THE SACK OF ROME.
B.C. 390.
Rome was left to the enemy, except for the small garrison in the Capitol
and for eighty of the senators, men too old to flee, who devoted
themselves to the gods to save the rest, and, arraying themselves in
their robes--some as former consuls, some as priests, some as
generals--sat down with their ivory staves in their hands, in their
chairs of state in the Forum, to await the enemy.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE FORUM AT ROME.]
In burst the savage Gauls, roaming all over the city till they came to
the Forum, where they stood amazed and awe-struck at the sight of the
eighty grand old men motionless in their chairs. At first they looked at
the strange, calm figures as if they were the gods of the place, until
one Gaul, as if desirous of knowing whether they were flesh and blood
or not, stroked the beard of the nearest. The senator, esteeming this an
insult, struck the man on the face with his staff, and this was the
sign for the slaughter of them all.
Then the Gauls began to plunder every house, dragging out and killing
the few inhabitants they found there; feasting, revelling, and piling up
riches to carry away; burning and overthrowing the houses. Day after day
the little garrison in the Capitol saw the sight, and wondered if their
stock of food would hold out till the Gauls should go away or till their
friends should come to their relief. Yet when the day came round for the
sacrifice to the ancestor of one of these beleaguered men, he boldly
went forth to the altar of his own ruined house on the Quirinal Hill,
and made his offering to his forefathers, nor did one Gaul venture to
touch him, seeing that he was performing a religious rite.
The escaped Romans had rested at Ardea, where they found Camillus, and
were by him formed into an army, but he would not take the generalship
without authority from what was left of the Senate, and that was shut up
in the Capitol in the midst of the Gauls. A brave man, however, named
Pontius Cominius, declared that he could make his way through the Gauls
by night, and climb up the Capitol and down again by a precipice which
they did not watch because they thought no one could mount it, and that
he would bring back the orders of the Senate. He swam the Tiber by the
help of corks, landed at night in ruined Rome among the sleeping enemy,
and climbed up the rock, bringing hope at last to the worn-out and
nearly starving garrison. Quickly they met, recalled the sentence of
banishment against Camillus, and named him Dictator. Pontius, having
rested in the meantime, slid down the rock and made his way back to
Ardea safely; but the broken twigs and torn ivy on the rock showed the
Gauls that it had been scaled, and they resolved that where man had gone
man could go. So Brennus told off the most surefooted mountaineers he
could find, and at night, two and two, they crept up the crag, so
silently that no alarm was given, till just as they came to the top,
some geese that were kept as sacred to Juno, and for that reason had
been spared in spite of the scarcity, began to scream and cackle, and
thus brought to the spot a brave officer called Marcus Manlius, who
found two Gauls in the act of setting foot on the level ground on the
top. With a sweep of his sword he struck off the hand of one, and with
his buckler smote the other on the head, tumbling them both headlong
down, knocking down their fellows in their flight, and the Capitol was
saved.
By way of reward every Roman soldier brought Manlius a few grains of the
corn he received from the common stock and a few drops of wine, while
the tribune who was on guard that night was thrown from the rock.
Foiled thus, and with great numbers of his men dying from the fever that
always prevailed in Rome in summer, Brennus thought of retreating, and
offered to leave Rome if the garrison in the Capitol would pay him a
thousand pounds' weight of gold. There was treasure enough in the
temples to do this, and as they could not tell what Camillus was about,
nor if Pontius had reached him safely, and they were on the point of
being starved, they consented. The gold was brought to the place
appointed by the Gauls, and when the weights proved not to be equal to
the amount that the Romans had with them, Brennus resolved to have all,
put his sword into the other scale, saying, "Væ victis"--"Woe to the
conquered." But at that moment there was a noise outside--Camillus was
come. The Gauls were cut down and slain among the ruins, those who fled
were killed by the people in the country as they wandered in the fields,
and not one returned to tell the tale. So the ransom of the Capitol was
rescued, and was laid up by Camillus in the vaults as a reserve for
future danger.
This was the Roman story, but their best historians say that it is made
better for Rome than is quite the truth, for that the Capitol was really
conquered, and the Gauls helped themselves to whatever they chose and
went off with it, though sickness and weariness made them afterwards
disperse, so that they were mostly cut off by the country people.
Every old record had been lost and destroyed, so that, before this,
Roman history can only be hearsay, derived from what the survivors
recollected; and the whole of the buildings, temples, senate-house, and
dwellings lay in ruins. Some of the citizens wished to change the site
of the city to Veii; but Camillus, who was Dictator, was resolved to
hold fast by the hearths of their fathers, and while the debate was
going on in the ruins of the senate-house a troop of soldiers were
marching in, and the centurion was heard calling out, "Plant your ensign
here; this is a good place to stay in." "A happy omen," cried one of the
senators; "I adore the gods who gave it." So it was settled to rebuild
the city, and in digging among the ruins there were found the golden
rod of Romulus, the brazen tables on which the Laws of the Twelve Tables
were engraved, and other brasses with records of treaties with other
nations. Fabius was accused of having done all the harm by having broken
the law of nations, but he was spared at the entreaty of his friends.
Manlius was surnamed Capitolinus, and had a house granted him on the
Capitol; and Camillus when he laid down his dictatorship, was saluted as
like Romulus--another founder of Rome.
The new buildings were larger and more ornamented than the old ones; but
the lines of the old underground drains, built in the mighty Etruscan
fashion by the elder Tarquin as it was said, were not followed, and this
tended to render Rome more unhealthy, so that few of her richer citizens
lived there in summer or autumn, but went out to country houses on the
hills.
[Illustration: ENTRY OF THE FORUM ROMANUM BY THE VIA SACRA]