their great military road, called the Flaminian Way, and also settling
with discharged soldiers and needy citizens the tracts of frontier land
wrested some time before from the Gauls, the Boii, a tribe of that race,
stirred up all the Gallic peoples already in Italy, besides their kinsmen
who were yet beyond the mountains, for an assault upon Rome. Intelligence
of this movement among the northern tribes threw all Italy into a fever of
excitement. At Rome the terror was great; for not yet had died out of
memory what the city had once suffered at the hands of the ancestors of
these same barbarians that were now again gathering their hordes for sack
and pillage. An ancient prediction, found in the Sibylline books, declared
that a portion of Roman territory must needs be occupied by Gauls. Hoping
sufficiently to fulfil the prophecy and satisfy Fate, the Roman Senate
caused two Gauls to be buried alive in one of the public squares of the
capital.

Meanwhile the barbarians had advanced into Etruria, ravaging the country
as they moved southward. After gathering a large amount of booty, they
were carrying this back to a place of safety, when they were surrounded by
the Roman armies at Telamon, and almost annihilated (225 B.C.). The
Romans, taking advantage of this victory, pushed on into the plains of the
Po, captured the city which is now known as Milan, and extended their
authority to the foot-hills of the Alps.


CARTHAGE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

THE TRUCELESS WAR.--Scarcely had peace been concluded with Rome at the end
of the First Punic War, before Carthage was plunged into a still deadlier
struggle, which for a time threatened her very existence. The mercenary
troops, upon their return from Sicily, revolted, on account of not