But the Gauls scorned the ambassadors, and the latter, allowing themselves to be carried away by their warlike disposition, joined the Etruscans in a fight against the Gauls.

The Gallic migration undoubtedly passed by like a torrent with irresistible rapidity: how then is it possible to suppose that Melpum resisted them for two centuries, or that they conquered it and yet did not disturb the Etruscans for two hundred years?

The Ambrons, among others, a Gallic peoplet that had taken refuge in Helvetia after the expulsion of the Umbrians by the Etruscans from Italy, joined the Cimbrians and Teutons; and in the year 110 B.C. all together entered Gaul, at first by way of Belgica, and then, continuing their wanderings and ravages in central Gaul, they at last reached the Rhone, on the frontiers of the Roman province.

Already 8000 Ligurians, enlisted by Phoenician gold, were ready to unite with Hasdrubal; if he gained the first battle, he might hope that like his brother he should be able to bring the Gauls and perhaps the Etruscans into arms against Rome.

But in the year 391 B.C., finding themselves cooped up in their territory, a strong band of Gauls crossed the Apennines, and went to demand from the Etruscans of Clusium the cession of a portion of their lands.

The Etruscans on the other hand, while dark, were generally short of stature.

But at the beginning of the third century before our era, the coalition of the Samnites and Etruscans against Rome was near its climax; they eagerly pressed the Gauls to join, and the latter assented easily.

In fact, Livy, who gives the more usual Roman version, says nothing of the Greeks, but joins Latinus and the Latian aborigines to Aeneas while he musters the Etruscans under the Rutulian, Turnus.