adition the
Romans maintained a blockade of Veii for eleven years before it fell into
their hands. It was in the course of this war that the Romans introduced
the custom of paying their troops, a practice which enabled them to keep a
force under arms throughout the entire year if necessary. Veii was
destroyed, its population sold into slavery, and its territory
incorporated in the public land of Rome. By this annexation the area of
the Roman state was nearly doubled.

Recent excavations have shown that Veii was a place of importance from the
tenth to the end of the fifth century B. C., that Etruscan influence
became predominant there in the course of the eighth century, and that, at
the time of its destruction, it was a flourishing town, which, like Rome
itself, was in contact with the Greek cultural influences then so powerful
throughout the Italian peninsula.

II. THE GALLIC INVASION

*The Gauls in the Po Valley.* But scarcely had the Romans emerged
victorious from the contest with Veii when a sudden disaster overtook them
from an unexpected quarter. Towards the close of the fifth century various
Celtic tribes crossed the Alpine passes and swarmed down into the Po
valley. These Gauls overcame and drove out the Etruscans, and occupied the
land from the Ticinus and Lake Maggiore southeastwards to the Adriatic
between the mouth of the Po and Ancona. This district was subsequently
known as Gallia Cisalpina. The Gauls formed a group of eight tribes, which
were often at enmity with one another. Each tribe was divided into many
clans, and there was continual strife between the factions of the various
chieftains. They were a barbarous people, living in rude villages and
supporting themselves by cattle-raising and agriculture of a primitive
sort. Drunkenness and love of strife were their characteristic vices: war
and oratory their passions. In stature they were very tall; their eyes
were blue and their hair blond. Brave to recklessness, they rushed naked
into battle, and the ferocity of their first assault inspired terror even
in the ranks of veteran armies. Their weapons were long, two-edged swords
of soft iron, which frequently bent and were easily blunted, and small
wicker shields. Their armies were undisciplined mobs, greedy for plunder,
but disinclined to prolonged, strenuous effort, and utterly unskilled in
siege operations. These weaknesses nullified the effects of their
victories in the