INVASION OF THE GAULS
[279-278 B.C.]
Numerous tribes of Gauls, or Galatæ, as the Greeks called them, had been established, for how long is not known, on the banks of the Danube, when a fresh migration of Belgic Tectosages, starting from Toulouse, set in motion those populations which, having little knowledge of the art of cultivating the ground, found all regions too narrow for them. Two or three hundred thousand men, divided into three bands descended like clouds of locusts on Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. Ptolemy Ceraunus, who in his presumption had refused the assistance of the Dardani, was overwhelmed with his whole army. His head was stuck on the end of a pike and paraded about the country. The fields were laid waste, the towns closed their gates, and the inhabitants, accustomed to rely on the protection of the soldiers, could do nothing but groan and invoke the names of Philip and Alexander. A Macedonian named Sosthenes urged them to defend themselves, collected the young men and succeeded in repelling the enemy. He was offered the crown, which he refused, desiring only the title of general. But very soon his little army, weak and inexperienced as it was, succumbed with him to the invasion of a new horde of barbarians which, after completing the devastation of Macedonia turned in the direction of Greece.
The Athenians, though weakened by their struggles with the Macedonian kings, resolved to arrest the barbarians at the pass of Thermopylæ. The peoples of central Greece responded to their summons, but the Peloponnesians, believing themselves to be sufficiently protected by the Isthmus of Corinth, did not stir. The Ætolians furnished the largest number of soldiers, but the command was conferred on the Athenians, who had taken the initiative in resistance. Their ships were of much service to the Greek army; they approached the shore, in spite of the difficulty of navigating amongst the morasses, and sent a shower of arrows against the enemy. It was a deadly fight for the barbarians; their superiority in numbers was of no advantage to them in this narrow passage. Then, in order to compel the Ætolians to return home, Brennus[45] detached forty thousand men who recrossed the Sperchius and deluged Ætolia with fire and blood. It was the warfare of savages; nothing was spared, neither age nor sex. As Brennus had anticipated, the Ætolians immediately quitted Thermopylæ to rescue or avenge their wives and children. But already a corps of troops from Patræ, the only town in the Peloponnesus which had thought of coming to the rescue of the Ætolians, had encountered the barbarians and inflicted such slaughter upon them that less than half returned to the camp at Thermopylæ.