siege to
Clusium were not they who first crossed the Alps, is sufficiently
certain. For two hundred years before they laid siege to Clusium and
captured the city of Rome, the Gauls passed over into Italy. Nor were
these the first of the Etrurians with whom the Gauls fought, but long
before that they frequently fought with those who dwelt between the
Apennines and the Alps. Before the Roman empire the sway of the Tuscans
was much extended by land and by sea; how very powerful they were in
the upper and lower seas, by which Italy is encompassed like an island,
the names [of these seas] is a proof; the one of which the Italian
nations have called the Tuscan sea, the general appellation of the
people; the other the Hadriatic, from Hadria, a colony of Tuscans. The
Greeks call these same seas the Tyrrhenian and Hadriatic. This people
inhabited the country extending to both seas in twelve cities, colonies
equal in number to the mother cities having been sent, first on this
side the Apennines towards the lower sea, afterwards to the other side
of the Apennines; who obtained possession of all the district beyond the
Po, even as far as the Alps, except the corner of the Venetians, who
dwell round the extreme point of the [Hadriatic] sea. The Alpine nations
also have this origin, more especially the Rhaetians; whom their very
situation has rendered savage, so as to retain nothing of their
original, except the accent of their language, and not even that without
corruption.

34. Concerning the passage of the Gauls into Italy we have heard as
follows. In the reign of Tarquinius Priscus at Rome, the supreme
government of the Celts, who compose the third part of Gaul, was in the
hands of the Biturigians: they gave a king to the Celtic nation. This
was Ambigatus, one very much distinguished by his merit, and both his
great prosperity in his own concerns and in those of the public; for
under his administration Gaul was so fruitful and so well peopled, that
so very great a population appeared scarcely capable of being restrained
by any government. He being now advanced in years, and anxious to
relieve his kingdom of so oppressive a crowd, declares his intention to
send his sister's sons, Bellovesus and Sigovesus, two enterprising
youths, into whatever settlements the gods should grant them by augury:
that they should take out with them as great a number of men as they
pleased, so that no nation might be able to obstruct them in their
pro