'a sinful heart makes failing hand', and the battle on the banks of the
River Allia, about eleven miles from Rome, was not so much a fight as a
rout. The Roman soldiers were ill drawn up, and were at once broken.
Some fled to Veii and other towns, many were drowned in crossing the
Tiber, and it was but a few who showed in Rome their shame-stricken
faces, and brought word that the Gauls were upon them.

Had the Gauls been really in pursuit, the Roman name and nation would
have perished under their swords; but they spent three day in feasting
and sharing their plunder, and thus gave the Romans time to take
measures for the safety of such as could yet escape. There seems to have
been no notion of defending the city, the soldiers had been too much
dispersed; but all who still remained and could call up something of
their ordinary courage, carried all the provisions they could collect
into the stronghold of the Capitol, and resolved to hold out there till
the last, in hopes that the scattered army might muster again, or that
the Gauls might retreat, after having revenged themselves on the city.
Everyone who could not fight, took flight, taking with them all they
could carry, and among them went the white-clad troop of vestal virgins,
carrying with them their censer of fire, which was esteemed sacred, and
never allowed to be extinguished. A man named Albinus, who saw these
sacred women footsore, weary, and weighted down with the treasures of
their temple, removed his own family and goods from his cart and seated
them in it--an act of reverence for which he was much esteemed--and thus
they reached the city of Cumae. The only persons left in Rome outside
the Capitol were eighty of the oldest senators and some of the priests.
Some were too feeble to fly, and would not come into the Capitol to
consume the food that might maintain fighting men; but most of them were
filled with a deep, solemn thought that, by offering themselves to the
weapons of the barbarians, they might atone for the sin sanctioned by