injuring any one, crying to the guards upon the walls of
the towns they passed, "Our way lies for Rome." On the news of their
approach the Roman army hurried out of the city, and on the 16th of July
(B.C. 300), a day ever after regarded as disastrous, they met the Gauls
on the Allia, a small river which flows into the Tiber, on its left
bank, about eleven miles from Rome. Brennus attacked the Romans on the
flank, and threw them into confusion. A general panic seized them: they
turned and fled. Some escaped across the Tiber to Veii, and a few
reached Rome, but the greater number were slain by the Gauls.

The loss at the Allia had been so great that enough men were not left to
guard the walls of the city. It was therefore resolved that those in the
vigor of their age should withdraw to the Capitol, taking with them all
the provisions in the city; that the priests and Vestal Virgins should
convey the objects of religious reverence to Caere; and that the rest of
the population should disperse among the neighboring towns. But the aged
senators, who had been Consuls or Censors, seeing that their lives were
no longer of any service to the state, sat down in the forum on their
curule thrones awaiting death. When the Gauls entered the city they
found it desolate and deathlike. They marched on, without seeing a human
being till they came to the forum. Here they beheld the aged senators
sitting immovable, like beings of another world. For some time they
gazed in awe at this strange sight, till at length one of the Gauls
ventured to go up to M. Papirius and stroke his white beard. The old man
struck him on the head with his ivory sceptre; whereupon the barbarian
slew him, and all the rest were massacred. The Gauls now began
plundering the city; fires broke out in several quarters; and with the
exception of a few houses on the Palatine, which the chiefs kept for
their own residence, the whole city was burnt to the ground.

The Capitol was the next object of attack. There was only one steep way
leading up to it, and all the assaults of the besiegers were easily
repelled. They thereupon turned the siege into a blockade, and for seven
months were encamped amid the ruins of Rome. But their numbers were soon
thinned by disease, for they had entered Rome in the most unhealthy time
of the year, when fevers have always prevailed. The failure of
provisions obliged them to ravage the neighboring countries, the people
of which began to combin