essness of the Celtic Victory

The fearful catastrophe of the defeat and the conflagration, the
18th of July and the rivulet of the Allia, the spot where the sacred
objects were buried, and the spot where the surprise of the citadel
had been repulsed--all the details of this unparalleled event--were
transferred from the recollection of contemporaries to the imagination
of posterity; and we can scarcely realize the fact that two thousand
years have actually elapsed since those world-renowned geese showed
greater vigilance than the sentinels at their posts. And yet
--although there was an enactment in Rome that in future, on occasion
of a Celtic invasion no legal privilege should give exemption from
military service; although dates were reckoned by the years from
the conquest of the city; although the event resounded throughout
the whole of the then civilized world and found its way even into
the Grecian annals--the battle of the Allia and its results can
scarcely be numbered among those historical events that are fruitful
of consequences. It made no alteration at all in political relations.
When the Gauls had marched off again with their gold--which only a
legend of late and wretched invention represents the hero Camillus as
having recovered for Rome--and when the fugitives had again made their
way home, the foolish idea suggested by some faint-hearted prudential
politicians, that the citizens should migrate to Veii, was set aside
by a spirited speech of Camillus; houses arose out of the ruins
hastily and irregularly--the narrow and crooked streets of Rome owed
their origin to this epoch; and Rome again stood in her old commanding
position. Indeed it is not improbable that this occurrence
contributed materially, though not just at the moment, to diminish
the antagonism between Rome and Etruria, and above all to knit more
closely the ties of union between Latium and Rome. The conflict
between the Gauls and the Romans was not, like that between Rome and
Etruria or between Rome and Samnium, a collision of two political
powers which affect and modify each other; it may be compared to
those catastrophes of nature, after which the organism, if it is not
destroyed, immediately resumes its equilibrium. The Gauls often
returned to Latium: as in the year 387, when Camillus defeated them
at Alba--the last victory of the aged hero, who had been six times
military tribune with consular powers, and five times dictator, and
had f