Brennus Burns Rome – 4

The Romans committed the great mistake of fighting with their hurriedly collected troops a battle against an enemy who had hitherto been invincible.

Continuing Brennus Burns Rome,
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Previously in Brennus Burns Rome.

Time: 388 BC
Place: Rome

The Romans committed the great mistake of fighting with their hurriedly collected troops a battle against an enemy who had hitherto been invincible. The hills along which the right wing is said to have been drawn up are no longer discernible and they were probably nothing but little mounds of earth: at any rate it was senseless to draw up a long line against the immense mass of enemies. The Gauls, on the other hand, were enabled without any difficulty to turn off to the left. They proceeded to a higher part of the river, where it was more easily fordable and with great prudence threw themselves with all their force upon the right wing, consisting of the civic legions. The latter at first resisted but not long; and when they fled, the whole remaining line, which until then seems to have been useless and inactive, was seized with a panic.

Terror preceded the Gauls as they laid waste everything on their way and this paralyzed the courage of the Romans, instead of rousing them to a desperate resistance. The Romans therefore were defeated on the Alia in the most inglorious manner. The Gauls had taken them in their rear and cut off their return to Rome. A portion fled toward the Tiber, where some effected a retreat across the river and others were drowned; another part escaped into a forest. The loss of life must have been prodigious and it is inconceivable how Livy could have attached so much importance to the mere disgrace. If the Roman army had not been almost annihilated, it would not have been necessary to give up the defense of the city, as was done, for the city was left undefended and deserted by all. Many fled to Veii instead of returning to Rome: only a few, who had escaped along the high road, entered the city by the Colline gate.

Rome was exhausted, her power shattered, her legions defenceless and her warlike allies had partly been beaten in the same battle and were partly awaiting the fearful enemy in their own countries. At Rome it was believed that the whole army was destroyed, for nothing was known of those who had reached Veii. In the city itself there were only old men, women and children, so that there was no possibility of defending it. It is, however, inconceivable that the gates should have been left open and that the Gauls, from fear of a stratagem, should have encamped for several days outside the gates. A more probable account is that the gates were shut and barricaded. We may form a vivid conception of the condition of Rome after this battle, by comparing it with that of Moscow before the conflagration: the people were convinced that a long defense was impossible, since there was probably a want of provisions.

Livy gives a false notion of the evacuation of the city, as if the defenseless citizens had remained immovable in their consternation and only a few had been received into the Capitol. The determination, in fact, was to defend the Capitol and the tribune Sulpicius had taken refuge there, with about one thousand men. There was on the Capitol an ancient well which still exists and without which the garrison would soon have perished. This well remained unknown to all antiquaries, till I discovered it by means of information gathered from the people who live there. Its depth in the rock descends to the level of the Tiber but the water is now not fit to drink. The Capitol was a rock which had been hewn steep and thereby made inaccessible but a clivus, closed by gates both below and above, led up from the Forum and the Sacred Way. The rock, indeed, was not so steep as in later times, as is clear from the account of the attempt to storm it; but the Capitol was nevertheless very strong. Whether some few remained in the city, as at Moscow, who in their stupefaction did not consider what kind of enemy they had before them, cannot be decided. The narrative is very beautiful and reminds us of the taking of the Acropolis of Athens by the Persians, where, likewise, the old men allowed themselves to be cut down by the Persians.

Notwithstanding the improbability of the matter, I am inclined to believe that a number of aged patricians — their number may not be exactly historical — sat down in the Forum, in their official robes, on their curule chairs and that the chief pontiff devoted them to death. Such devotions are a well-known Roman custom. It is certainly not improbable that the Gauls were amazed when they found the city deserted and only these old men sitting immovable, that they took them for statues or supernatural visions and did nothing to them, until one of them struck a Gaul who touched him, whereupon all were slaughtered. To commit suicide was repugnant to the customs of the Romans, who were guided in many things by feelings more correct and more resembling our own, than many other ancient nations. The old men, indeed, had given up the hope of their country being saved; but the Capitol might be maintained and the survivors preferred dying in the attempt of self-defense to taking refuge at Veii, where after all they could not have maintained themselves in the end.

Continued.

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