period mentioned by Polybius and Diodorus.

These Gauls were partly Celts, and partly (indeed principally) Belgae or
Cymri, as may be perceived from the circumstance that their king, as
well as the one who appeared before Delphi, is called Brennus. _Brenin_,
according to Adelung, in his _Mithridates_, signifies in the language of
Wales and Lower Brittany a _king_. But what caused this whole
emigration? The statement of Livy, that the Gauls were compelled by
famine to leave their country, is quite in keeping with the nature of
all traditions about migrations, such as we find them in Saxo
Grammaticus, in Paul Warnefried from the sagas of the Swedes, in the
Tyrrhenian traditions of Lydia, and others. However, in the case of a
people like the Celts, every specific statement of this kind, in which
even the names of their leaders are mentioned, is of no more value than
the traditions of other barbarous nations which were unacquainted with
the art of writing. It is indeed, well known that the Celts in writing
used the Greek alphabet, but they probably employed it only in the
transactions of daily life; for we know that they were not allowed to
commit their ancient songs to writing.

During the Gallic migration we are again made aware how little we know
of the history of Italy generally: our knowledge is limited to Rome, so
that we are in the same predicament there, as if of all the historical
authorities of the whole German empire we had nothing but the annals of
a single imperial city. According to Livy's account, it would seem as if
the only object of the Gauls had been to march to Rome; and yet this
immigration changed the whole aspect of Italy. After the Gauls had once
crossed the Apennines, there was no further obstacle to prevent their
marching to the south of Italy by any road they pleased; and it is in
fact mentioned that they did proceed farther south. The Umbrians still
inhabited the country on the lower Po, in the modern Romagna and Urbino,
parts of which were occupied by Liburnians. Polybius says that many
people there became tributary to the Gauls, and that this was the case
with the Umbrians is quite certain.

The first historical appearance of the Gauls is at Clusium, whither a
noble Clusine is said to have invited them for the purpose of taking
vengeance on his native city. Whether this account is true, however,
must remain undecided, and if there is any truth in it, it is more
probable that the offended Clus