Aemilius Paulus

Aemilius, then, having been appointed consul,[*](In 182 B.C.) made an expedition against the Ligurians along the Alps, whom some call also Ligustines, a warlike and spirited folk, and one whose proximity to the Romans was teaching it skill in war.

For they occupy the extremities of Italy that are bounded by the Alps, and those parts of the Alps themselves that are washed by the Tuscan sea and face Africa, and they are mingled with Gauls and the Iberians of the coast.

At that time they had also laid hold of the sea with piratical craft, and were robbing and destroying merchandise, sailing out as far as the pillars of Hercules.

Accordingly, when Aemilius came against them, they withstood him with a force of forty thousand men; but he, with eight thousand men all told, engaged their fivefold numbers, and after routing them and shutting them up in their walled towns, gave them humane and conciliatory terms;

for it was not the wish of the Romans to extirpate altogether the Ligurian nation, since it lay like a barrier or bulwark against the movements of the Gauls, who were always threatening to descend upon Italy.