oman general
had made war without the authority of the Senate or the People; a
dangerous precedent, which was afterward only too faithfully followed.
The Galatians were, as has been already said, a body of Gauls, who,
after laying waste a great part of Asia Minor, had settled in the north
of Phrygia. They had fought in the army of Antiochus at Magnesia, and
this supplied Manlius with a pretext for marching against them. He
defeated them in two battles, and compelled them to sue for peace. The
campaign greatly enriched Manlius and his legions, as the Gauls had
accumulated enormous wealth by their many conquests in Asia.

Manlius remained another year (B.C. 188) in the East as Proconsul, and,
in conjunction with the ten commissioners, formally concluded the peace
with Antiochus, and settled the affairs of Asia. Eumenes, the king of
Pergamus, received Mysia, Lydia, and part of Caria. The Rhodians
obtained the remaining portion of Caria, together with Lycia and
Pisidia. Manlius returned to Rome in B.C. 187, and his triumph, like
that of Scipio Asiaticus, was most magnificent. But his soldiers, like
that of Scipio, introduced into the city the luxuries of the East. These
campaigns, as we shall presently see, exercised a most injurious
influence upon the character of the Roman nobles and people, teaching
them to love war for the sake of acquiring wealth, and prompting them to
acts of robbery and rapine.

[Footnote 36: See the "Smaller History of Greece," p. 214.]

[Footnote 37: See p. 79. (Eighth paragraph of Chapter
XI.--Transcriber)]

[Illustration: Roman Soldiers. (From Column of Trajan.)]

CHAPTER XVI.

WARS IN THE WEST. THE GALLIC, LIGURIAN, AND SPANISH WARS. B.C. 200-175.

While the Roman legions in the East were acquiring wealth and winning
easy conquests, their less fortunate comrades in the West were carrying
on a severe struggle with the warlike Gauls, Ligurians, and Spaniards.
The Romans had hardly concluded the Second Punic War when they received
intelligence that Hamilcar, a Carthaginian officer, had excited several
tribes in Northern Italy to take up arms against Rome. These were the
Gauls on both sides of the Po, and the Ligurians, a race of hardy
mountaineers, inhabiting the upper Apennines and the Maritime Alps. They
commenced the war in B.C. 200 by the capture and destruction of the
Roman colony of Placentia, and by laying siege to that of Cremona, the
two strong-holds of the Roman dominion i