the west, and the Palatine Hill and the Circus Maximus on the east. The
Cloaca Maxima ran beneath it, and it was rich in temples and monuments.
On it the first gladiatorial exhibition occurred, B.C. 264, and there
too, other burials of living persons had been made, in spite of the
long-ago abolishment of such rites by Numa.] and the public excitement
somewhat allayed in that horrible way. A large army was immediately
raised, and sent to meet the Gauls at Ariminum on the Adriatic, but
they avoided it by taking a route further to the west. They were met by
a reserve force, however, which suffered a great defeat, probably near
Clusium. Afterwards the main army effected a junction with another body
coming from Pisa, and as the Gauls were attacked on both sides at once,
they were annihilated. This battle occurred near Telamon, in Etruria,
not far from the mouth of the Umbria. The victory was followed up, and
after three years, the whole of the valley of the Po, between the Alps
and the Apennines, was made a permanent addition to Roman territory.
Powerful colonies were planted at Placentia and Cremona to secure it.

[Illustration: HANNIBAL.]

No greater generals come before us in the grand story of Rome than
those who are now to appear. One was born while the first Punic war was
still raging, and the other in the year 235, when the gates of the
temple of Janus were, for the first time in centuries, closed in token
that Rome was at peace with the world. Hannibal, the elder of the two
was son of Hamilcar Barca, and inherited his father's hatred of Rome,
to which, indeed, he had been bound by a solemn oath, willingly sworn
upon the altar at the dictation of his father.

When Livy began his story of the second war between Rome and Carthage,
he said that he was about to relate the most memorable of all wars that