GALLIA TRANSPADANA. The INSUBRIANS occupied almost exactly the modern territory of Milan, for Ticinum was regarded as one of the Ligurian towns. Comum also did not belong to Gallia Transpadana, which comprised Milan, Lodi, and a part of the territory of Cremona. During the 200 years in which the Gauls were masters of that district, it contained, properly speaking, no towns, and MEDIOLANUM, the principal place of the Insubrians, was an open village, though it may have been very large. The Romans treated the Insubrians more gently than the Boians, whence their country was not so cruelly devastated. In consequence of its relation to Rome, the village of Mediolanum became a town; but when or how this happened, we have no means of ascertaining. In the time of Caesar and Cicero, Mediolanum is already mentioned as a town, and, according to the description of Strabo, it appears to have even been a considerable one. The district of Milan is extremely fertile; its vicissitudes have been terrible, but it has always been restored, the causes of which must probably be sought in the particularly favorable circumstances of its situation. It is certainly not owing to the peculiar character of its inhabitants, of whom antiquity did not entertain any more favorable opinion than that which is current about the modern Milanese, who are said to be the most lazy and awkward among all the Italians. The atmosphere is heavy, and both ancients and moderns assert, that this has a great influence upon the inhabitants. Now this town of Milan which in the time of Strabo appears as a considerable country town, ever continued to increase under the emperors. In the letters of Pliny we find it spoken of as a large place, in which, according to the custom of the time, public teachers of rhetoric and grammar were appointed and salaried, and formed what we might call a university. During the second century Milan became larger and larger. In the war of the emperor Aurelian with the Goths, it was devastated, but soon recovered again. The emperor Maximian took up his residence there, so that it became a capital of the empire. Ausonius who lived about eighty years later says, _Mediolani mira omnia_, and _mirus_ at that time signified “beautiful” or “magnificent.” In the reign of Theodoric it was a very large and important city, though this emperor did not reside there. In the war of Belisarius its fate was very melancholy: Datius, the bishop of Milan, had been intriguing with the imperial general and promised to deliver up Milan to him; but the plan was betrayed, the Goths entered Milan, and, if we can take the account in Procopius literally, put the whole population to the sword. The calamity must indeed have been fearful, though it can scarcely have been as bad as it is said to have been. In the time of the Lombards we again find it as a great city, though it was under a disadvantage because Pavia, in its neighbourhood, was the capital of the Lombards; and a rivalry