Camillus having in consequence of
the dissensions of the orders withdrawn from taking part in affairs.
Those against whom they were to fight were but barbarians; what need
was there of a camp, or of securing a retreat? These barbarians,
however, were men whose courage despised death, and their mode of
fighting was to the Italians as novel as it was terrible; sword in
hand the Celts precipitated themselves with furious onset on the Roman
phalanx, and shattered it at the first shock. The overthrow was
complete; of the Romans, who had fought with the river in their rear,
a large portion met their death in the attempt to cross it; such as
escaped threw themselves by a flank movement into the neighbouring
Veii. The victorious Celts stood between the remnant of the beaten
army and the capital. The latter was irretrievably abandoned to the
enemy; the small force that was left behind, or that had fled thither,
was not sufficient to garrison the walls, and three days after the
battle the victors marched through the open gates into Rome. Had they
done so at first, as they might have done, not only the city, but the
state also must have been lost; the brief interval gave opportunity
to carry away or to bury the sacred objects, and, what was more
important, to occupy the citadel and to furnish it with provisions for
the exigency. No one was admitted to the citadel who was incapable of
bearing arms--there was not food for all. The mass of the defenceless
dispersed among the neighbouring towns; but many, and in particular a
number of old men of high standing, would not survive the downfall
of the city and awaited death in their houses by the sword of the
barbarians. They came, murdered all they met with, plundered whatever
property they found, and at length set the city on fire on all sides
before the eyes of the Roman garrison in the Capitol. But they had
no knowledge of the art of besieging, and the blockade of the steep
citadel rock was tedious and difficult, because subsistence for the
great host could only be procured by armed foraging parties, and the
citizens of the neighbouring Latin cities, the Ardeates in particular,
frequently attacked the foragers with courage and success.
Nevertheless the Celts persevered, with an energy which in their
circumstances was unparalleled, for seven months beneath the rock,
and the garrison, which had escaped a surprise on a dark night only
in consequence of the cackling of the sacred