The first onset of the barbarian army was directed against the hated colony, and thus there were soon a hundred thousand or more enraged Britons howling round, not the walls, but the unwalled enclosure of Camulodunum. Help for the defenceless city there was none or next to none. The four brave legions were far away: one in quarters at Caerleon upon Usk, two fighting with Druids in Anglesey or quartered at Chester, one, the nearest, at Lincoln. The greedy procurator, Catus, when appealed to for help, sent two hundred imperfectly armed soldiers to reinforce the scanty garrison, and then began to arrange for his own speedy flight to Gaul. Within the city there were treachery and the paralysis of despair. No ditch was dug nor even the hastiest rampart reared: the non-combatants, the old men and the women, were not sent away; as passive as if in profound peace they awaited the approach of the multitude of the barbarians. The city was stormed at once: the great temple-citadel, in which the few soldiers were collected, stood a two days’ siege and then likewise fell. Both here and in the two Roman cities which were yet to fall, indescribable horrors of murder, rape, ghastly and insulting mutilations are reported to have been practised by the barbarians. The Ninth legion under its commander (Petillius Cerialis), marching southward to the rescue, was met by the exultant conquerors, routed and almost destroyed. All the foot soldiers perished in the battlefield or in the flight; only Cerialis himself with his cavalry escaped to his former camp and was sheltered behind its fortifications.