episode concerning Marcus Valerius Corvus (Corvus = crow) that bears a remarkable likeness to an episode in the Táin Bó Cuailgne.

The Celts of northern Italy were continually at war with Rome, allying themselves with the Etruscans and Sabines, with Pyrrhus of Epirus, and later with Hannibal of Carthage. In 237 b.c. the Romans seized the Senones’ territory at Picenum and began to colonise it. In 225 b.c. a Celtic army was defeated at Clusium, 85 miles north of Rome, which allowed the Romans to begin a full-scale invasion of Cisalpine Gaul during the following year. The battle of Clastidium was a major defeat for the Celts in 222 b.c. The Cisalpine Gauls made an alliance with Hannibal, and 10,000 warriors joined him during his campaign against Rome in 218–207 b.c.

With the defeat of the Carthaginians, in 198 b.c., Rome began a systematic conquest of Cisalpine Gaul. In 192 b.c. the chieftain of the Boii, the last major Celtic tribe, surrendered to the Romans and was slaughtered with his family to provide entertainment for one of the consuls. In 173 b.c. there occurs the last record of conflict between the Celts of the Po Valley and Rome. Rome began a systematic colonisation of the entire area. In 82 b.c. Cisalpine Gaul was declared a Roman province. Celtic was spoken in the area into Imperial times, and numerous Celtic place-names have been left throughout northern Italy.

Importantly for Latin literature, many Cisalpine Celts began to write in Latin. As early as the first century b.c. Rome recognised a school of Celtic poets from Cisalpine Gaul. A leading figure was Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca. 85–54 b.c.). His name is derived from catos—clever. Another member of the school was a Cenomani poet, Helvius Cinna, who actually introduced a number of Celtic words into his Latin. Furius Bibaculus (ca. 103–25 b.c.) was another member of the school whose work has only survived in epigrams. He refers to another Cisalpine Celtic poet, Valerius Cato. M. Terentius Varro (b. 82 b.c.) wrote among other things a war epic, Bellum Sequanicum, thought to have been about the conquest of his own people, the Sequani Celts.

In Galli Transalpini, Lucius Pomponius of Bononia (Bologna) satirises his fellow Celts—satire being a traditional Celtic literary form.