having passed the Alps, penetrated into Italy as far as the settlements
of the Tuscans, which at that time extended over the greatest part of
the country now called Lombardy. These, and several other swarms of
invaders whom the successes of the former soon after attracted, having
totally subdued that country, built Milan, Verona, Brescia, and several
other considerable towns, and governed with such tyrannic sway,
especially over the nobility, whose riches they coveted and sought by
every means to extort from them, that most of the principal families,
joining under the conduct of Rhætus[F], one of the most distinguished
personages among them, retired with the best part of their effects and
attendants among the steepest mountains of the Alps, near the sources of
the Rhine, into the district which is now called the Grey League.

The motive of their flight, their civil deportment, and perhaps more so,
the wealth they brought with them, procured them a favourable reception
from the original inhabitants of that inhospitable region, who are
mentioned by authors[G] as being a Celtic nation, fabulously conjectured
from their name [Greek: leipontio][H] to have been left there by
Hercules in his expedition into Spain.

The new adventurers had no sooner climbed over the highest precipices,
but thinking themselves secure from the pursuits of their rapacious
enemies, they fixed in a valley which, from its great fertility in
comparison of the country they had just passed, they called
Domestica[I]. They intermixed with the old inhabitants, and built some
towns and many castles, whose present names manifestly bespeak their
origin.[J] They soon after spread all over the country, which took the
name of Rhaetia from that of their leader; and introduced a form of
government similar to their own, of which there are evident traces at
this day, especially in the administration of justice; in which a