ost destroyed by the Insubres; and it was not
till 556 that Placentia could be partially re-established. But the
league of the cantons associated for the desperate struggle suffered
from intestine discord; the Boii and Insubres quarrelled, and the
Cenomani not only withdrew from the national league, but purchased
their pardon from the Romans by a disgraceful betrayal of their
countrymen; during a battle in which the Insubres engaged the Romans
on the Mincius, the Cenomani attacked in rear, and helped to destroy,
their allies and comrades in arms (557). Thus humbled and left in the
lurch, the Insubres, after the fall of Comum, likewise consented to
conclude a separate peace (558). The conditions, which the Romans
prescribed to the Cenomani and Insubres, were certainly harder than
they had been in the habit of granting to the members of the Italian
confederacy; in particular, they were careful to confirm by law the
barrier of separation between Italians and Celts, and to enact that
never should a member of these two Celtic tribes be capable of
acquiring the citizenship of Rome. But these Transpadane Celtic
districts were allowed to retain their existence and their national
constitution--so that they formed not town-domains, but tribal
cantons--and no tribute, as it would seem, was imposed on them.
They were intended to serve as a bulwark for the Roman settlements
south of the Po, and to ward off from Italy the incursions of the
migratory northern tribes and the aggressions of the predatory
inhabitants of the Alps, who were wont to make regular razzias in
these districts. The process of Latinizing, moreover, made rapid
progress in these regions; the Celtic nationality was evidently far
from able to oppose such resistance as the more civilized nations of
Sabellians and Etruscans. The celebrated Latin comic poet Statius
Caecilius, who died in 586, was a manumitted Insubrian; and Polybius,
who visited these districts towards the close of the sixth century,
affirms, not perhaps without some exaggeration, that in that quarter
only a few villages among the Alps remained Celtic. The Veneti, on
the other hand, appear to have retained their nationality longer.

Measures Adopted to Check the Immigrations of the Transalpine Gauls

The chief efforts of the Romans in these regions were naturally
directed to check the immigration of the Transalpine Celts, and to
make the natural wall, which separates the peninsula from the inter