United States or Azerbaijan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was the same movement assuredly which led the Gauls to the countries through which the middle course of the Danube extends, and to the Po; and could the people who came in a few days from Clusium to Rome, and afterward appeared in Apulia, have been sitting quiet in a corner of Italy for two hundred years?
They were already at Clusium, three days' march from Rome, when the army of Ariminum, under the consul Papus, appeared on their flank, while the Etruscan militia, which after crossing the Apennines had assembled in rear of the Gauls, followed the line of the enemy's march.
Open now the gates of Helicon, goddesses, and stir the song of the band that come the while with Aeneas from the Tuscan borders, and sail in armed ships overseas. First in the brazen-plated Tiger Massicus cuts the flood; beneath him are ranked a thousand men who have left Clusium town and the city of Cosae; their weapons are arrows, and light quivers on the shoulder, and their deadly bow.
On an excursion to Tivoli with the great Federigo of Urbino the time was happily spent in talk on the military system of the ancients, and particularly on the Trojan war. Even on his journey to the Congress of Mantua he searched, though unsuccessfully, for the labyrinth of Clusium mentioned by Pliny, and visited the so-called villa of Virgil on the Mincio.
More than two hundred and fifty cities or towns in Italy alone are historical, and some were famous. The excavations of Pompeii attest great luxury and elegance of life. Cortona, Clusium, Veii, Ancona, Ostia, Praeneste, Antium, Misenum, Baiae, Puteoli, Neapolis, Brundusium, Sybaris, were all celebrated. And still more remarkable were the old capitals of Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa.
With these words they persuaded King Porsenna, who judging it well for the Etrurians that there should be a king at Rome, and that king an Etrurian by birth, gathered together a great army and came up against Rome. But when men heard of his coming, so mighty a city was Clusium in those days, and so great the fame of King Porsenna, there was such fear as had never been before.
Tradition assigns the first quasi-historical settlement to Lars Porsena, who is said to have made it his summer residence, when the lower and more marshy air of Clusium became oppressive. Certainly it must have been a considerable town in the Etruscan period. Embedded in the walls of palaces may still be seen numerous fragments of sculptured bas-reliefs, the works of that mysterious people.
After these came many companies of Gauls by the same way into Italy, those that were now fighting against Clusium being the nations of the Senones. And the men of Clusium, seeing how great was the multitude of this people, and what manner of men they were, being unlike to any that they had seen before, and of very great stature, and also what arms they carried, were in great fear.
Some writers say, that the whole were cut off, so that not one survived to give an account of it, and that no information of the misfortune reached the consuls, who were, at the time, not far from Clusium, until the Gallic horsemen came within sight, carrying the heads of the slain, some hanging before their horses' breasts, others on the points of their spears, and expressing their triumph in songs according to their custom.
Being absent on the day of trial he was condemned to pay fifteen thousand pounds' weight of copper. In this same year, being the three hundred and sixty and fourth from the building of the City, came ambassadors from Clusium asking help of the Romans against the Gauls.
Word Of The Day