LITMIR.BIZ

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making less of the war than fame had represented it, held the levy with no greater diligence than used to be exercised for ordinary wars. In the mean while the Gauls, on hearing that honour was even conferred on the violators of human law, and that their embassy was slighted, inflamed with resentment, over which that nation has no control, immediately snatched up their standards, and enter on their march with the utmost expedition. When the cities, alarmed at the tumult occasioned by them as they passed precipitately along, began to run to arms, and the peasants took to flight, they indicated by a loud shout that they were proceeding to Rome, taking up an immense space of ground, wherever they passed, with their horses and men, their troops spreading widely in every direction. But fame and the messengers of the Clusians, and then of the other states one after another, preceding them, the rapid advance of the enemy brought the greatest consternation to Rome; for, with their tumultuary troops hastily led on, they met them within the distance of the eleventh mile-stone, where the river Allia, descending from the Crustuminian mountains in a very deep channel, joins the river Tiber not far below the road. Already all places in front and on each side were crowded with the enemy, and this nation, which has a natural turn for causeless confusion, by their harsh music and discordant clamours, filled all places with a horrible din.

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      There the military tribunes, without having previously selected a place for their camp, without having previously raised a rampart to which they might have a retreat, unmindful of their duty to the gods, to say nothing of that to man, without taking auspices or offering sacrifices, draw up their line, which was extended towards the flanks, lest they should be surrounded by the great numbers of the enemy. Still their front could not be made equal to that of the enemy, though by thinning their line they rendered their centre weak and scarcely connected. There was on the right a small eminence, which it was determined to fill with bodies of reserve; and that circumstance, as it was the first cause of their dismay and flight, so it proved their only means of safety in their flight. For Brennus, the chieftain of the Gauls, being chiefly apprehensive of some design169 being intended in the small number of the enemy, thinking that the high ground had been seized for this purpose, that, when the Gauls had been engaged in front with the line of the legions, the reserve was to make an attack on their rear and flank, directed his troops against the reserve; certain, that if he had dislodged them from their ground, the victory would be easy in the plain for a force which had so much the advantage in point of numbers: thus not only fortune, but judgment also stood on the side of the barbarians. In the opposite army there appeared nothing like Romans, either in the commanders, or in the soldiers. Terror and dismay had taken possession of their minds, and such a forgetfulness of every thing, that a far greater number of them fled to Veii, a city of their enemy, though the Tiber stood in their way, than by the direct road to Rome, to their wives and children. Their situation defended the reserve for some time; throughout the remainder of the line as soon as the shout was heard, by those who stood nearest on their flank, and by those at a distance on their rear, almost before they could look at the enemy as yet untried, not only without attempting to fight, but without even returning the shout, fresh and unhurt they took to flight. Nor was there any slaughter of them in the act of fighting; but their rear was cut to pieces, whilst they obstructed their flight by their struggling one with another. Great slaughter was made on the bank of the Tiber, whither the entire left wing, having thrown down their arms, directed their flight; and many who did not know how to swim, or were exhausted, being weighed down by their coats of mail and other defensive armour, were swallowed up in the current. The greatest part however escaped safe to Veii; whence not only no reinforcement, but not even an account of their defeat, was forwarded to Rome. Those on the right wing which had been posted at a distance from the river, and rather near the foot of the mountain, all made for Rome, and, without even shutting the gates, fled into the citadel.

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      The miraculous attainment of so sudden a victory held even the Gauls in a state of stupefaction. And at first they stood motionless with panic, as if not knowing what had happened; then they apprehended a stratagem; at length they began to collect the spoils of the slain, and to pile up the arms in heaps, as is their custom. Then, at length, when no appearance of any thing hostile was any where observed, having proceeded on their journey, they reach the city of Rome not long before sun-set: where when some horsemen, who had advanced before, brought back word that the gates were not shut, that no guard was posted before the gates, no armed troops on the walls, another cause of amazement similar to the former made them halt; and dreading the night and ignorance of the situation of the city, they posted themselves between Rome and the Anio, after sending scouts about the walls and the several gates to ascertain what plans the enemy would adopt in their desperate circumstances. With respect to the Romans, as the greater part had gone to Veii from the field of battle, and no one supposed that any survived except those who had fled back to Rome, being all lamented as lost, both those living and those dead, they caused the entire city to be filled with wailings. The alarm for the public interest stifled private sorrow, as soon as it was announced that the enemy were at hand. Presently the barbarians patrolling around the walls in troops, they heard their yells and the dissonant clangour of their arms. All the interval up to the next day kept their minds in such a state of suspense, that an assault seemed every moment about to be made on the city: on their first approach, when they arrived at the city, (it was expected;) for if this were not their design, that they would have remained at the Allia; then towards sunset, because there was not much of the day remaining, they imagined that they would attack them before night; then that the design was deferred until night, in order to strike the greater terror. At length the approach of light struck them with dismay; and the calamity itself followed closely upon their continued apprehension of it, when the troops entered the gates in hostile array. During that night, however, and the following day, the state by no means bore any resemblance to that which which had fled in so dastardly a manner at the Allia. For as there was not a hope that the city could be defended, so small a number of troops now remaining, it was determined that the youth fit for military service, and the abler part of the senate with their wives and children, should retire into the citadel and Capitol; and having collected stores of arms and corn, and thence from a fortified post, that they should defend the deities, and the inhabitants, and the Roman name: that the flamen (Quirinalis) and the vestal priestesses should carry away far from slaughter and conflagration the objects appertaining to the religion of the state: and that their worship should not be intermitted, until there remained no one who should continue it. If the citadel and Capitol, the mansion of the gods, if the senate, the source of public counsel, if the youth of military age, should survive the impending ruin of the city, the loss would be light of the aged, the crowd left behind in the city, and who were sure to perish170 under any circumstances. And in order that the plebeian portion of the multitude might bear the thing with greater resignation, the aged men, who had enjoyed triumphs and consulships, openly declared that they would die along with them, and that they would not burden the scanty stores of the armed men with those bodies, with which they were now unable to bear arms, or to defend their country. Such was the consolation addressed to each other by the aged now destined to death.

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      Their exhortations were then turned to the band of young men, whom they escorted to the Capitol and citadel, commending to their valour and youth whatever might be the remaining fortune of a city, which for three hundred and sixty years had been victorious in all its wars. When those who carried with them all their hope and resources, parted with the others, who had determined not to survive the ruin of their captured city; both the circumstance itself and the appearance (it exhibited) was really distressing, and also the weeping of the women, and their undecided running together, following now these, now those, and asking their husbands and children what was to become of them, (all together) left nothing that could be added to human misery. A great many of them, however, escorted their friends into the citadel, no one either preventing or inviting them; because the measure which was advantageous to the besieged, that of reducing the number of useless persons, was but little in accordance with humanity. The rest of the crowd, chiefly plebeians, whom so small a hill could not contain, nor could they be supported amid such a scarcity of corn, pouring out of the city as if in one continued train, repaired to the Janiculum. From thence some were dispersed through the country,

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