these emigrants, took possession of
the track [extending] from the Utens to the AEsis. I find that it was
this nation that came to Clusium, and thence to Rome; whether alone, or
aided by all the nations of the Cisalpine Gauls, is not duly
ascertained. The Clusians, terrified at their strange enemy, on
beholding their great numbers, the forms of the men such as they had
never seen, and the kind of arms [they carried], and on hearing that
the troops of the Etrurians had been frequently defeated by them on both
sides of the Po, sent ambassadors to Rome to solicit aid from the
senate, though they had no claim on the Roman people, in respect either
of alliance or friendship, except that they had not defended their
relations the Veientians against the Roman people. No aid was obtained:
three ambassadors were sent, sons of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, to treat
with the Gauls in the name of the senate and Roman people; that they
should not attack the allies and friends of the Roman people from whom
they had received no wrong. That they should be supported by the Romans
even by force of arms, if circumstances obliged them; but it seemed
better that war itself should be kept aloof, if possible; and that the
Gauls, a nation strangers to them, should be known by peace, rather than
by arms.

36. The embassy was a mild one, had it not been consigned to ambassadors
too hot in temper, and who resembled Gauls more than Romans. To whom,
after they delivered their commission in the assembly of the Gauls, the
following answer is returned: Though the name of the Romans was new to
their ears, yet they believed them to be brave men, whose aid was
implored by the Clusians in their perilous conjuncture. And since they
chose to defend their allies against them by negociation rather than by
arms, that they on their part would not reject the pacific terms which
they propose, if the Clusians would give up to the Gauls in want of
land, a portion of their territories which they possessed to a greater
extent than they could cultivate; otherwise peace could not be obtained:
that they wished to receive an answer in presence of the Romans; and if
the land were refused them, that they would decide the matter with the
sword in presence of the same Romans; that they might have an
opportunity of carrying home an account how much the Gauls excelled all
other mortals in bravery. On the Romans asking what right they had to
demand land from the possessors, or to thre