The destruction of Rome by the Gauls is the dividing point between historical and ante-historical Rome, as Ihne[g] justly notes; for the conflagration wiped out not only the records but most of the monuments as well. He complains, however, that it is long after the conflagration before the chronicles become really trustworthy. He doubts equally the story of how Valerius won the name of Corvus and the achievements of L. Furius Camillus. He says in conclusion: “The result of our investigations is that the whole of the six wars with the Gauls, as Livy[c] relates them, are not much more than stop-gaps, marking points of time at which the annals of the old time have been filled up with edifying and patriotic matter. We can, therefore, infer that a considerable part of the other wars is equally apocryphal, and we may perhaps have the satisfaction of thinking that there were no wars to relate and that the Romans had now and then a little breathing-place.” So extreme an erasure of tradition with all its details will not, however, win the approval of many students of these times.[a] FOOTNOTES [33] The aged were doomed to perish under any circumstances (_utique_), from scarcity of provisions, whether they retired into the Capitol with the military youth, or were left behind in the city. [34] [As a forewarning here of the comparatively recent Gallic re-invasions of Italy, one may quote what J. J. Ampère[d] says in his _L’histoire romaine à Rome_: “To terminate cheerfully the story of the geese of Manlius, I will recall a caricature representing a French soldier plucking a goose on the Capitoline Hill; beneath were the words, ‘Vengeance of a Gaul.’”] [35] It may be observed that each _gens et familia_ clung to the same forenames. Thus Publius, Lucius, Cneius, were favourite forenames of the Cornelii; Caius of the Julii; Appius of the Claudii; and so on. [36] [And yet, though constitutionally eligible, Licinius could hardly have won the consular tribuneship, for the patricians had practically monopolised the office, as the _fasti_ prove.] [37] [The annalists were probably wrong in supposing that Rome was without magistrates for this period. Doubtless their error is due to chronological confusion.] [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. THE CONQUEST OF CENTRAL ITALY THE SAMNITES