Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and RomansPlutarch
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Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch
Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
The Gauls are of the Celtic race, and are reported to have been
compelled by their numbers to leave their country, which was
insufficient to sustain them all, and to have gone in search of other
homes. And being, many thousands of them, young men and able to bear
arms, and carrying with them a still greater number of women and young
children, some of them, passing the Riphaean mountains, fell upon the
Northern Ocean, and possessed themselves of the farthest parts of
Europe; others, seating themselves between the Pyrenean mountains and
the Alps, lived there a considerable time, near to the Senones and
Celtorii; but, afterwards tasting wine which was then first brought them
out of Italy, they were all so much taken with the liquor, and
transported with the hitherto unknown delight, that, snatching up their
arms and taking their families along with them, they marched directly to
the Alps, to find out the country which yielded such fruit, pronouncing
all others barren and useless. He that first brought wine among them
and was the chief instigator of their coming into Italy is said to have
been one Aruns, a Tuscan, a man of noble extraction, and not of bad
natural character, but involved in the following misfortune. He was
guardian to an orphan, one of the richest of the country, and much
admired for his beauty, whose name was Lucumo. From his childhood he
had been bred up with Aruns in his family and when now grown up did not
leave his house, professing to wish for the enjoyment of his society.
And thus for a great while he secretly enjoyed Aruns's wife, corrupting
her, and himself corrupted by her. But when they were both so far gone
in their passion that they could neither refrain their lust nor conceal
it, the young man seized the woman and openly sought to carry her away.
The husband, going to law, and finding himself overpowered by the
interest and money of his opponent, left his country, and, hearing of
the state of the Gauls, went to them and was the conductor of their
expedition into Italy.
At their first coming they at once possessed themselves of all that
country which anciently the Tuscans inhabited, reaching from the Alps to
both the seas, as the names themselves testify; for the North or
Adriatic Sea is named from the Tuscan city Adria, and that to the south
the Tuscan Sea simply. The whole country is rich in fruit trees, has
excellent pasture, and is well watered with rivers. It had eighteen
large and beautiful cities, well provided with all the means for
industry and wealth, and all the enjoyments and pleasures of life. The
Gauls cast out the Tuscans, and seated themselves in them. But this was
long before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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