ine went across the Apennines and fetched
his avengers. Clusium has not been mentioned since the time of Porsena;
the fact of the Clusines soliciting the aid of Rome is a proof how
little that northern city of Etruria was concerned about the fate of the
southern towns, and makes us even suspect that it was allied with Rome;
however, the danger was so great that all jealousy must have been
suppressed. The natural road for the Gauls would have been along the
Adriatic, then through the country of Umbrians who were tributary to
them and already quite broken down, and thence through the Romagna
across the Apennines.

But the Apennines which separate Tuscany from the Romagna are very
difficult to cross, especially for sumpter-horses; as therefore the
Gauls could not enter Etruria on that side--which the Etruscans had
intentionally allowed to grow wild--and as they had been convinced of
this in an unsuccessful attempt, they crossed the Apennines in the
neighborhood of Clusium, and appeared before that city. Clusium was the
great bulwark of the valley of the Tiber; and if it were taken, the
roads along the Tiber and the Arno would be open, and the Gauls might
reach Arezzo from the rear: the Romans therefore looked upon the fate of
Clusium as decisive of their own. The Clusines sued for a treaty with
the mighty city of Rome, and the Romans were wise enough readily to
accept the offer: they sent ambassadors to the Gauls, ordering them to
withdraw. According to a very probable account, the Gauls had demanded
of the Clusines a division of their territory as the condition of peace,
and not, as was customary with the Romans, as a tax upon a people
already subdued: if this is correct, the Romans sent the embassy
confiding in their own strength. But the Gauls scorned the ambassadors,
and the latter, allowing themselves to be carried away by their warlike
disposition, joined the Etruscans in a fight against the Gauls. This was
probably only an insignificant and isolated engagement. Such is the
account of Livy, who goes on to say that the Gauls, as soon as they
perceived this violation in the law of nations, gave the signal for a
retreat, and, having called upon the gods to avenge the wrong, marched
against Rome.

This is evidently a mere fiction, for a barbarous nation like the Gauls
cannot possibly have had such ideas, nor was there in reality any
violation of the law of nations, as the Romans stood in no kind of
connection with the