mbassador had now engaged in hostility against him, he drew off his
men, and, bidding Clusium farewell, led his army directly against Rome.

Whilst the barbarians were hastening with all speed, the military
tribunes brought the Romans into the field to be ready to engage them,
being not inferior to the Gauls in number (for they were no less than
forty thousand foot), but most of them raw soldiers, and such as had
never handled a weapon before. Besides, they had wholly neglected
all religious usages, had not obtained favorable sacrifices, nor made
inquiries of the prophets, natural in danger and before battle. No less
did the multitude of commanders distract and confound their proceedings;
frequently before, upon less occasions, they had chosen a single leader,
with the title of dictator, being sensible of what great importance it
is in critical times to have the solders united under one general with
the entire and absolute control placed in his hands. Add to all, the
remembrance of Camillus's treatment, which made it now seem a dangerous
thing for officers to command without humoring their solders. In this
condition they left the city, and encamped by the river Allia, about
ten miles from Rome, and not far from the place where it falls into
the Tiber; and here the Gauls came upon them, and, after a disgraceful
resistance, devoid of order and discipline, they were miserably
defeated. The left wing was immediately driven into the river, and there
destroyed; the right had less damage by declining the shock, and from
the low ground getting to the tops of the hills, from whence most of
them afterwards dropped into the city; the rest, as many as escaped, the
enemy being weary of the slaughter, stole by night to Veii, giving up
Rome and all that was in it for lost.

This battle was fought about the summer solstice, the moon being at
full, the very same day in which the sad disaster of the Fabii had
happened, when three hundred of that name were at one time cut off by
the Tuscans.

And now, after the battle, had the Gauls immediately pursued those that
fled, there had been no remedy but Rome must have wholly been ruined,
and all those who remained in it utterly destroyed; such was the terror
that those who escaped the battle brought with them into the city,
and with such distraction and confusion were they themselves in
turn infected. But the Gauls, not imagining their victory to be so
considerable, and overtaken with the pre