[12] And why not admit that Fortune also retrieved the city in times of the greatest disaster? When the Gauls were encamped round about the Capitol and were besieging the citadel,
Baneful the plague that she brought on the host, and the people were dying.
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And as for the Gauls’ nocturnal assault, though they were noticed by none, yet Fortune and Chance brought about the discovery. Concerning this assault of the Gauls it will perhaps not be unseasonable to give some additional details, however briefly. After the great defeat of the Romans at the river Allia,
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some in their flight found a haven in Rome and filled the people with consternation and terror, and caused them to scatter far and wide, although a few went to the Capitol and prepared to stand a siege.
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Others, immediately after their defeat, gathered together at Veii and appointed as dictator Furius Camillus, whom the people in their prosperity and lofty pride had rejected and deposed because he had become involved in a suit concerning the appropriation of public property.
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But now, cowed and humbled after their defeat, they were for recalling him, and offered to hand over to him the supreme command, accountable to no one. Accordingly, that he might not be thought to be obtaining office because of the crisis, but in accordance with the law, and that he should not, as if he had given up all hope for the city, be elected by soldiery in a canvass of the remnants of the army, now scattered and wandering, it was necessary that the senators on the Capitolino should vote upon the matter after they had been informed of the decision of the soldiers. Now there was a certain Gaius Pontius,
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a brave man, who, by volunteering personally to report these resolutions to the Senate on the Capitol, took upon himself great danger. For the way led through the midst of the enemy, who encompassed the citadel with sentries and palisades. When, accordingly, he had come by night to the river, he bound broad strips of cork beneath his breast and, entrusting his body to the buoyancy of this support, committed himself to the stream. Encountering a gentle current which bore him slowly down stream, he reached the opposite bank in safety, and, climbing out of the river, advanced toward the section void of lights, inferring from the darkness and quiet that no one was there. Clinging to the precipitous cliff and entrusting himself to the support of sloping and circuitous ways and jagged surfaces of the rock which would allow a foothold or afford a clutch for his hand, he reached the top of the rock; he was received by the sentries, and made known to those within the decision of the army, and having obtained the decree of the Senate, he returned again to Camillus.
The next day one of the barbarians was wandering idly about this place, when he saw in one spot prints of feet and marks of slipping, and in another the bruising and tearing off of the grass, which grew on the earth of the cliff, and marks of the zigzag dragging and pulling up of a body; and this he told to the others. They, thinking that the way was pointed out to them by their enemies, attempted to rival them; and waiting till the very dead of night, they made the ascent, unnoticed not only by the sentinels, but also by the dogs which shared guard duty and formed the outpost, but then were overcome by sleep.
Rome’s Fortune, however, did not lack a voice capable of revealing and declaring such a great mischance. Sacred geese
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were kept near the temple of Juno for the service of the goddess. Now by nature this bird is easily disturbed and frightened by noise; and at this time, since they were neglected, because dire want oppressed the garrison, their sleep was light, and was made uncomfortable by hunger, with the result that they were at once aware of the enemy as they showed themselves above the edge of the cliif. The geese hissed at them and rushed at them impetuously, and, at the sight of arms, became even more excited, and filled the place with piercing and discordant clamour. By this the Romans were aroused, and, when they comprehended what had happened, they forced back their enemies and hurled them over the precipice. And even to this day, in memory of these events, there are borne in solemn procession a dog impaled on a stake,
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but a goose perched in state upon a costly coverlet in a litter.
This spectacle exhibits the might of Fortune and the ease with which, whenever she busies herself and takes command, she provides from unexpected sources against all emergencies by implanting intelligence in the unreasoning and senseless, and prowess and daring in the craven. For who would not, truly, be struck with astonishment and amazement when he has come to learn and has embraced in his consideration the former dejection of the city and her present prosperity, and has looked upon the splendour of her temples, the richness of her votive offerings, the rivalry of her arts and crafts, the ambitious efforts of subject cities, the crowns of dependent kings, and all things which the earth contributes and the sea and islands, continents, rivers, trees, living creatures, plains, mountains, mines, the first-fruits of everything, vying for beauty in the aspect and grace that adorns this place? And then comes the thought: how near did all this come to not being created and to not existing at all! When all things else were overcome by fire and frightful darkness and gloom, by foreign swords and murderous rage, it was poor, irrational, and timorous creatures that contributed the beginning of deliverance; and those great heroes and commanders, the Manlii, the Servilii, the Postumii, the Papirii, the founders of future illustrious houses, whom naught separated from death, geese aroused to make defence for the god of their fathers and for their fatherland. But if it be true, as Polybius
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has recorded in his second book, concerning the Gauls who had at this time seized Rome, that, when news suddenly came to them that their domains at home were in danger of being lost to them at the hands of neighbouring barbarians who had invaded their land and were masters of it, they concluded a treaty of peace with Camillus and withdrew - if this be true, then there can be no contention with Fortune that she was not the cause of Rome’s preservation, by distracting the enemy, or rather, by abstracting them from Rome quite unexpectedly.
De fortuna Romanorum. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1936.
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