r. The fire
spread to the colonnades adjoining the temples, and then the
'eagles'[190] supporting the roof, which were made of very old wood,
caught the flames and fed them. And so the Capitol, with its doors
fast shut, undefended and unplundered, was burnt to the ground.

Since the foundation of the city no such deplorable and horrible 72
disaster had ever befallen the people of Rome. It was no case of
foreign invasion. Had our own wickedness allowed, the country might
have been enjoying the blessings of a benign Providence; and yet here
was the seat of Jupiter Almighty--the temple solemnly founded by our
ancestors as the pledge of their imperial greatness, on which not even
Porsenna,[191] when Rome surrendered, nor the Gauls, when they took
it, had ever dared to lay rash hands--being brought utterly to ruin by
the mad folly of two rival emperors![192] The Capitol had been burnt
before in civil war,[193] but that was the crime of private persons.
Now it had been openly assaulted by the people of Rome and openly
burnt by them. And what was the cause of war? what the recompense for
such a disaster? Were we fighting for our country?

King Tarquinius Priscus had vowed to build this temple in the Sabine
war, and had laid the foundations on a scale that suited rather his
hope of the city's future greatness than the still moderate fortunes
of the Roman people. Later Servius Tullius, with the aid of Rome's
allies, and Tarquinius Superbus, with the spoils of the Volscians
after the capture of Suessa Pometia,[194] continued the building. But
the glory of completing it was reserved for the days of freedom. After
the expulsion of the kings, Horatius Pulvillus, in his second
consulship[195] dedicated this monument on such a magnificent scale,
that in later days, with all her boundless wealth, Rome has been able
to embellish but never to enlarge it. After an interval of four
hundred and fifteen years, in the consulship of Lucius Scipio and
Caius Norbanus,[196] it was burnt and rebuilt on the same site. Sulla
after his victory undertook the task of restoring it, but did not
dedicate it. This only was lacking to justify his title of 'Fortune's
Favourite'.[197] Much as the emperors did to it, the name of Lutatius
Catulus[198] still remained upon it up to the time of Vitellius.[199]
This was the temple that was now ablaze.

The besieged suffered more panic than their assailants. The 73
Vitellian soldiers lacked nei