Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/202

. GALLIA CIS. ITasdrubal was compelled to fight, and he made the best dispoeition of his troope that he could. Against the right wing of the Romans, where Nero com- manded his picked men, Haadrnhal posted the Galli on his own left, — not so mach because he trusted them, as because he supposed that the Romans feared them. On the banks of the Metaurum the Romans got full satisfiiction for Trasymenus and Cannae. The enemy was slaughtered by thousands ; and so complete was the victory that Livius allowed some Ligures and Cisalinne Galli, who either had not been in the battle or had escaped from the rout, to move off without being followed : " Let some remain," he said, ** to be the messengers of the enemy's defeat and of our victory." (Liv. zzvii. 29.) Uasdmbal perished in the battle; and when Nero returned to his camp in the south he ordered bis head to be thrown before the Carthaginian outposts, that Han- nibal might have no doubt about his brother's fate. The Carthaginians made another and last effort to assail the Romans through North Italy. In the sum- mer of B. G 205, in the fourteenth year of the war, Mago, the SCO of Hamilcar, landed on the Ligurian coast and seized Genua, where the Galli flodced to him. Hera also Mago received twenty-five ships from Carthage, 6000 in&ntiy, 800 horsemen, and seven elephants, a large sum of money to hire troops with, and orders to move on towards Rome and join Hannibal. (Liv. zziz. 4.) Mago nuuntained him- self in Cisalpine Gallia to the year b. c. 203, when he was defeated in the tenitavy of the Insubres by the Romans, and dangerously wounded. He was recalled to Africa by the Carthaginians, and he set sail, but he died on the voyage. Hannibal, who was recalled about the same time, took with him some of the men who had followed him all through his Italian campaigns ; and in the battle of Zama (b. c. 202), where lie was defeated by P. Scipio, one-third of his men, it is said, were Ligures and Galli. The Second Punic War ended b. c 201. Mago left one of his officers, Hamilcar, behind him in Cisalpine Gallia (Liv. zzxi. 10), or he was one of those who escaped from th^ slaughter on the Metaurum; it is not certain which. Hamilcar stirred up the Insubres, Boii, and Cenomani, and some Ligurians, and iklling on Placentia took and burnt it He then crossed the Po to plunder Cremona. L. Furius Purpureo, the governor of the provincia, as Livy (zzzi. 10) terms it, was near Ariminum with a force too small to relieve Oremona. He wrote to the senate for help, and his letter states the fact of Placentia and Cremona having maintained themselves all through the Punic War. Purpureo soon after defeated the Galli, before Cremona, and Hamilcar fell in the battle. (Liv. zzxi. 21.) But the war still continued, and the praetor Cn. Baebius Tamphilns fell into an ambuscade in the territory of the Insubres, and was compelled to leave the country with the loss of above 6000 men. (Liv. zzzii. 7.) Sez. Aelius, one of the consuls of B. c. 198, did no more in Gallia than settle the colonists of Placentia and Cremona, who had been Jiijpersed in the late troubles. It was only by securing those two colonies that the Romans could subjugate this country, and they prosecuted the work with the characteristic national stubbornness. In B.C. 197 both the consuls, C. Cornelius Cethegus and Q. Minucius Rufus, went to GallU. Cethegus went direct agunst the Insubres ; Rafus went to Genua and began the war with the Ligures in the basin of the Po. Having reduced all the Ligurians GALLIA CIS. 043 on the south of the Po ezcept the Ilvates, and all the Galli except the Boii, he led his troops into the country of the Boii, who had gone over the river to help the Insubres. The Boii returned to defend their lands. The treacherous Cenomani were in- dnoed by Cethegus to betray the Insubres, whom they had joined ; and the story is, that in the battle which followed the Cencmiani fell upon their owxv countrymen and contributed to their defeat. Above 30,000 Galli are said to have fallen ; and according to some authorities it was in this battle that Hamil- car fell. (Liv. zzzi. 21, zzzii. 30.) Livy found even some anthoriUes which affirmed that Hamilcar appeared in the triumph of Cethegus. (Liv. zzziii. 23.) The news of this defeat discouraged the Boii, who dispersed to their villages, and left the Roman commander to plunder their lands and bum their houses, which is still the way of dealing with nations who will not consent to be beaten in a pitched battle. In b. c 196 the consuls, L. Furius Pur- pureo, who as praetor had served before in Gallia, and M. Claudius Marcellns, of a race well known in Gallic wars, were both employed at home. They had Italia for their provincia, as the Roman phrase is. (Liv. zzziii. 25.) Marcellns defeated the In- subres in a great batUe, and took the town of Co- mum, upon which eight4md>twenty strong places surrendered to him. Purpureo carried on the war in the country of the Boii in the usual way ; burn- ing, destroying, and killing. The story of these cam- paigns is confused ; but if the narrative b true, we learn that the Boii, being unable to do any damage to the cautious Purpureo, crossed the Po and fell on the Laevi and the Libui, who were Galli. Returning home with their booty, they met the two consuls; and the fight was so fierce, for the passions (m both sides were greatly ezcited, that Uie Romans left scarcely a Boian to return home and tell of the defeat. (Liv. zzziii. 37.) Marcellos had a triumph at Rome; and livy on this and on previous occasions records the (act of the great quantity of copper and silver coin which was brought into the aerarium from this Gallic war. There is no doubt that the Galli used copper and silver mmiey, and probably had their own mint, as in Transalpine Gallia. Part of this money might be Roman or Italian, the pro- duce of old plunder. The consul, L. Valerius Flac- cus, the colleague of M. Porcius Cato, was employed in b. c. 194 in fighting with the Boii, and restoring the buildings in Placentia and Cremona which had' been destroyed in the vrar. (Liv. zzxiv. 22.) Flac- cus continued in Cisalpine Gallia tlie following year as proconsul, carrying on the war in the country of the Insubres. The consul, T. Sempnmius Longus, led his troops against the Boii. This unconquerable people were again in arms under a king Boioriz. They attacked Sempronius in his camp; and after a desperate fight, with great loss on both sides, and a doubtful result, tlie consul took sbeltor in Placentia. (Liv. zzziv. 46.) The numbers that fell in these battles are ezaggerated, and are a mere guess: but these continued losses were destroying all the man- hood of the Boii. In b. c. 192 the Ligures were in arms, and advanced as far as the walls of Placentia. (Liv. zzzlv. 56.) The history of these campaigns shows that the ultimate success of the Romans de- pended on their two colonies on the Po. The senate declared that there was a ** Tnmultus," a Gallic war. One consul, Minucius Thermus, was sent against the Ligures. The other consul, Merula, had a battle with the Boii near Mutina; and the