Book 14

1.1. Celtica lies in the part of Europe that stretches toward the west, between the northern pole and the equinoctial sunset; and being square in shape, it borders on the east upon the Alpine mountains, which are the greatest of the European ranges; on the south and toward the south wind upon the Pyrenees; toward the sunset upon the sea outside the Pillars of Heracles; and toward the north wind upon the Scythian and Thracian peoples and the river Ister, which, descending from the Alpine mountains — the greatest of the rivers there — and passing through the whole continent beneath the Bears, discharges into the Pontic sea.

1.2. Being of such magnitude that it falls not much short of being called a fourth part of Europe, well watered and rich and abundant in crops and most excellent for the pasturing of cattle, it is divided through the middle by the river Rhine, which is thought to be the greatest of the rivers of Europe after the Ister.

1.3. And the part on this side of the Rhine, bordering on the Scythians and Thracians, is called Germania, reaching as far as the Hercynian forest and the Rhipaean mountains; while the part on the other side, looking toward the south, as far as the Pyrenean mountain, the part enclosing the Galatic gulf, is called Galatia, named after the sea.

1.4. But by a common name the whole is called by the Greeks Celtica — as some say, after a certain giant Celtus who held power there; while others tell the tale that from Heracles and Asterope the daughter of Atlas were born two sons, Iberus and Celtus, who gave to the lands which both ruled their names from themselves.

1.5. Others say there is a certain river Celtus rising from the Pyrenees, from which first the neighbouring land, and then in time the rest also, came to be called Celtica. And some say that when the first Greeks were crossing over to this land, their ships, carried by a violent wind, ran aground upon the Galatic gulf, and the men, when they reached the shore, called the country Celsica from the mishap that befell them, which by the change of a single letter those of later times named Celtica.

2.1. At Athens, in the shrine of the earth-born Erechtheus, a certain sacred olive tree, planted by Athena in the contest that arose between her and Poseidon over the land, having been burned along with the other things in the sanctuary by the barbarians when they took the acropolis, on the second day after the burning sent up from its trunk a shoot about a cubit long — the gods wishing to make plain to all that the city, quickly recovering herself, would put forth new growth in place of the old.

2.2. And at Rome a certain hut of Mars, sacred, set upon the summit of the Palatine, having been burned to the ground together with the surrounding houses, when the building-sites were being cleared for the repair, in the midst of the burnt ashes preserved unharmed the token of the founding of the city — a staff curved at one of its ends, such as oxherds and shepherds carry, the one sort calling them shepherd's crooks, the others hare-staves — with which Romulus, taking the auspices, marked out the regions of the birds, when he was about to found the city.

2.3. . . . with a light-armed army carrying nothing beyond their arms. Applause broke out, as at the greatest of spectacles and the fairest of things to hear — both those who were truly destitute, and those who feigned utter destitution.

3.1. Marcus Furius the dictator was, among those who flourished at the same age, the most brilliant in war and the most prudent in civil affairs.

4.1. Manlius, who had shown himself the bravest when the Romans took refuge in the Capitol, being in danger of perishing on a charge of attempting a tyranny, looking toward the Capitol and stretching out his hands to the temple of Zeus that stood upon it, said: 'Will not even that place be able to save me, which, mastered by the barbarians, I preserved for you? Then too I was dying on your behalf, and now I shall die by your hands.' Then, indeed, they took pity and let him go; but afterward he was hurled from the cliff.

5.1. Having mastered the enemy and inundated his army with spoils, Titus Quinctius, as dictator, took nine cities of the enemy in nine days. Taken on both sides in herds, the god-detested were cut down.

6.1. The Romans are magnanimous. For whereas nearly all other men, both in the common affairs of cities and in their private lives, shape their judgments to the latest of what befalls them, and often dissolve great enmities through chance acts of kindness and break up long-standing friendships through small and trifling collisions, those men thought they ought to do the contrary in the case of friends, and to gratify, by reason of old benefits, their angers over recent grievances.

6.2. Marvellous, indeed, is this too of those men — I mean their bearing no grudge against any of the Tusculans, but letting all the offenders go unpunished; but far more marvellous than this is what they granted them after the remission of the charges. For considering how no such thing should ever again occur in their city, nor any take an occasion for revolt, they thought they ought neither to bring a garrison into their citadel, nor to take hostages from the most eminent men, nor to take away the arms of those who had them, nor to make any other sign of a friendship mistrusted;

6.3. but supposing that one thing holds together all who are connected with one another by kinship or friendship — the equal sharing of good things — they resolved to grant citizenship to the conquered, sharing with them all the privileges that belonged to the natural-born Romans; not taking the same view as those who claim to rule Greece, neither the Athenians nor the Lacedaemonians.

6.4. For why need one speak about the other Greeks? The Athenians, at least, treated the Samians — who were their own colonists — and the Lacedaemonians the Messenians — who differed nothing from brothers — when these had given them some offence, having dissolved the kinship, so cruelly and so brutally, when they took their cities into their power, as to leave to not even the wildest of barbarians any surpassing in lawlessness toward their own kindred.

6.5. Ten thousand such things one might tell that were done amiss by these cities, which I pass over, since even in mentioning these I am grieved. For I held that the Greek differs from the barbarian not in name, nor for the sake of dialect, but in understanding and in the choice of honest pursuits, and most of all in committing against one another no act beyond human nature. As many, then, as have these things more abundantly in their nature, these I think one ought to call Greeks, but those who have the contrary, barbarians.

6.6. And the fair and humane judgments and deeds of men I reckon to be Greek, but the cruel and brutal ones — and especially when they are done toward kindred and friends — barbaric. The Tusculans, then, besides having nothing taken from them when their city was captured, departed having gained in addition the goods of the conquerors.

7.1. Sulpicius, surnamed Rufus, was a man both eminent in deeds of war and one who had zealously pursued the middle course of policy.

8.1. The Celts, marching against Rome a second time, ravaged the Alban territory; and there, all of them filling themselves with much food, and drinking much unmixed wine — for the wine that grows there is, after the Falernian, the sweetest of wines, most like honey-water — and choosing more sleep than was their wont, and keeping their manner of life for the most part beneath the shade, took on so great an increase toward corpulence and softness, and were so unmanned in their strength, that whenever they undertook to exercise their bodies and to labour in their arms, their breath was cut by continual panting, and their limbs streamed with much sweat, and they desisted from their toils sooner than they were bidden by their commanders.

9.1. Learning this, the dictator of the Romans, Camillus, having called together those about him, made a harangue full of much that urged them to daring, in which were also these things:

9.2. 'Arms better than the barbarian have been devised for us — breastplates and helmets and greaves and strong shields, by which we keep our whole bodies under guard, and two-edged swords, and in place of a lance the pilum, an inescapable missile. The defensive arms are such as not easily to yield to blows, the offensive such as to be borne through every defence. But of them the heads are bare, bare the breasts and flanks, bare the thighs and legs down to the feet, and no other protection have they save shields; and for offence,'

9.3. 'lances and exceedingly long cleaver-swords. And the ground on which we shall make the contest is helpful to us, who come down from the height upon the slope, but hostile to them, who are forced from the low ground to advance toward the heights. Let none of you fear either the number of the enemy or their size, nor, looking to these advantages of theirs, be the more despondent toward the contest, but consider first that a smaller army that knows what it ought to do is better than a great and ignorant one; and next, that to those who fight for their own, nature herself supplies a certain courage toward the dangers, and grants an inspired breath, as to men possessed by a god; but to those who are eager to snatch what belongs to others, the daring is wont to become softer in the face of dangers.'

9.4. 'Nor, indeed, ought we to dread those things with which they frighten the enemy and terrify them even before coming to grips, as though we were inexperienced in war. For what dreadful thing can their deep hair, and the bitterness in their eyes, and the grim cast of their countenance, and these disorderly leapings, and the empty brandishings of arms, and the much clashing of shields, and all the other things that are flourished by barbarous and senseless boastfulness, in forms and voices, amid the threats of enemies — what advantage are these by nature able to afford against those who advance to grips with reason, or what fear against those who stand firm with calculation amid the dangers?'

9.5. 'Considering these things, then, as many of you as were present in the former war against the Celts, and as many as through youth were left out of it — the one that you may not bring shame upon your valour of that time by cowardice now, the others that you may prove in no way inferior to your elders in the display of noble deeds — go, you noble sons, emulators of good fathers, go undismayed against them, having the gods themselves as helpers, who will grant you the power to exact such penalties as you wished from your bitterest foes, and me as your general, to whom you bear witness of much good counsel and much good fortune;'

9.6. 'and you will have a blessed time from this day forth, you to whom it shall be granted to bring back to your country the most illustrious crown, and will leave a fair and immortal renown in place of your mortal body to your infant children and aged parents, who will fulfil this end of life. I know not what more there is need to say; for the barbarian army is already moving, advancing against us. But go, and take your places in the line.'

10.1. Now the fighting of the barbarians, having much that was brutish and frenzied, was disorderly and devoid of the skill that lies in arms. For at one moment, raising their swords aloft, they struck after the savage manner, falling on with their whole bodies, like woodcutters or diggers; at another they delivered aimless blows from the side, as though to cleave through whole the bodies of their adversaries, defensive arms and all,

10.2. and then they turned the edges of their iron. But the valour of the Romans, and their counter-art against the barbarians, was well trained and had much that was safe. For while the enemy were still raising their swords, slipping in under their arms and lifting their shields high, then becoming bent and short, they made the blows of those men, passing overhead, fruitless and empty, while themselves, bearing their swords upright, struck their groins and cleaved their flanks and extended their blows through the breast to the vitals; and as many as they perceived keeping these parts under guard, cutting the sinews of their knees or ankles, they poured them upon the ground, bellowing and biting their shields and sending forth a cry like the howling of

10.3. wild beasts. And their strength failed many of the barbarians, their limbs loosed by toil, and of their arms some had had their edges blunted, some were broken, and some were no longer able to be of help; for, besides the blood pouring from the wounds, the sweat streaming over their whole bodies suffered them neither to wield their swords nor to hold their shields, their fingers slipping on the grips and no longer keeping a strong hold. But the Romans, being inured to many toils through their unwearied and continual campaigns, nobly bore up under all the hardships.

11.1. At Rome many other heaven-sent signs occurred, but the greatest of all was this: that, near the middle of the Forum, a part of the ground broke open to a bottomless depth, and this remained for many days. When the senate had voted, those in charge of the Sibylline oracles, having examined the books, said that the earth, having received the things of most worth to the Roman people, would both close up and would send forth for the time to come a great abundance of all good things.

11.2. When the men had declared such things, each brought offerings into the chasm of those goods which he thought the country had need of — cakes from the crops and first-fruits from his money.

11.3. And a certain Marcus Curtius, reckoned among the foremost of the young men for his temperance and his valour in war, having asked access to the senate, said that of all good things the fairest possession and the most necessary to the city of the Romans was the valour of men; if, then, the earth should receive some first-fruit of this also, and there should be one to grant this willingly to his country, the earth would send up many

11.4. good men. Having said this, and having promised to yield this honour to no other, he put on his arms and mounted his war-horse; and when the crowd of the city had gathered to the sight, first he prayed to the gods to bring the oracles to fulfilment and to grant many men like himself to be born to the city of the Romans; then, giving his horse the reins and applying the spurs, he hurled himself into the chasm. And after him many victims, and many crops, and much money, and much adornment of raiment, and many first-fruits of all the crafts were thrown publicly into the chasm; and straightway the earth closed up.

12.1. An extraordinary thing of a body was the Celt, such as to overtop by far the common nature. — Licinius Stolo, who had been tribune ten times and had introduced the laws over which the ten-years' faction arose, having been convicted in a suit and condemned by the people to a money penalty, said that no beast is more abominable than the people, which does not even keep its hands off those who feed it.

13.1. When the consul Marcius was besieging the Privernates, since no hope of safety was left to them, they sent an embassy to him; and when he said, 'Tell me, how do you yourselves punish your slaves who revolt from you?' the envoy answered him: 'As those ought to be punished who long to recover their inborn liberty.'

13.2. And Marcius, approving his frankness, said: 'But if indeed we are persuaded by you to lay aside our angers, what pledge will you give that you will do nothing more of an enemy's deed?' The envoy answered again: 'It rests with you, Marcius, and with the other Romans. For if we recover, along with our country, our liberty also, we shall be your firm friends through all time; but if forced to be slaves, never.' And Marcius admired the men for their high-mindedness and raised the siege.