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Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans

Plutarch · c. 100 CE (composed over time) primary

passage 414 of 1497 · (414/1424)

in brief
After the first Punic War, Rome prepares for the Gallic threat: the Gauls (including the Insubrians and Gaesatae) threaten near the Po, prompting Roman religious fears and preparations for war.

any people, as is apparent from the enactment which from that time forth provided, that the high-priests should enjoy an exemption from all military duty, except only in Gallic insurrections.

The great preparations, also, made by the Romans for war, (for it is not reported that the people of Rome ever had at one time so many legions in arms, either before or since,) and their extraordinary sacrifices, were plain arguments of their fear. For though they were most averse to barbarous and cruel rites, and entertained more than any nation the same pious and reverent sentiments of the gods with the Greeks; yet, when this war was coming upon them, they then, from some prophecies in the Sibyls' books, put alive under ground a pair of Greeks, one male, the other female; and likewise two Gauls, one of each sex, in the market called the beast-market: continuing even to this day to offer to these Greeks and Gauls certain secret ceremonial observances in the month of November.

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topics: mobilization and recruitment · omens, portents, and signs · providence and divine governance

Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans · Plutarch · 90–120