The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08
Gauls, being chiefly apprehensive of some design[169] 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.
[Footnote 169: In my translation of this passage I have differed from
Baker, who thus renders: "thinking, that as his enemies were few in
number, their skill was what he had chiefly to guard against." Dureau De
Lamalle thus translates: "supposant de la ruse aux ennemis, a raison de
leur petit nombre." This is obviously the correct version.]
39. 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 perish[170] 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.
[Footnote 170: The aged were doomed to perish under any circumstances,
(_utique_,) from scarcity of provisions, whether they retired into the
Capitol with the military youth, or were left behind in the city.]
40. 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, some made for the neighbouring cities,
without any leader or concert, following each his own hopes, his own
plans, those of the public being given up as lost. In the mean time the
Flamen Quirinalis and the vestal virgins, laying aside all concern for
their own affairs, consulting which of the sacred deposits should be
carried with them, which should be left behind, for they had not
strength to carry them all, or what place would best preserve them in
safe custody, consider it best to put them into casks and to bury them
in the chapel adjoining to the residence of the Flamen Quirinalis, where
now it is profane to spit out. The rest they carry away with them, after
dividing the burden among themselves, by the road which leads by the
Sublician bridge to the Janiculum. When Lucius Albinius, a Roman
plebeian, who was conveying his wife and children in a waggon, beheld
them on that ascent among the rest of the crowd which was leaving the
city as unfit to carry arms; even then the distinction of things divine
and human being preserved, considering it an outrage on religion, that
the public priests and sacred utensils of the Roman people should go on
foot and be carried, that he and his family should be seen in a
carriage, he commanded his wife and children to alight, placed the
virgins and sacred utensils in the vehicle, and carried them on to Cære,
whither the priests had intended to go.
41. Meanwhile at Rome all arrangements being now made, as far as was
possible in such an emergency, for the defence of the citadel, the crowd
of aged persons having returned to their houses, awaited the enemy's
coming with minds firmly prepared for death. Such of them as had borne
curule offices, in order that they may die in the insignia of their
former station, honours, and merit, arraying themselves in the most
magnificent garments worn by those drawing the chariots of the gods in
procession, or by persons riding in triumph, seated themselves in their
ivory chairs, in the middle of their halls. Some say that they devoted
themselves for their country and the citizens of Rome, Marcus Fabius,
the chief pontiff, dictating the form of words. The Gauls, both because
by the intervention of the night they had abated all angry feelings
arising from the irritation of battle, and because they had on no
occasion fought a well-disputed fight, and were then not taking the city
by storm or violence, entering the city the next day, free from
resentment or heat of passion, through the Colline gate which lay open,
advance into the forum, casting their eyes around on the temples of the
gods, and on the citadel, which alone exhibited any appearance of war.
From thence, after leaving a small guard, lest any attack should be made
on them whilst scattered, from the citadel or Capitol, they dispersed in
quest of plunder; the streets being entirely desolate, rush some of them
in a body into the houses that were nearest; some repair to those which
were most distant, considering these to be untouched and abounding with
spoil. Afterwards being terrified by the very solitude, lest any
stratagem of the enemy should surprise them whilst being dispersed, they
returned in bodies into the forum and the parts adjoining to the forum,
where the houses of the commons being shut, and the halls of the leading
men lying open, almost greater backwardness was felt to attack the open
than the shut houses; so completely did they behold with a sort of
veneration men sitting in the porches of the palaces, who besides their
ornaments and apparel more august than human, bore a striking
resemblance to gods, in the majesty which their looks and the gravity of
their countenance displayed. Whilst they stood gazing on these as on
statues, it is said that Marcus Papirius, one of them, roused the anger
of a Gaul by striking him on the head with his ivory, while he was
stroking his beard, which was then universally worn long; and that the