their first pressure fell on the Etruscans.

The Celtic, Galatian, or Gallic nation received from the common mother
endowments different from those of its Italian, Germanic, and Hellenic
sisters. With various solid qualities and still more that were
brilliant, it was deficient in those deeper moral and political
qualifications which lie at the root of all that is good and great
in human development. It was reckoned disgraceful, Cicero tells us,
for the free Celts to till their fields with their own hands. They
preferred a pastoral life to agriculture; and even in the fertile
plains of the Po they chiefly practised the rearing of swine, feeding
on the flesh of their herds, and staying with them in the oak forests
day and night. Attachment to their native soil, such as characterized
the Italians and the Germans, was wanting in the Celts; while on the
other hand they delighted to congregate in towns and villages, which
accordingly acquired magnitude and importance among the Celts earlier
apparently than in Italy. Their political constitution was imperfect.
Not only was the national unity recognized but feebly as a bond of
connection--as is, in fact, the case with all nations at first--but
the individual communities were deficient in concord and firm
control, in earnest public spirit and consistency of aim. The only
organization for which they were fitted was a military one, where the
bonds of discipline relieved the individual from the troublesome task
of self-control. "The prominent qualities of the Celtic race," says
their historian Thierry, "were personal bravery, in which they
excelled all nations; an open impetuous temperament, accessible to
every impression; much intelligence, but at the same time extreme
mobility, want of perseverance, aversion to discipline and order,
ostentation and perpetual discord--the result of boundless vanity."
Cato the Elder more briefly describes them, nearly to the same effect;
"the Celts devote themselves mainly to two things--fighting and
-esprit-."(6) Such qualities--those of good soldiers but of bad
citizens--explain the historical fact, that the Celts have shaken all
states and have founded none. Everywhere we find them ready to rove
or, in other words, to march; preferring moveable property to landed
estate, and gold to everything else; following the profession of arms
as a system of organized pillage or even as a trade for hire, and
with such success at all events that ev