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“ It is impossible to restore the true history, but we can discern what is fabulous from what is really historical.
An innumerable host of Gauls now marched from Clusium toward Rome. For a long time the Gauls were most formidable to the Romans, as well as to all other nations with whom they came in contact, even as far east as the Ukraine; as to Rome, we see this as late as the Cisalpine war of the year A.U. 527. Polybius and Diodorus are our best guides in seeking for information about the manners of the Gauls, for in the time of Caesar they had already become changed. ”

“ 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 for statues or supernatural visions, and did nothing to them, until one of them struck a Gaul who touched him, whereupon all were slaughtered. ”

“ This is evidently a mere fiction, for a barbarous nation like the Gauls cannot possibly have had such ideas, nor was there in reality any violation of the law of nations, as the Romans stood in no kind of connection with the Gauls. But it was a natural feeling with the Romans to look upon the fall of their city as the consequence of a nefas which no human power could resist. Roman vanity also is at work here, inasmuch as the Roman ambassadors are said to have so distinguished themselves that they were recognized by the barbarians among the hosts of Etruscans. ”

“ But there can be no truth in the story told by Livy, that while they were disputing Camillus appeared with an army and stopped the proceedings, because the military tribunes had had no right to conclude the treaty. He is there said to have driven the Gauls from the city, and afterward in a twofold battle to have so completely defeated them that not even a messenger escaped. Beaufort, inspired by Gallic patriotism, has most excellently shown what a complete fable this story is. To attempt to disguise the misfortunes of our forefathers by substituting fables in their place is mere childishness. ”

“ The sacred treasures were removed to Caere, and the hope of the Romans now was that the barbarians would be tired of the long siege. Provisions for a time had been conveyed to the Capitol, where a couple of thousand men may have been assembled, and where all buildings, temples, as well as public and private houses, were used as habitations. The Gauls made fearful havoc at Rome, even more fearful than the Spaniards and Germans did in the year 1527. Soldiers plunder, and when they find no human beings they engage in the work of destruction ”

“ If the Romans had been able to withstand their first shock, the Gauls would have easily been thrown into disorder, and put to flight. The Gauls who were subsequently conquered by the Romans were the descendants of such as were born in Italy, and had lost much of their courage and strength. The Goths under Vitiges, not fifty years after the immigration of Theodoric into Italy, were cowards, and unable to resist the twenty thousand men of Belisarius: showing how easily barbarians degenerate in such climates. ”

“ The expedition of the Gauls into Italy must be regarded as a migration, and not as an invasion for the purpose of conquest: as for the historical account of it, we must adhere to Polybius and Diodorus, who place it shortly before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. We can attach no importance to the statement of Livy that they had come into Italy as early as the time of Tarquinius Priscus, having been driven from their country by a famine. ”

“ It was the same movement assuredly which led the Gauls to the countries through which the middle course of the Danube extends, and to the Po; and could the people who came in a few days from Clusium to Rome, and afterward appeared in Apulia, have been sitting quiet in a corner of Italy for two hundred years? If they had remained there because they had not the power to advance, they would have been cut to pieces by the Etruscans. We must therefore look upon it as an established fact, that the migration took place at the late period mentioned by Polybius and Diodorus. ”

“ At Rome it was believed that the whole army was destroyed, for nothing was 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. ”

“ The Ardeatans, whose territory was likewise invaded by the Gauls, opposed them, under the command of Camillus; the Etruscans would seem to have endeavored to avail themselves of the opportunity of recovering Veii, for we are told that the Romans at Veii, commanded by Caedicius, gained a battle against them, and that, encouraged by this success, they began to entertain a hope of regaining Rome, since by this victory they got possession of arms. ”

“ The account of Polybius throws light upon many discrepant statements, and all of them, not even excepting Livy's fairy-tale-like embellishment, may be explained by means of it. The Romans attempted to prove that the Gauls had actually been defeated, by relating that the gold afterward taken from the Gauls and buried in the Capitol was double the sum paid to them as a ransom; but it is much more probable that the Romans paid their ransom out of the treasury of the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter and of other temples, and that afterward double this sum was made up by a tax ”

“ The statement of Diodorus that all men were called to arms to resist the Gauls, and that the number amounted to forty thousand, is by no means improbable: according to the testimony of Polybius, Latins and Hernicans also were enlisted. Another account makes the Romans take the field against the Gauls with twenty-four thousand men, that is, with four field legions and four civic legions: the field legions were formed only of plebeians, and served, according to the order of the classes, probably in maniples ”

“ Pliny states that previous to the Gallic calamity the census amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand persons, which probably refers only to men entitled to vote in the assemblies, and does not comprise women, children, slaves, and strangers. ”

“ 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. ”