ing of the women, and their
undecided running together, following now these, now those, and asking
their husbands and children what was to become of them, [all together]
left nothing that could be added to human misery. A great many of them,
however, escorted their friends into the citadel, no one either
preventing or inviting them; because the measure which was advantageous
to the besieged, that of reducing the number of useless persons, was but
little in accordance with humanity. The rest of the crowd, chiefly
plebeians, whom so small a hill could not contain, nor could they be
supported amid such a scarcity of corn, pouring out of the city as if in
one continued train, repaired to the Janiculum. From thence some were
dispersed through the country, some made for the neighbouring cities,
without any leader or concert, following each his own hopes, his own
plans, those of the public being given up as lost. In the mean time the
Flamen Quirinalis and the vestal virgins, laying aside all concern for
their own affairs, consulting which of the sacred deposits should be
carried with them, which should be left behind, for they had not
strength to carry them all, or what place would best preserve them in
safe custody, consider it best to put them into casks and to bury them
in the chapel adjoining to the residence of the Flamen Quirinalis, where
now it is profane to spit out. The rest they carry away with them, after
dividing the burden among themselves, by the road which leads by the
Sublician bridge to the Janiculum. When Lucius Albinius, a Roman
plebeian, who was conveying his wife and children in a waggon, beheld
them on that ascent among the rest of the crowd which was leaving the
city as unfit to carry arms; even then the distinction of things divine
and human being preserved, considering it an outrage on religion, that
the public priests and sacred utensils of the Roman people should go on
foot and be carried, that he and his family should be seen in a
carriage, he commanded his wife and children to alight, placed the
virgins and sacred utensils in the vehicle, and carried them on to Caere,
whither the priests had intended to go.

41. Meanwhile at Rome all arrangements being now made, as far as was
possible in such an emergency, for the defence of the citadel, the crowd
of aged persons having returned to their houses, awaited the enemy's
coming with minds firmly prepared for death. Such of them as had borne
curule office