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The Roman Conquest of Cisalpine Gaul (201-191 B.C.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

A. H. McDonald
A. H. McDonald*
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Extract

For those who study the Roman conquest of Cisalpine Gaul — let it be said at once — there is little or no hope of writing an adequate historical account. To say this is not to disparage what has been done. The subject has been treated admirably, with full critical care, by scholars who combined intimate knowledge of the region with personal feeling for its importance in Italian history, in the light of Gallic social conditions and Roman policy and military methods — always with the reservation ‘as far as the recorded evidence allows’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 8 , 1974 , pp. 44 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1974

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References

1 For the historical background, treated in detail, see above all De Sanctis, G., Storia dei Romani [cited as ‘De Sanctis’], Vols, iii-iv, 1 (Turin, 1916-1923); cf. iv, 1, p. 410Google Scholar: ‘Campo aperto alle falsificazioni dell' annalistica … e in realtà possiamo a gran pena seguire le direttive principalissime dello svolgersi dei fatti.’

2 On factors of terrain and strategy, fully discussed, see now Toynbee, Arnold J., Hannibal's Legacy [cited as ‘Toynbee’], Vols, i-ii (London, O.U.P., 1965), especially Vol. ii, pp. 252 ff., 660Google Scholar ff. My debt to this work will be clear: it clarified and enlarged impressions I had gained on the ground and from study of the Annalistic parts of Livy.

3 Polyb. ii 14-35; cf. Walbank, F.W., Historical Commentary on Polybius, Vol. i (Oxford, 1957), pp. 172Google Scholar ff.

4 Cary, M., The Geographic Background of Greek and Roman History (Oxford, 1949), pp. 113Google Scholar ff.; Toynbee, ii, pp. 252-60: Barfield, L., Northern Italy before Rome (London, 1971), pp. 146Google Scholar ff.

5 Toynbee, i, pp. 85-8.

6 Polyb. ii 21; cf. Walbank, , Comm. i, pp. 191-4.Google Scholar

7 Polyb. ii 31-35; Toynbee, ii, pp. 260-5; cf. Frank, Tenney, C. A. H. Vol. vii, pp. 810-15Google Scholar; Salmon, E.T., Roman Colonization under the Republic (London, 1969), pp. 102Google Scholar ff.

8 Livy, , Per. xxGoogle Scholar, cf. Polyb. iii 40.5; De Sanctis, iii, 2, pp. 6-7, 102-4.

9 Polyb. ii 17.9-12; cf. Powell, T.G.E., The Celts (London, 1958), pp. 80-3, 106-8.Google Scholar

10 Livy xxviii 46, xxix 5, xxx 18-19; De Sanctis, iii, 2, pp. 511-2, 540-2. On C. Servilius cf. Livy xxx 19.6-9.

11 Livy xxxi 2.5-10; De Sanctis, iv, 1, p. 412; Toynbee, i, pp. 485-7; ii, p. 268.

12 Livy xxxi 2.11.

13 Livy xxxi 10-11.3, 21-22.3, 47.4-49.3; De Sanctis, iv, 1, p. 412 n. 11; cf. Briscoe, J., Commentary on Livy, Books XXXI-XXXIII (Oxford, 1973), pp. 82 ft., 110 ff., 158Google Scholar f.

14 Livy xxxii 7.5-8.

15 Livy xxxii 9.5, 26.1-3 (doublets).

16 Polyb. xviii 11.1-2:

17 Livy xxxii 29.5-31.6, xxxiii 22.1-23.9; Briscoe, , Comm. pp. 226-7, 291-3.Google Scholar

18 Livy xxxiii 36.13-15. Livy cites Valerius Antias and Claudius (Quadrigarius) on the booty, and adds: ‘Id quoque inter scriptores ambigitur utrum in Boios prius an Insubres consul exercitum duxerit.’ Note in particular Toynbee, ii, p. 270 n. 3.

19 Cf. n. 11, on C. Ampius in 201.

20 In 218, cf. Polyb. iii 40. 11-13, Livy xxi 25.8-26.2; in 216, cf. Polyb. iii 118.6, Livy xxiii 24.6-13; Toynbee, ii, pp. 259-60.

21 On the Laevi and Libui cf. Polyb. ii 17.4; Walbank, , Comm. i, p. 182.Google Scholar

22 Livy xxxiii 37. 9-12; cf. n. 13 for his triumph as praetor in 200.

23 Livy xxxii 30.6 (the excuse of the Cenomani); cf. n. 17.

24 Livy xxxiv 22.1-3, 42.2: cf. n. 20.

25 Livy xxxiv 46.1.

26 Livy xxxiv 46.4-47.8.

27 Livy xxxiv 43.4-5; cf. Scullard, H.H., Roman Politics, 220-150 B.C. (Oxford, 1951), pp. 116-8.Google Scholar

28 Livy xxxiv 48.1; cf. nn. 15 and 24 (on the doublets), where routine work at Placentia and Cremona is also regarded as ‘nihil memorabile’.

29 Livy xxxv4-5, 6.5-10, 8.

30 Cf. McDonald, A.H., ‘The Roman Historians’ in Fifty Years (and Twelve) of Classical Scholarship (Oxford: Blackwell, 1968), pp. 470-2, 474.Google Scholar

31 Livy xxxv 22.3-4, 40.2-4 (doublets).

32 Livy xxxvi 38.5-7, 39.3-40.14; xxxvii 2.5; cf. De Sanctis, iv, 1, p. 415.

33 Livy xxxiv 56.1-7; xxxv 3, 11, 21.7-11; xxxvi 38.1-4; xxxvii 46.1-2; cf. Toynbee, ii, pp. 273 ff., 277-8.

34 Livy xxxvii 46.9-11.

35 Livy xxxvii 57.7-8.

36 Livy xxxix 2.6 and 10; on this Via Flaminia cf. Hardie, Colin, JRS 55 (1965), 129.Google Scholar

37 Livy xxxix 55.6-8; and note in general Ewins, U., ‘The Early Colonisation of Cisalpine Gaul’, Papers of the British School at Rome 20 (1952), 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff.

38 Cf. McDonald, A.H., ‘The Style of Livy’, JRS 47 (1957), 155-9Google Scholar; Toynbee, ii, pp. 36-43; Walsh, P.G., ‘Livy’, Greece & Rome, New Surveys No. 8 (Oxford, 1974), pp. 23-9.Google Scholar

39 See Nissen, H., Krit, Untersuchungen über die Quellen der iv und v Dekade des Livius (Berlin, 1863), pp. 53–85.Google Scholar

40 Nissen, op. cit., pp. 86 ff.; Kahrstedt, U., Die Annalistik von Livius, B. XXXI-XLV (Berlin, 1913), pp. 58–84Google Scholar; cf. Briscoe, , Comm. pp. 3–6Google Scholar, but he presses his general conclusions too far.

41 Cf. Briscoe, op. cit., pp. 1-3.

42 Kahrstedt, op. cit., pp. 1-20; cf. Briscoe, , Comm. pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

43 See nn. 15,24,31.

44 Cf. Walsh, P.G., Livy (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 141Google Scholar ff.; Walbank, F.W. in Livy (ed. Dorey, T.A.; London, 1971), pp. 49Google Scholar ff.