But the gods will not allow the most pious of nations to suffer this last humiliation. Before the price can be handed over to these insulting barbarians, the greatest of Roman soldiers appears upon the scene, orders scales and gold to be removed, bids the Gauls prepare for conflict, and defeats them, first in the Forum itself, and afterwards at the eighth milestone from Rome, as completely as they had themselves routed the Romans at Allia. We need not endeavour to disentangle the true from the false in this story. That Roman pride covered a humiliating fall is plain enough, and we may well doubt the too opportune arrival of the victorious Camillus. But it is certainly true that Rome recovered with amazing rapidity from what might well have been an overwhelming blow. In the first three centuries and a half of her existence Rome has made so little progress that she has still a rival city not more than ten miles from her gates. She is reduced to her last stronghold, and has to ransom even that. Nevertheless in the course of another century and a half she is in undisputed possession of the whole of Italy. It has been suggested, not without probability, that the other Italian peoples suffered even more from this barbarian deluge, and that the Roman arms when once the acute crisis had passed encountered a less formidable resistance. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 28: _Tumultus._] [Footnote 29: A very similar story is told of the coming of the Moors into Spain. It is quite possible that in both cases the invaders may have received help, in the way of guidance or information, from some one who had an injury to avenge; but the national movement itself must have had some deeper and more powerful cause.] [Footnote 30: These officers, "Military Tribunes with Consular power," to give their full title, were sometimes elected in place of the two Consuls. According to Livy this was done nearly fifty times between the years 445-367 B.C. The arrangement had its origin in the difficulty between the patricians and the plebeians. The former could not reconcile themselves to the ideas of a plebeian consul. After the reconciliation of the two orders by the compromise known as the _Licinian Rogations_, it was not done again.] II APOLLO THE DEFENDER