their centre weak and scarcely
connected. There was on the right a small eminence, which it was
determined to fill with bodies of reserve; and that circumstance, as it
was the first cause of their dismay and flight, so it proved their only
means of safety in their flight. For Brennus, the chieftain of the
Gauls, being chiefly apprehensive of some design[169] being intended in
the small number of the enemy, thinking that the high ground had been
seized for this purpose, that, when the Gauls had been engaged in front
with the line of the legions, the reserve was to make an attack on their
rear and flank, directed his troops against the reserve; certain, that
if he had dislodged them from their ground, the victory would be easy in
the plain for a force which had so much the advantage in point of
numbers: thus not only fortune, but judgment also stood on the side of
the barbarians. In the opposite army there appeared nothing like Romans,
either in the commanders, or in the soldiers. Terror and dismay had
taken possession of their minds, and such a forgetfulness of every
thing, that a far greater number of them fled to Veii, a city of their
enemy, though the Tiber stood in their way, than by the direct road to
Rome, to their wives and children. Their situation defended the reserve
for some time; throughout the remainder of the line as soon as the shout
was heard, by those who stood nearest on their flank, and by those at a
distance on their rear, almost before they could look at the enemy as
yet untried, not only without attempting to fight, but without even
returning the shout, fresh and unhurt they took to flight. Nor was there
any slaughter of them in the act of fighting; but their rear was cut to
pieces, whilst they obstructed their flight by their struggling one with
another. Great slaughter was made on the bank of the Tiber, whither the
entire left wing, having thrown down their arms, directed their flight;
and many who did not know how to swim, or were exhausted, being weighed
down by their coats of mail and other defensive armour, were swallowed
up in the current. The greatest part however escaped safe to Veii;
whence not only no reinforcement, but not even an account of their
defeat, was forwarded to Rome. Those on the right wing which had been
posted at a distance from the river, and rather near the foot of the
mountain, all made for Rome, and, without even shutting the gates, fled
into the citadel.

[Footnote 169