and gates, and at length turning
from sedition to war, they created Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus dictator.
He appointed Aulus Sempronius Atratinus his master of the horse. When
this was heard, (such was the terror of that office,) the enemy retired
from the walls, and the young Romans assembled to the edict without
refusal. Whilst the army is being levied at Rome, in the mean time the
enemy's camp is pitched not far from the river Allia: thence laying
waste the land far and wide, they boasted one to the other that they had
chosen a place fatal to the Roman city; that there would be a similar
consternation and flight from thence as occurred in the Gallic war. For
"if the Romans dread a day deemed inauspicious, and marked with the name
of that place, how much more than the Allian day would they dread the
Allia itself, the monument of so great a disaster. No doubt the fierce
looks of the Gauls and the sound of their voices would recur to their
eyes and ears." Turning over in mind those groundless notions of
circumstances as groundless, they rested their hopes on the fortune of
the place. On the other hand, the Romans [considered] that, "in whatever
place a Latin enemy stood, they knew full well that they were the same
whom, after having utterly defeated at the lake Regillus, they kept in
peaceable subjection for one hundred years; that the place being
distinguished by the memory of their defeat, would rather stimulate them
to blot out the remembrance of their disgrace, than raise a fear that
any land should be unfavourable to their success. Were even the Gauls
themselves presented to them in that place, that they would fight just
as they fought at Rome in recovering their country, as the day after at
Gabii; then, when they took care, that no enemy, who had entered the
walls of Rome, should carry home an account of their success or defeat."

29. With these feelings on either side they came to the Allia. The Roman
dictator, when the enemy were in view drawn up and ready for action,
says, "Aulus Sempronius, do you see that these men have taken their
stand at the Allia, relying on the fortune of the place? nor have the
immortal gods granted them any thing of surer confidence, or any more
effectual support. But do you, relying on arms and on courage, make a
brisk charge on the middle of their line; I will bear down on them when
thrown into disorder and consternation with the legions. Ye gods,
witnesses of the treaty, assist us, a