eckered
cloaks (similar to the plaids of the Gals or Scottish Highlanders), and
fought naked from the belt upwards, according to their custom when they
meant to conquer or die. Of five thousand five hundred men that the
victory of Cannae cost Hannibal, four thousand were Gauls. All Cisalpine
Gaul was moved; enthusiasm was at its height; new bands hurried off to
recruit the army of the Carthaginian who, by dint of patience and genius,
brought Rome within an ace of destruction, with the assistance almost
entirely of the barbarians he had come to seek at her gates, and whom he
had at first found so cowed and so vacillating.

When the day of reverses came, and Rome had recovered her ascendency,
the Gauls were faithful to Hannibal; and when at length he was forced to
return to Africa, the Gallic bands, whether from despair or attachment,
followed him thither. In the year 200 B.C., at the famous battle of
Zama, which decided matters between Rome and Carthage, they again formed
a third of the Carthaginian army, and showed that they were, in the words
of Livy, "inflamed by that innate hatred towards the Romans which is
peculiar to their race."

This was the third period of the struggle between the Gauls and the
Romans in Italy. Rome, well advised by this terrible war of the danger
with which she was ever menaced by the Cisalpine Gauls, formed the
resolution of no longer restraining them, but of subduing them and
conquering their territory. She spent thirty years (from 200 to 170
B.C.) in the execution of this design, proceeding by means of war, of
founding Roman colonies, and of sowing dissension amongst the Gallic
peoplets. In vain did the two principal, the Boians and the Insubrians,
endeavor to rouse and rally all the rest: some hesitated; some absolutely
refused, and remained neutral. The resistance was obstinate. The Gauls,
driven from their fields and their towns, established themselves, as
their ancestors had done, in the forests, whence they emerged only to
fall furiously upon the Romans. And then, if the engagement were
indecisive, if any legions wavered, the Roman centurions hurled their
colors into the midst of the enemy, and the legionaries dashed on at all
risks to recover them. At Parma and Bologna, in the towns taken from the
Gauls, Roman colonies came at once and planted them-selves. Day by day
did Rome advance. At length, in the year 190 B.C., the wrecks of the one
hundred and twelve tribes which h