A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 1 — John Shaqi
A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 1Guizot, François
History
A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 1
Guizot, François
France -- History
garments, with hair dishevelled and sparkling eyes, proclaiming the
advent of the god: “‘Tis he! we saw him shoot athwart the temple’s vault,
which opened under his feet; and with him were two virgins, who issued
from the temples of Artemis and Athena. We saw them with our eyes. We
heard the twang of their bows, and the clash of their armor.” Hearing
these cries and the roar of the tempest, the Greeks dash on--the Gauls
are panic-stricken, and rush headlong down the bill. The Greeks push on
in pursuit. Rumors of fresh apparitions are spread; three heroes,
Hyperochus, Laodocus, and Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, have issued from
their tombs hard by the temple, and are thrusting at the Gauls with their
lances. The rout was speedy and general; the barbarians rushed to the
cover of their camp; but the camp was attacked next morning by the Greeks
from the town and by re-enforcements from the country places. Brennus
and the picked warriors about him made a gallant resistance, but defeat
was a foregone conclusion. Brennus was wounded, and his comrades bore
him off the field. The barbarian army passed the whole day in flight.
During the ensuing night a new access of terror seized them they again
took to flight, and four days after the passage of Thermopylae some
scattered bands, forming scarcely a third of those who had marched on
Delphi, rejoined the division which had remained behind, some leagues
from the town, in the plains watered by the Cephissus. Brennus summoned
his comrades “Kill all the wounded and me,” said he; “burn your cars;
make Cichor king; and away at full speed.” Then he called for wine,
drank himself drunk, and stabbed himself. Cichor did cut the throats of
the wounded, and traversed, flying and fighting, Thessaly and Macedonia;
and on returning whence they had set out, the Gauls dispersed, some to
settle at the foot of a neighboring mountain under the command of a
chieftain named Bathanat or Baedhannatt, i.e., son of the wild boar;
others to march back towards their own country; the greatest part to
resume the same life of incursion and adventure. But they changed the
scene of operations. Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace were exhausted by
pillage, and made a league to resist. About 278 B.C. the Gauls crossed
the Hellespont and passed into Asia Minor. There, at one time in the pay
of the kings of Bithynia, Pergamos, Cappadocia, and Syria, or of the free
commercial cities which were struggling against the kings, at another
carrying on wars on their own account, they wandered for more than thirty
years, divided into three great hordes, which parcelled out the
territories among themselves, overran and plundered them during the fine
weather, intrenched themselves during winter in their camp of cars, or in
some fortified place, sold their services to the highest bidder, changed
masters according to interest or inclination, and by their bravery became
the terror of these effeminate populations and the arbiters of these
petty states.
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