overburdened by the weight of their coats of mail and other armour. Nevertheless the greater part of the men escaped safe to Veii; but none went from this place to the help of Rome, nor did they so much as send tidings of the battle. As for them that had been set on the right wing, these all went to Rome; and when they were come thither, delayed not even to shut the gate of the city, but fled straightway into the citadel. This battle was fought on the eighteenth day of the month Quintilis; nor was it ever lawful in Rome thereafter to do any public business on that day. The Gauls were beyond measure astonished that they had vanquished their enemy so easily and in so short a space of time. At the first they stood still in fear, not knowing what had taken place; afterwards they began to fear some stratagem; at last they buried the dead bodies of the slain, and piled together the arms in heaps according to their custom. And now, not perceiving in any place the sign of an enemy, they began to march forward, and came to Rome a little before sunset. But when the horsemen whom they had sent on before brought back tidings that the gates were open, with none to defend them and no soldiers upon the walls, they were not less astonished than before, and came to a halt, fearing lest, in the darkness of the night and in a place whereof they knew nothing, they might fall into some peril. They took up a station, therefore, between Rome and the river Anio, sending scouts about the walls and the gates of the city who should learn what the enemy purposed to do in the great extremity whereunto they had been brought. CHAPTER XIV. ~~ THE STORY OF ROME AND THE GAULS (continued).