In the later political geography of the Romans, Gallia Cisalpina is divided into two parts which are very different from each other, viz., _Gallia Cispadana_ and _Gallia Transpadana_. In political terminology the latter acquired a greater extent, not being limited to the country between the Ticinus and lake Garda, but also comprising Venetia. The inhabitants of all this country, who received the _jus Latii_, were called _Transpadani_. The _Cispadani_ are not much spoken of, which arose from particular circumstances, which I will explain to you because history does not do it. I have mentioned to you, that the whole country south of the Po, from Piacenza to the frontier of Picenum, was inhabited by two Gallic tribes, the Boians and Senones. The Senones were extirpated to a man, as, e.g., the Eretrians were extirpated by the Persians. The Romans invaded their country, burnt down their villages, and carried off their women and children into slavery; the men, capable of bearing arms, who in their despair returned, like beasts of prey whose young ones are taken from them, to save their families, were completely defeated, and those who escaped fled to the Boians. The whole of modern Romagna became a complete desert, such as we sometimes find in the history of Germany, e.g., the desert of the Avars in the time of Charlemagne, and Servia, after its devastation by Attila, when it was in such a condition that the ambassadors of Theodosius II. travelled seven days without finding any other traces of man, except the bodies of the murdered inhabitants. After its devastation, the Romans gave up the country partly to Roman citizens and partly to Italicans, who might cultivate it as they pleased, for it had become _ager publicus_. C. Flaminius afterwards distributed a portion of it _viritim_ among Roman citizens. There now arose in those extensive districts entirety new settlements, the names of which are of a peculiar character: _Faventia Pollentia_, _Florentia_ and _Placentia_ are all names derived from verbs implying a favourable omen. Other places are termed _Fora_, and according to the American practice they might be called territories; they were inhabited by Roman citizens, who fully enjoyed the benefits of the Roman law, but did not form corporations. They lived isolated from one another, and thus were deprived of that advantage which was so important in antiquity, I mean, of the privileges of corporations: they had no magistrates to administer justice, whence there were many acts which they could not perform at all. It was contrary to the feelings of the Romans to appoint magistrates according to districts, and it was for this reason that they instituted Fora, places in which court-houses were built, and where a praefect, appointed by the praetor urbanus, resided, and where, accordingly, judicial business could be transacted.