cisalpine Gaul seemed nigh to accomplishment, when news arrived
that the Romans' most formidable enemy, Hannibal, meditating a passage
fr