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 defence
was impossible, since there was probably a want of provisions.

Livy gives a false notion of the evacuation of the city, as if the
defenceless 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