ior
of the continent, also its political boundary. That the terror of
the Roman name had already penetrated to the adjacent Celtic cantons
beyond the Alps, is shown not only by the totally passive attitude
which they maintained during the annihilation or subjugation of their
Cisalpine countrymen, but still more by the official disapproval and
disavowal which the Transalpine cantons--we shall have to think
primarily of the Helvetii (between the lake of Geneva and the Main)
and the Carni or Taurisci (in Carinthia and Styria)--expressed to
the envoys from Rome, who complained of the attempts made by isolated
Celtic bands to settle peacefully on the Roman side of the Alps. Not
less significant was the humble spirit in which these same bands of
emigrants first came to the Roman senate entreating an assignment
of land, and then without remonstrance obeyed the rigorous order to
return over the Alps (568-575), and allowed the town, which they
had already founded not far from the later Aquileia, to be again
destroyed. With wise severity the senate permitted no sort of
exception to the principle that the gates of the Alps should be
henceforth closed for the Celtic nation, and visited with heavy
penalties those Roman subjects in Italy, who had instigated any such
schemes of immigration. An attempt of this kind which was made on a
route hitherto little known to the Romans, in the innermost recess of
the Adriatic, and still more, as if would seem, the project of Philip
of Macedonia for invading Italy from the east as Hannibal had done
from the west, gave occasion to the founding of a fortress in the
extreme north-eastern corner of Italy--Aquileia, the most northerly of
the Italian colonies (571-573)--which was intended not only to close
that route for ever against foreigners, but also to secure the command
of the gulf which was specially convenient for navigation, and to
check the piracy which was still not wholly extirpated in those
waters. The establishment of Aquileia led to a war with the Istrians
(576, 577), which was speedily terminated by the storming of some
strongholds and the fall of the king, Aepulo, and which was remarkable
for nothing except for the panic, which the news of the surprise of
the Roman camp by a handful of barbarians called forth in the fleet
and throughout Italy.

Colonizing of the Region on the South of the Po

A different course was adopted with the region on the south of the Po,
which the Roman