that had no longer the strength to carry arms.

When the old men had thus comforted one another they addressed
themselves to encourage the young. These they accompanied to the
Capitol, commending to their valour and strength all that now was left
of the greatness of Rome. And now when they who were resolved that they
would not survive the capture and destruction of the city had departed,
the women ran to and fro asking of their husbands and of their sons what
they should do. But of these many were suffered to follow their husbands
and kinsfolk into the Capitol, none forbidding, though none called them,
for that which would have profited the besieged, by diminishing the
number of the useless, seemed to be barbarous and cruel. As for the rest
of the people, for whom there was neither room in so small a hill nor
food in so scanty a provision of corn, these went forth from the city,
as it were in a great host, towards the hill Janiculum.

Thence some scattered themselves over the country, and some made their
way to the neighbouring cities; but there was no leader or common
purpose, and each concerned himself with his own affairs only, for
of the State all despaired. Meanwhile the priests of Quirinus and the
virgins of Vesta, taking no thought for their own affairs, took counsel
together which of the sacred things they should carry away with them and
which they should leave behind, for they had not strength sufficient
for the carrying of all; also in what place they might most safely leave
them. It seemed good to them to put such things as it was needful to
leave behind in a cask and to bury them in the ground within the chapel
that was hard by the dwelling-house of the priests of Quirinus. The rest
they, carried, dividing the burden of them among themselves, and went by
the way that leads to the mount Janiculum, over the wooden bridge. And
while they were mounting the hill, one Lucius Albinius, a man of the
Commons, saw them, who was carrying his wife and children in a cart
amongst the crowd that was leaving the city as having no strength for
arms. This Albinius forgot not even in such peril the reverence due to
religion, and thinking it shame that the priests with the holy things
should go afoot while he and his were carried, bade his wife and
children come down from the cart, and putting therein the virgins, with
the sacred things, carried them to Caere, whither it had been their
purpose to go.

Meanwhile at Rome all th