The Taurini in 218 B.C.

The Taurini — Celtic Tribes.

An Alpine people at the foot of the western mountains, in the upper valley of the Padus about their chief town of Taurasia. They are old enemies of the Insubres, the great power of the plain below them. When Hannibal comes down out of the passes in 218, footsore and his army wasted by the crossing, it is into the country of the Taurini that he descends — and when they refuse him their friendship and his demands, he storms their town in a three-day assault, putting it to the sword as a warning to all the Gauls who might waver.