it before your eyes, that you may report at home how far above other men
the Gauls are in valor."

But when they saw their pretensions repudiated and themselves treated
with outrageous disdain, the Gauls left the siege of Clusium on the spot,
and set out for Rome, not stopping for plunder, and proclaiming
everywhere on their march, "We are bound for Rome; we make war on none
but Romans;" and when they encountered the Roman army, on the 16th of
duly, 390 B.C., at the confluence of the Allia and the Tiber, half a
day's march from Rome, they abruptly struck up their war-chant, and threw
themselves upon their enemies. It is well known how they gained the day;
how they entered Rome, and found none but a few gray-beards, who, being
unable or unwilling to leave their abode, had remained seated in the
vestibule on their chairs of ivory, with truncheons of ivory in their
hands, and decorated with the insignia of the public offices they had
filled. All the people of Rome had fled, and were wandering over the
country, or seeking a refuge amongst neighboring peoples. Only the
senate and a thousand warriors had shut themselves up in the Capitol, a
citadel which commanded the city. The Gauls kept them besieged there for
seven months. The circumstances of this celebrated siege are well known,
though they have been a little embellished by the Roman historians. Not
that they have spoken too highly of the Romans themselves, who, in the
day of their country's disaster, showed admirable courage, perseverance,
and hopefulness. Pontius Cominius, who traversed the Gallic camp, swam
the Tiber, and scaled by night the heights of the Capitol, to go and
carry news to the senate; M. Manlius, who was the first, and for some
moments the only one, to hold in check, from the citadel's walls, the
Gauls on the point of effecting an entrance; and M. Furius Camillus, who
had been banished from Rome the preceding year, and had taken refuge in
the town of Ardea, and who instantly took the field for his country,