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, "Vae victis"--"Woe to the
conquered." But at that moment there wa