Book 38
17
As it was this enemy, so much dreaded by all the people in that part of the world, that was to be met in war, the consul paraded his soldiers and delivered the following speech to them: "I am quite aware, soldiers, that of all the nations of Asia the Gauls have the highest military reputation. This fierce people, after wandering and warring over almost the entire world, have taken up their abode amongst the gentlest and most peaceable race of men. Their tall stature, their long red hair, their huge shields, their extraordinarily long swords; still more, their songs as they enter into battle, their war-whoops and dances, and the horrible clash of arms as they shake their shields in the way their fathers did before them-all these things are intended to terrify and appal. But let those fear them to whom they are strange and startling, such as the Greeks and Phrygians and Carians. We Romans are familiar with Gaulish tumults and know how they come to nothing. Once in the old days when our ancestors met them for the first time, they fled from them at the Alia; from that time for the last 200 years they have routed and slain them like so many herds of cattle, and almost more triumphs have been won over the Gauls than over the rest of the world put together. Our experience has taught us this-if you withstand their first rush with its wild excitement and blind fury, their limbs become powerless with sweat and fatigue, their weapons hang idly; their flabby bodies and, when their fury has spent itself, their flabby spirits, too, are prostrated by sun and dust and thirst, even though you did not lift a sword against them. We have made trial of them, not only legions against legions, but man against man. T. Manlius and M. Valerius have shown how steady Roman courage can get the better of Gaulish frenzy. M. Manlius flung down single-handed the Gauls who were climbing the Capitol. And, besides, those ancestors of ours had to deal with genuine Gauls bred in their own land; these are degenerates, a mongrel race, truly what they are called-Gallograeci. Just as in the case of fruits and cattle, the seed is not so effective in keeping up the strain as the nature of the soil and climate in which they are reared are in changing it.
