them and the Clusians; and the three Romans, eager to 1 The refusal to give satisfaction to the Gauls was evidently unjust, and was the cause of a great calamity. Accordingly it is represented as caused by a decision of the people, while the senate is exculpated. We have already noticed above (in the case of the unjust decision in the quarrel of Ardea and Aricia) that the bias of the Roman historians is in favour of the nobility and against the people. (See above, p. 229.) We have here a corroborating instance. 2 According to Diodorus (xiv. 14), who does not mention the river Allia, the battle was fought on the right bank of the Tiber. This locality suits the narrative much better in some respects. It explains how the bulk of the Roman army could take refuge in Veii (Livy, v. 39; Diodorus, xiv. 115), and, moreover, how it was that the Gauls took two days before they entered the deserted city. But if, as Livy (v. 40) states, the fugitives from Rome poured over the wooden bridge towards the Janiculus and Cære, the battle can hardly have taken place on the Etruscan side of the Tiber. The river Allia has been sought by all writers on topography on the left bank (see Smith's Dictionary of Ancient Geography, article‘Allia'); but it is impossible to identify it. It is curious that the locality of such a decisive battle, in such close proximity to Rome, should be doubtful. CHAP. XVIII. BOOK Dread of the Gauls at Rome. Terror at Rome. under the weight of their arms. Only a small part of the fugitives reached the opposite bank, and rallied in the ruins of Veii. A few, and among them the consular tribune Sulpicius, reached Rome by the direct road. The Roman army was annihilated at one blow. Even the enemy were astonished at their unexpected success. They dispersed themselves to despoil the slain, and, according to their custom, they stuck the severed heads upon spears, and erected a monument of victory on the battlefield. Even The defeat of the Allia was never forgotten by the Romans. The 18th of July, the anniversary of the battle, was for all time looked upon as an unlucky day. The panic, which alone had caused the misfortune, struck so deep into their minds that, for centuries afterwards, the name and the sight of Gauls inspired them with terror. The Romans never trembled before Italian enemies. Hannibal and his Punic army they encountered with manly courage. The greatest reverses, sustained in the wars with these enemies, produced but a temporary, passing effect. But the Gauls and the Germans were terrible to them.1 It was only with his iron discipline that Marius kept the legions together when they had to encounter the northern barbarians. Even as revolted slaves they inspired this terror, after they had worn Roman chains. Cæsar had difficulty in accustoming his soldiers to the sight of the daring warriors of Ariovistus, and terror convulsed even imperial Rome when Varus, with his legions, met his fate far away in the forests of Germany. The whole of the Roman people followed the example of the army. The machinery of government was out of gear all at once. The magistrates had ceased to govern. Fear, 1 Sallust, Jugurtha, 114: Usque ad nostram memoriam Romani sic habuere, omnia alia virtuti suæ prona esse, cum Gallis pro salute, non pro gloria certare.' The Gauls and the Germans were not clearly distinguished from one another by the Romans before the time of Julius Cæsar. They were identified in the eyes of the Italians by their common character of undisciplined, impetuous ourage, and their barbarism. XVIII. terror, and despair reigned throughout the town. Every Every CHAP. one thought only of himself, of personal safety, of speedy flight. The army was believed to be annihilated, and everything was given up for lost. No one thought of defence. The walls were not manned; even the gates were left open. In confused crowds the train of fugitives hurried across the bridge over the Tiber towards the Janiculus. What could not be carried away or was forgotten in the confusion of the hour, was left behind to the mercy of the enemy. There was scarcely time to bury some sacred things, and for the vestal virgins to carry away the sacred fire in safety to the friendly town of Care. The monuments of antiquity, the bronze tables of the laws, the images of gods and heroes, the old annals and whatever written documents were then in existence-all were abandoned and doomed to perish in the impending destruction. on the Capitoline But Rome was not destined to be quite overwhelmed by The senate the barbarians. The Capitoline hill, with the fortifications and the temple of Jupiter, was taken possession of by armed hill. men, and by the remnant of senators and magistrates. This isolated rock rose above the wide-spreading flood and transmitted the continuity of the Eternal City unbroken to the coming generations. From the centre Rome was destined soon to rise with renewed vigour, and to see the sons of the haughty barbarians led captive before the triumphal cars of her victorious sons. the Gauls. Not till the third day after the battle did the Gauls appear Arrival of before the town. When they found the walls unoccupied and the gates open, they feared an ambush, and for a long time did not venture nearer. At last they satisfied themselves that the place was undefended, and entering found the whole town forsaken and the streets empty. Only here and there, in the halls of their houses, they saw venerable old men, earnest, dignified, and motionless as statues, sitting on ivory chairs. They were a number of the oldest senators-men who in previous years had commanded the armies of the republic, and now, too proud for flight, preferred to await death amid the ruins of their native town. BOOK Siege of the The story Cominius. 1 Their wish was fulfilled. They fell under the blows of the barbarians. When the enemy had sacked the empty town, the work of destruction began. From the Capitoline rock the men of Rome were doomed helplessly to look on and see their dwellings and the temples of their gods consumed by the flames. The end of the Roman state seemed to have come. The people were dispersed, the army annihilated, all order dissolved, the town in ashes. Who could hope for a rise after such a fall? Could such a night be ever succeeded by another day? Yet the remnant of the Roman nation never despaired of their fatherland. A desperate assault of the Gauls against the Capitol was repulsed. For a regular siege of a fortified place the disorderly hordes of Gauls were neither disposed nor qualified. They confined themselves therefore to blockading the Romans, in the hope of forcing them through hunger to surrender. One part of their troops they sent into the neighbouring districts to collect provisions; the rest encamped among the ruins of the town. In the meantime the fugitive Romans in Veii had of Pontius recovered themselves from the inexplicable terror which had seized them at the sight of the Gauls, and by degrees they so far acquired courage that, under the guidance of a plebeian captain, M. Cædicius, they drove back a party of Etruscans, which had invaded the Roman territory on the right bank of the Tiber. By degrees, as they gained confidence, they aspired to deliver Rome from the barbarians. But it was felt that this undertaking could be ventured on only under the guidance of Camillus, who was living still in banishment in Ardea. In his new home Camillus had proved his Roman courage. At the head of the men of Ardea, he had surprised a party of plundering Gauls and annihilated them. But however much his heart might long to deliver his country, he could undertake nothing as an exile and without official authority. There Sir G. C. Lewis (Credibility of Early Roman History, ii. 343) considers the story as improbable. XVIII. fore a bold youth, Pontius Cominius, undertook to go from CHAP. Veii to the senate on the Capitol to communicate the wish of the army. He swam down the Tiber, climbed up the steep sides of the Capitoline rock, and after the senate had decided on recalling Camillus and choosing him as dictator, he returned by the same way. But this bold deed almost caused the destruction of all. The Gauls discovered the foot-prints where Cominius had climbed the rock, and, following this track, they tried to surprise the Capitol in the following night. The Roman guards slept. The first foes had already reached the height, when the garrison was aroused by the cackling of the geese in the temple of Juno, and the ex-consul M. Manlius hurried to the threatened place, and struck down the foremost of the Gauls, who in his fall dragged others with him. Thus, by the wakefulness of the geese and the prompt courage of Manlius, the Capitol was saved. vengeance Nevertheless the blockade continued without inter- The ruption. In vain the besieged looked anxiously from the of Camilheight of the Capitol into the distance. The expected help lus. was nowhere to be descried. The provisions were wasting away, and hunger began to cripple the limbs and to warp the courage of the garrison. There was only one chance of deliverance left. The Gauls did not seem averse to withdrawing, in consideration of a ransom. Negotiations were opened, and it was agreed that Rome should be redeemed by a ransom of a thousand pounds of gold. The treasures of the temples and the gold of the trinkets which the noble ladies willingly gave up, scarcely sufficed to raise such a large sum. The gold was weighed on the Forum before the barbarians, and when the consular tribune Sulpicius complained that the Gauls made use of unjust weights, Brennus, their king, threw his sword into the scale and said, 'Woe to the conquered!' All of a sudden, however, Camillus appeared on the Forum, at the head of a body of troops, and stepping between the disputants, declared the contract which was signed without his sanction to be null and void, and when the Gauls protested he |