Brennus Burns Rome – 5

The sacred treasures were removed to Caere and the hope of the Romans now was that the barbarians would be tired of the long siege.

Continuing Brennus Burns Rome,
our selection from Barthold Georg Niebuhr. The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in Brennus Burns Rome.

Time: 388 BC
Place: Rome

The sacred treasures were removed to Caere and the hope of the Romans now was that the barbarians would be tired of the long siege. Provisions for a time had been conveyed to the Capitol, where a couple of thousand men may have been assembled and where all buildings, temples, as well as public and private houses, were used as habitations. The Gauls made fearful havoc at Rome, even more fearful than the Spaniards and Germans did in the year 1527. Soldiers plunder and when they find no human beings they engage in the work of destruction; and fires break out, as at Moscow, without the existence of any intention to cause a conflagration. The whole city was changed into a heap of ashes, with the exception of a few houses on the Palatine, which were occupied by the leaders of the Gauls. It is astonishing to find, nevertheless, that a few monuments of the preceding period, such as statues, situated at some distance from the Capitol, are mentioned as having been preserved; but we must remember that travertino is tolerably fireproof. That Rome was burned down is certain; and when it was rebuilt, not even the ancient streets were restored.

The Gauls were now encamped in the city. At first they attempted to storm the clivus but were repelled with great loss, which is surprising, since we know that at an earlier time the Romans succeeded in storming it against Appius Herdonius. Afterward they discovered the footsteps of a messenger who had been sent from Veii, in order that the State might be taken care of in due form; for the Romans in the Capitol were patricians and represented the curies and the Government, whereas those assembled at Veii represented the tribes but had no leaders. The latter had resolved to recall Camillus and raise him to the dictatorship. For this reason Pontius Cominius had been sent to Rome to obtain the sanction of the senate and the curies. This was quite in the spirit of the ancient times. If the curies had interdicted him aqua et igni, they alone could recall him, if they previously obtained a resolution of the senate authorizing them to do so; but if he had gone into voluntary exile and had given up his Roman franchise by becoming a citizen of Ardea before a sentence had been passed upon him by the centuries, it was again in the power of the curies alone, he being a patrician, to recall him as a citizen; and otherwise he could not have become dictator, nor could he have regarded himself as such.

It was the time of the dog-days when the Gauls came to Rome and as the summer at Rome is always pestilential, especially during the two months and a half before the first of September, the unavoidable consequence must have been, as Livy relates, that the barbarians, bivouacking on the ruins of the city in the open air, were attacked by disease and carried off, like the army of Frederick Barbarossa when encamped before the castle of St. Angelo. The whole army of the Gauls, however, was not in the city but only as many as were necessary to blockade the garrison of the Capitol; the rest were scattered far and wide over the face of the country and were ravaging all the unprotected places and isolated farms in Latium; many an ancient town, which is no longer mentioned after this time, may have been destroyed by the Gauls. None but fortified places like Ostia, which could obtain supplies by sea, made a successful resistance, for the Gauls were unacquainted with the art of besieging.

The Ardeatans, whose territory was likewise invaded by the Gauls, opposed them, under the command of Camillus; the Etruscans would seem to have endeavored to avail themselves of the opportunity of recovering Veii, for we are told that the Romans at Veii, commanded by Caedicius, gained a battle against them and that, encouraged by this success, they began to entertain a hope of regaining Rome, since by this victory they got possession of arms.

A Roman of the name of Fabius Dorso is said to have offered up, in broad daylight, a gentilician sacrifice on the Quirinal; and the astonished Gauls are said to have done him no harm — a tradition which is not improbable.

The provisions in the Capitol were exhausted but the Gauls themselves being seized with epidemic diseases became tired of their conquests and were not inclined to settle in a country so far away from their own home. They once more attempted to take the Capitol by storm, having observed that the messenger from Veii had ascended the rock and come down again near the Porta Carmentalis, below Araceli. The ancient rock is now covered with rubbish and no longer discernible. The besieged did not think of a storm on that side; it may be that formerly there had in that part been a wall, which had become decayed; and in southern countries an abundant vegetation always springs up between the stones and if this had actually been neglected it cannot have been very difficult to climb up. The Gauls had already gained a firm footing, as there was no wall at the top — the rock which they stormed was not the Tarpeian but the Arx — when Manlius, who lived there, was roused by the screaming of the geese: he came to the spot and thrust down those who were climbing up.

This rendered the Gauls still more inclined to commence negotiations; they were, moreover, called back by an inroad of some Alpine tribes into Lombardy, where they had left their wives and children: they offered to depart if the Romans would pay them a ransom of a thousand pounds of gold, to be taken no doubt from the Capitoline treasury. Considering the value of money at that time, the sum was enormous: in the time of Theodosius, indeed, there were people at Rome who possessed several hundredweight of gold, nay, one is said to have had an annual revenue of two hundredweight. There can be no doubt that the Gauls received the sum they demanded and quitted Rome; that in weighing it they scornfully imposed upon the Romans is very possible and the vae victis too may be true: we ourselves have seen similar things before the year 1813.

Continued.

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