Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 38
William A. McDevitte, Sen. Class. Mod. Ex. Schol. A.B.T.C.D., Ed.

17. As the troops were about to act against this enemy, so terrible to all in that part of the world, the consul, in an assembly, addressed the soldiers for the most part to this effect: [2] “It does not escape me, that, of all the nations inhabiting Asia, the Gauls are pre-eminent for military fame. [3] A fierce nation, after overrunning the face of the earth with its arms, has fixed its abode in the midst of a race of men the gentlest in the world. [4] Their tall persons, their long red hair, their vast shields, and swords of enormous length; their songs also, when they are advancing to action, their yells and dances, and the horrid clashing of their armour, while they brandish their shields in a peculiar manner, practised in their original country; all these circumstances are preconcerted to inspire terror. [5] But let Greeks, and Phrygians, and Carians, to whom these things are unusual and strange, be frightened by such acts: to the Romans, accustomed to Gallic tumults, even these vain efforts to strike terror are known. [6] Once our ancestors fled from them, but it was long ago, when they first met them at the Allia. Ever since that time, for, now, two hundred years, [p. 1740]the Romans drive them before them in dismay, and kill them like cattle; there have, indeed, been more triumphs celebrated over the Gauls, than over almost all the rest of the world. [7] It is now well known by experience, that if you sustain their first onset, which they make with fiery eagerness and blind fury, their limbs are unnerved with sweat and fatigue; their arms flag; and, though you should not employ a weapon on them, the sun, dust, and thirst prostrate their enervated bodies and minds when their fury has ceased. We have tried them, not only with our legions against theirs, but in single combat, man to man. [8] Titus Manlius and Marcus Valerius have demonstrated how far Roman valour surpasses Gallic fury. Marcus Manlius, singly, thrust back the Gauls who were mounting the Capitol in a body. [9] Our forefathers had to deal with genuine Gauls, born in their own lands; but they are now degenerate, a mongrel race, and, in reality, what they are named, Gallograecians; just as is the case of vegetables and cattle, the seeds are not so efficacious in preserving their original constitution, as the properties of the soil and climate under which they are reared, are in changing it. [10] The Macedonians who settled at Alexandria in Egypt, or in Seleucia, or Babylonia, or in any other of their colonies scattered over the world, have sunk into Syrians, Parthians, or Egyptians. [11] Marseilles, owing to its situation in the midst of Gauls, has contracted somewhat of the disposition of its adjoining neighbours. What of the hardy, rugged discipline of Sparta hath remained to the Tarentines? [12] Every thing is produced in higher perfection in its own native soil; whatever is planted in a foreign land, by a gradual change in its nature, degenerates into that by which it is nurtured. [13] Therefore you, victorious, will slay the conquered Phrygians, though laden with Gallic armour, as you slew them in the ranks of Antiochus. I am more apprehensive of our gaining but little honour from the victory, than of the struggle being a severe one. King Attalus often routed and put them to flight. [14] Do you think that brutes only, when taken, retain at first their natural ferocity, and subsequently grow tame, after being long fed by the hands of men; and that nature does not exert the same power in softening the savage disposition of men. [15] Do you believe these to be of the same kind that their fathers and grandfathers were? Exiles from home through scarcity of land, they [p. 1741]marched along the craggy coast of Illyricum, then traversed Paeonia and Thrace, in a continual struggle against the fiercest nations, and took possession of these countries. [16] A land which could glut them with plenty of every thing, received them hardened and infuriated by so many evils. By the very great fertility of the soil, the very great mildness of the climate, and the gentle dispositions of the neighbouring nations, all that fierceness with which they came has been quite mollified. [17] You, by Hercules, who are the sons of Mars, ought to guard against the seductions of Asia, and shun them from the very first; so great is the power of those foreign pleasures in extinguishing the vigour of the mind, so strong the contagion from the relaxed discipline and manners of the people about you. [18] One thing has happened fortunately; that though they will not bring against you a degree of strength by any means equal to what they formerly possessed, yet they still retain a character among the Greeks equal to what they had at their first coming; [19] consequently you, when victors, will acquire the same warlike renown, as if you had conquered the Gauls still acting [20??] up to their ancient standard of courage.”