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The Boians, a nation remarkably impatient of delay, and quickly disgusted at a state of inaction, separated, and withdrew to their several forts and villages. Marcellus then, suddenly crossing the Po, led his legions into the territory of Comum, where the Insubrians, after rousing the people of the country to arms, lay encamped.

But the league of the cantons associated for the desperate struggle suffered from intestine discord; the Boii and Insubres quarrelled, and the Cenomani not only withdrew from the national league, but purchased their pardon from the Romans by a disgraceful betrayal of their countrymen; during a battle in which the Insubres engaged the Romans on the Mincius, the Cenomani attacked in rear, and helped to destroy, their allies and comrades in arms . Thus humbled and left in the lurch, the Insubres, after the fall of Comum, likewise consented to conclude a separate peace . The conditions, which the Romans prescribed to the Cenomani and Insubres, were certainly harder than they had been in the habit of granting to the members of the Italian confederacy; in particular, they were careful to confirm by law the barrier of separation between Italians and Celts, and to enact that never should a member of these two Celtic tribes be capable of acquiring the citizenship of Rome.

Lastly the immigration and spreading of barbarian elements from many quarters and the incipient Latinizing of extensive Celtic and Spanish districts, naturally gave to Latin grammar and Latin instruction a higher importance than they could have had, so long as Latium only spoke Latin; the teacher of Latin literature had from the outset a different position in Comum and Narbo than he had in Praeneste and Ardea.

The victorious Autharis asserted his claim to the dominion of Italy. At the foot of the Rhætian Alps, he subdued the resistance, and rifled the hidden treasures, of a sequestered island in the Lake of Comum. At the extreme point of the Calabria, he touched with his spear a column on the sea-shore of Rhegium, proclaiming that ancient landmark to stand the immovable boundary of his kingdom.

Continuing our journey forwards for many days, I came to a city named Comum , which was a great city in old times, near fifty miles in circumference, and often did much damage to the Romans. In this place there are stately palaces, now destitute of inhabitants, yet it hath abundance of provisions.

The cases in which Caesar had bestowed burgess-rights and established colonies in Upper Italy were described by them as unconstitutional and null; in further illustration of which Marcellus ordained that a respected senator of the Caesarian colony of Comum, who, even if that place had not burgess but only Latin rights, was entitled to lay claim to Roman citizenship, should receive the punishment of scourging, which was admissible only in the case of non-burgesses.

Who else is there in Roman literature who so thoroughly corresponds with our modern ideal of a rich, generous, cultured public servant? In one place we find him providing for the educational needs of his birthplace, Comum. In another he renounces his share of an inheritance, and bestows it upon his old township.

The cases in which Caesar had bestowed burgess-rights and established colonies in Upper Italy were described by them as unconstitutional and null; in further illustration of which Marcellus ordained that a respected senator of the Caesarian colony of Comum, who, even if that place had not burgess but only Latin rights, was entitled to lay claim to Roman citizenship, should receive the punishment of scourging, which was admissible only in the case of non-burgesses.

Such were Catullus of Verona, Varius Rufus, Quintilius Varus, Furius, and Alfenus of Cremona, Caecilius of Comum, Helvius Cinna apparently of Brescia, and Valerius Cato who somehow managed to inspire in so many of them a love for poetry. To Cremona, Vergil was sent to school.

How dangerous these Raetian inroads were, appears from the fact that one of them about 660 destroyed the considerable township of Comum. Illyrian Peoples Japydes Scordisci