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Updated: April 30, 2025
In Italy the war, commenced by the Ligurians, grew daily more formidable. They now invested Pisae, with an army of forty thousand men; for multitudes flocked to them continually, led by the reports of the war and the expectation of booty. The consul, Minucius, came to Arretium, on the day which he had fixed for the assembling of the troops.
For a long time, nothing worth recording had occurred in Liguria; but, towards the end of this year, the Roman affairs there were twice brought into great peril; for the consul's camp, being assaulted, was with difficulty preserved; and a short time after, as the Roman army was marching through a defile, the Ligurians seized on the opening through which they were to pass.
The Sicanians appear to have been the next settlers, although they pretend to have been the first of all and aborigines; but the facts show that they were Iberians, driven by the Ligurians from the river Sicanus in Iberia. It was from them that the island, before called Trinacria, took its name of Sicania, and to the present day they inhabit the west of Sicily.
The contest would have continued longer, had not the enemy conceded the victory, in consequence of the wound of their general. Mago, setting out during the silence of the succeeding night, and marching as far at a time as his wounds would allow him, reached the sea-coast in the territory of the Ingaunian Ligurians.
The charge was as successful as it was sudden. Rolled back in disorder upon each other, and overwhelmed by numbers, the Spaniards and Ligurians died, fighting gallantly to the last. The Gauls, who had taken little or no part in the strife of the day, were then surrounded, and butchered almost without resistance.
Nearly at the same time, the Ligurians, having collected an army under the sanction of their devoting law, made an unexpected attack, in the night, on the camp of the proconsul Quintus Minucius.
The charge was as successful as it was sudden. Rolled back in disorder upon each other, and overwhelmed by numbers, the Spaniards and Ligurians died, fighting gallantly to the last. The Gauls, who had taken little or no part in the strife of the day, were then surrounded, and butchered almost without resistance.
Then we are given the legend that accounts for it. Here Hercules fought against the Ligurians, when the son of Jove, having exhausted his arrows, was supplied with artillery by a discharge of stones from the sky, showered on his enemies by Jupiter. This desert, a little Sahara in Europe, occupies 30,000 acres.
The Ligurians encamped in the Mappalian district surrounded his house. The apprehensions of the rich appeared justified when, one day, three hundred Barbarians were seen approaching the walls. The Suffet opened the gates to them; they were deserters; drawn by fear or by fidelity, they were hastening to their master.
The Ligurians were one of the last Italian states conquered by the Romans; on account of their inveterate hostility, they are grossly maligned by the historians of the victorious people, and described as ignorant, treacherous, and deceitful; but the Greek writers have given a different and more impartial account; they assure us that the Ligurians were eminent for boldness and dexterity, and at the same time patient and contented.
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