g of Rome: with the double force at once of the oldest
remembrance and of the freshest alarm the terror of the Gauls came
upon Italy; through all the west people seemed to be aware that
the Roman empire was beginning to totter. As after the battle
of Cannae, the period of mourning was shortened by decree of
the senate.(21) The new enlistments brought out the most painful
scarcity of men. All Italians capable of bearing arms had to swear
that they would not leave Italy; the captains of the vessels lying
in the Italian ports were instructed not to take on board any man fit
for service. It is impossible to tell what might have happened, had
the Cimbri immediately after their double victory advanced through
the gates of the Alps into Italy. But they first overran the territory
of the Arverni, who with difficulty defended themselves in their
fortresses against the enemy; and soon, weary of sieges, set out
from thence, not to Italy, but westward to the Pyrenees.

The Roman Opposition
Warfare of Prosecutions

If the torpid organism of the Roman polity could still of itself reach
a crisis of wholesome reaction, that reaction could not but set in
now, when, by one of the marvellous pieces of good fortune, in which
the history of Rome is so rich, the danger was sufficiently imminent
to rouse all the energy and all the patriotism of the burgesses, and
yet did not burst upon them so suddenly as to leave no space for the
development of their resources. But the very same phenomena, which
had occurred four years previously after the African defeats, presented
themselves afresh. In fact the African and Gallic disasters were
essentially of the same kind. It may be that primarily the blame
of the former fell more on the oligarchy as a whole, that of the
latter more on individual magistrates; but public opinion justly
recognized in both, above all things, the bankruptcy of the government,
which in its progressive development imperilled first the honour and
now the very existence of the state. People just as little deceived
themselves then as now regarding the true seat of the evil, but
as little now as then did they make even an attempt to apply the
remedy at the proper point. They saw well that the system was
to blame; but on this occasion also they adhered to the method
of calling individuals to account--only no doubt this second storm
discharged itself on the heads of the oligarchy so much the more
heavily, as the calamity