File:Stories of persons and places in Europe (1887) (14597176989).jpg

Identifier: storiesofpersons00bene (find matches)
Title: Stories of persons and places in Europe
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Benedict, E. L. (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, London, G. Routledge and sons
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ear, and carrying it down into the plain Here it keepsnarrowing and filling up the channel, and each following flood the river isless able to carry away. The consequence is, it often overflows its banks,doing great damage. The Battle Ground.—It is a sad fact, says a historian, that the rich-est and fairest spots on the earths surface are often those where thedarkest deeds are committed ; where human blood is most freely spilled,and human rights most ruthlessly ignored. Few countries have been moreblessed by the gifts of Nature, or more cursed by the strife of man, thanthe wide plain of Lombardy. It is a very garden of fertility, hedged in bythe Alps and Apennines, watered by innumerable tributaries of the Po,and glittering with a thousand towns and villages, like white sails upona sea of verdure. But it has been for ages the battle-field of the.nations, from the time when Bellovesus, nearly six centuries beforeChrist, led his Celtic legions across the Alps, until the French and Aus-
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366 Persons and Places in Europe. trians fought their last battle, and Victor Emmanuel drove out the last foesof Italy. Romans and Cimbri; Goths and Romans ; Lombards and Franks ; Ger-.mans and Italians ; French, Spaniards and Swiss ; Austrians and French,have again and again faced each other in deadly strife upon theseplains. On the 30th of July, 101 B. C, a desperate and bloody combat wasfought at the western extremity of the Lombard plain, near Turin, betweenthe Roman legions and hordes of Cimbrians. On one side were Marius andCatullus, the defenders of civilization, on the other, the champions of bar-barism. The Romans numbered only fifty thousand men, while the Cim-bric multitude extended in a vast square over many square miles. The frontranks of the Cambrians were covered with immense shields and joined to-gether by cords passing through the belts of the warriors to prevent theirline from being broken. Besides this enormous mass of infantry, therewere fifteen thousand cavalry, w

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