472 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xin. 



Borne the mistress of the world. Their conquest by the 

 Gauls was altogether different. 



In B.C. 396 the Gauls poured through the passes north 

 of Lugano into the Valley of the Ticino, defeated the 

 Etruskans in a pitched battle, burnt Melpum, and, being 

 joined by other bodies of their countrymen, took posses- 

 sion of Lombardy, from that time forward known to 

 the Eomans as Gallia. Six years later they defeated 

 the Romans in the battle of the Allia, sacked Rome, 

 and were only kept on the north-eastern side of the 

 Apennines by the ceaseless vigilance of the Romans. 



This invasion of Lombardy by the Gauls broke up the 

 trade-routes of the Etruskans. Hatria was destroyed, and 

 a new Hatria established, probably by the survivors, on 

 the shores of Picenum, which afterwards became a Greek 

 city, the modern Atri. The condition of the Etruskans 

 in Rhaetia and the surrounding districts, cut off from 

 Etruria by the hostile barrier of Gauls, was probably 

 analogous to that of the Britons cut off by the Gothic 

 invasion from the Roman Empire. Their arts and civil- 

 isation declined, although they preserved their speech as 

 late as the days of Livy. The Etruskan influence on the 

 north, which had lasted for many centuries, came to an 

 end in the fourth century B.a, and trade did not find its 

 way again along the old channels until the conquest of 

 Cis-Alpine Gaul by the Romans and the spread of the 

 Roman power to the north. 



The interruption of this traffic led to the development 

 of new channels, by which the influence of Greece pene- 

 trated into the countries of the north. 



