In the year 355 from the founding of the City, the siege of Veii, lasting ten years on end, wore down the besiegers more than the besieged. For the Romans, worn down by frequent sudden sorties of the enemy, were moreover compelled to wage war in winter quarters, to pass the winter under hides, and finally to endure hunger and cold in sight of the enemy;
1 Anno ab urbe condita CCCLV obsidio Veiorum decem continuis annis magis obsessores quam obsessos detriuit. nam Romani repentinis saepe hostium eruptionibus comminuti, praeterea in hibernis bella sortiri, hiemare sub pellibus, postremo famem ac frigus in conspectu hostium perpeti coacti sunt;
at last they took the city, without any testimony worthy of Roman valour, by tunnels and stealthy creeping-in.
2 urbem nouissime sine ullo digno Romanae uirtutis testimonio cuniculis et clandestina obreptione ceperunt.
This victory, more useful than noble, was followed first by the exile of the dictator Camillus, who won it over the Veientes, and then by the irruption of the Gauls and the burning of the City.
3 hanc utilem magis quam nobilem uictoriam primo dictatoris Camilli, qui eam de Veientibus patrauit, exilium, dehinc inruptio Gallorum et incendium urbis insequitur.
Let anyone dare, if he can, to compare any of the disturbances of this present time with that disaster — although the injury of the present does not weigh the same as the story of a past evil.
4 cui cladi audeat quisquam, si potest, aliquos motus huius temporis conparare: quamuis non aeque pendat praeteriti mali fabulam praesentis iniuria.
The Senonian Gauls, then, under their leader Brennus, with an army numerous and exceedingly strong, while they were besieging the city of Clusium in what is now called Tuscia, saw the envoys of the Romans, who had come at that time for the purpose of making peace between them, fighting against them in the battle line. Moved by indignation at this, they abandoned the siege of the town of Clusium and marched on Rome with all their strength.
5 igitur Galli Senones duce Brenno exercitu copioso et robusto nimis cum urbem Clusini, quae nunc Tuscia dicitur, obsiderent, legatos Romanorum, qui tunc conponendae inter eos pacis gratia uenerant, in acie aduersum se uidere pugnantes: qua indignatione permoti, Clusini oppidi obsidione dimissa, totis uiribus Romam contendunt.
As they rushed on, the consul Fabius met them with an army; yet he did not withstand them — rather, that hostile onslaught cut him down like a dry crop, laid him low and passed on. The river Allia bears witness to this disaster of Fabius, as the Cremera does to that of the Fabii. Indeed, no one could easily recall a similar ruin of the Roman soldiery, even if Rome had not been burned on top of it.1
6 hos ita ruentes Fabius cum exercitu consul excepit; nec tamen obstitit, immo potius hostilis ille impetus quasi aridam segetem succidit strauit et transiit. testatur hanc Fabii cladem fluuius Halia, sicut Cremera Fabiorum. non enim facile aliquis similem ruinam Romanae militiae recenseret, etiam si Roma insuper incensa non esset.
1Rome had no consuls in 390 BC: the army at the Allia was led by military tribunes with consular power, among them the three Fabii who had fought at Clusium (Livy 5.36).
The Gauls entered the open City; they slaughtered the senators sitting rigid like statues in their seats, and, burning them in the fire of their houses, buried them under the fall of their own roofs.
7 patentem Galli urbem penetrant, trucidant rigentes simulacrorum modo in suis sedibus senatores eosque incendio domorum crematos lapsu culminum suorum sepeliunt.
All the remaining youth, which is agreed to have numbered barely a thousand men at the time, hiding in the citadel of the Capitoline Hill, they shut in by siege, and there they wore down, subdued and sold that unhappy remnant through famine, pestilence, despair and terror:
8 uniuersam reliquam iuuentutem, quam constat uix mille hominum tunc fuisse, in arce Capitolini montis latentem obsidione concludunt ibique infelices reliquias fame peste desperatione formidine terunt subigunt uendunt:
for they bargained for a thousand pounds of gold as the price of their departure — not because Rome was of small repute among the Gauls, but because they had already so worn it down that it could then avail no more.
9 nam mille libris auri discessionis pretium paciscuntur, non quo apud Gallos Roma parui nominis fuerit, sed quo illam sic iam ante detriuerint, ut amplius tunc ualere non posset.
When the Gauls departed, there remained within what had once been the circuit of the City a foul heap of shapeless ruins; and on every side, as people wandered through the obstructed ways, strangers amid their own, the echo of a stumbling voice answering back held their trembling hearing in suspense.
10 exeuntibus Gallis remanserat in illo quondam urbis ambitu informium ruinarum obscena congeries, et undique per impedita errantium et inter sua ignotorum offensae uocis imago respondens trepidos suspendebat auditus.
Horror shook their minds, the very silences terrified them: for sparseness in wide spaces is matter for fear. Hence the idea of changing their home, of living in another town, and even of being registered under another name was conceived, approved and attempted.
11 horror quatiebat animos, silentia ipsa terrebant: siquidem materia pauoris est raritas in spatiosis. hinc illis mutare sedes, aliud incolere oppidum, altero etiam censeri nomine cogitatum placitum atque temptatum est.
Behold the times in comparison with which the present are weighed; behold the times for which memory sighs; behold the times that strike repentance for the religion chosen — or rather, for the religion neglected!
12 En tempora, quorum conparatione praesentia ponderantur; en, de quibus recordatio suspirat; en, quae incutiunt de electa uel potius de neglecta religione paenitentiam.
Truly these two captivities are equal and may be compared with each other: the one raging for six months, the other passing through in three days; the Gauls, having wiped out the people and destroyed the City, pursuing even the very name of Rome into its last ashes, and the Goths, abandoning their intent to plunder, driving ignorant throngs to the refuges of safety, that is, to the holy places; there, scarcely a single senator was found who had escaped even by being absent; here, scarcely one is sought who perished by chance in hiding.
13 reuera pares sunt et conferuntur inter se hae duae captiuitates: illa sex mensibus desaeuiens et tribus diebus ista transcurrens; Galli exstincto populo urbe deleta ipsum quoque Romae nomen in extremis cineribus persequentes et Gothi relicta intentione praedandi ad confugia salutis, hoc est sanctorum locorum, agmina ignara cogentes; ibi uix quemquam inuentum senatorem, qui uel absens euaserit, hic uix quemquam requiri, qui forte ut latens perierit.
I might rightly compare them thus: that the number of those saved there was the number of those lost here. Plainly, what the facts betray must also be confessed: in this present disaster God raged more and men less, since, by carrying out himself what they had not fulfilled, he showed why he had sent them.
14 recte sane conpararim, hunc fuisse ibi seruatorum numerum, qui hic fuerit perditorum. plane, quod re proditur, et fatendum est: in hac clade praesenti plus Deum saeuisse, homines minus, cum, peragendo ipse quod illi non inpleuissent, cur eos miserit demonstrauit.
For since it was beyond human strength to set fire to bronze beams and to undermine the masses of great structures, the forum, with its vain images which by a pitiable superstition counterfeit either god or man, was struck down by the stroke of lightning; and of all these abominations, whatever the flame let loose by the enemy did not reach, fire sent from heaven overthrew.
15 quippe cum supra humanas uires esset, incendere aeneas trabes et subruere magnarum moles structurarum, ictu fulminum forum cum imaginibus uanis, quae superstitione miserabili uel deum uel hominem mentiuntur, abiectum est, horumque omnium abominamentorum, quod inmissa per hostem flamma non adiit, missus e caelo ignis euertit.
And since the matter for speaking is abundant, and can by no means be contained in this book, let this be the end of the present volume, so that we may pursue the rest in those that follow.
16 Et quoniam uber dicendi materia est, quae nequaquam hoc concludi libro potest, hic praesentis uoluminis finis sit, ut in subsequentibus cetera persequamur.