010 - Barbarians at the Gates

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome. I would like to start this week with a correction. In the episode Decades of Gloom, I told the story of a wealthy grain merchant who attempted to usurp Republican control and install himself as king. The grain merchant in question was not named Manlius, as I mistakenly said, but rather Malius. We are about to meet a patrician named Manlius who will soon find himself embroiled in a conspiracy to overthrow the government, but he bears no relation to the Malius who tried to use a grain famine to his personal advantage in 439 B.C. I regret the error.

I would also like to say that those of you who are noticing an improvement in audio quality are not hallucinating. I have recently upgraded my recording equipment. My only concern about the switch is that my previous efforts will now seem poor cousins in comparison to these new episodes. Please do not hold it against those episodes. It is not their fault. They were merely the victims of inferior equipment.

The Romans were riding high after their decisive triumph over Vea. The defeat of their long-time Etruscan rival had left the Romans an economic powerhouse. They now controlled the lands north of the Tiber and began resettlement almost immediately. The crops from the rich Etruscan soil promised an end to the cycle of grain famines that had plagued Rome for the last fifty years. They also became the hub of commerce in central Italy and took sole possession of the all-important salt trade, exponentially increasing Roman wealth.

Things were looking good for the Romans, but fate was about to deal them a cruel blow. In an instant they would crash down from the highest high to the lowest low and find themselves wandering aimlessly amidst the burned-out rubble of their city, wondering how the gods could have forsaken them so quickly and so completely. The barbarian sack of Rome would be one of the most traumatizing events in Roman history and leave the Romans in fearful awe of the Gauls until Julius Caesar finally exorcised their psychological demons 350 years later. Rome would survive, but just barely and not without lasting damage.

Now I say that the Gauls sacked Rome, but that is too broad a description. The label Gaul was a catch-all used by the Romans to describe numerous independent tribes who lived in and around the Alps. There was no sense of union between the Gallic tribes themselves, apart from occasional alliances, and for the most part they fought as much amongst themselves as they did against any foreign race.

The particular tribe that sacked Rome was called the Senones and they were led by a strong warrior chieftain named Brennus. They had come over the Alps into the Po Valley in the previous century and settled along the Adriatic coast. This brought them into conflict with the Etruscans, who had previously controlled the land, and it was this conflict that brought the Senones into conflict with Rome.

There is an official legend that explains Brennus' decision to leave the Adriatic and move south to attack Rome, as well as a modern interpretation that puts the attack in a wider geopolitical context of Italian Realpolitik. The official legend is that Brennus attacked the Etruscan city of Clusium, who sent envoys to Rome desperately seeking assistance. The Romans were no great friend to Clusium, who had backed the hated King Tarquin in his bid to regain the throne 100 years before, but the Romans knew the Gauls were an enemy to be wary of, and so sent envoys to Clusium to take stock of the situation and report back how deeply Rome should involve itself.

When they arrived, however, the Roman envoys immediately recognized the horde of barbarians as a real threat to all Italy, and agreed to help Clusium right then and there. These envoys wound up leading Clusium's army against the Gauls, and in the fighting a Gallic chieftain was killed. Brennus took offense to this. He felt that the diplomatic nature of their mission precluded the envoys from taking part in hostilities. He sent his own envoys to Rome to demand retribution, but the Romans, in their infinite wisdom, decided that rather than handing the envoys over to Brennus, would elect him military tribunes for that year instead. At this further insult, Brennus ordered his people to march south, where he would teach the ill-mannered Romans a lesson.

Modern historians doubt that such a minor incident would lead Brennus to suddenly move his tribe south and attack one of the most heavily fortified cities in Italy. They postulate, and there is some evidence to back it up, that Brennus had come to an agreement with Dionysius of Syracuse to tie the Romans up while Syracuse made their move to dominate Sicily. The Romans had historically been the allies of a Sicilian city called Massana, and Dionysius would have been eager to prevent Rome from sending troops in support of a city that he was trying to capture. Thus an arrangement was made between Syracuse and the Gauls to attack Rome and keep them occupied while Dionysius made his move. This seems plausible, but we will never know for sure exactly why Brennus suddenly decided to march on Rome.

We are not only unsure of why the Gauls attacked, but also when the attack actually took place. The confusion, again, is caused by the scarcity of accurate records prior to the event. Traditional Roman history records that the sack took place in 390 BC, though that date is derived from the often incomplete magisterial election rolls that later Romans used to calculate dates of past events. We will encounter this problem again when Livy makes the implausible claim that between 375 and 370 BC, no magistrates of any kind were elected. Livy explains this as being the result of a patrician-plebe political deadlock, but most likely he was just trying to reconcile what the electoral rolls said with what his own backwards chronology was telling him. Modern historians, cross-referencing with the more accurate Greek records, place the sack of Rome in 387 or 386 BC.

So we are not entirely sure why the Gauls marched on Rome, nor entirely sure when they did so, but we do know who marched, the Senones, and we know where they marched, from the Adriatic coast to Rome, and we know how they got there, they walked, and we know what happened when they got there, they sacked Rome. And 4 out of 6 is not bad when you are talking about things that happened 2,500 years ago.

The Romans were aware of the Gallic advance and enlisted one of the largest armies they had ever assembled to battle a single enemy, with plausible estimates ranging from anywhere from 12,000 to 25,000 men. They gathered at the Alea River, actually more of a brook than a river, and waited for the barbarians to appear on the horizon. When they did, the Romans were immediately on the fearful defensive. The Gauls were like nothing they had ever seen before. Huge and painted, bearded, with long hair, roaring all manner of crazy battle cries, the Gauls were a fearsome sight, and when they charged full speed directly at the Roman line, it did not take long before the Romans broke. The wings of the Roman army, composed of the lightly armed lower class soldiers, were easily routed and fled for home, leaving the heavily armed center phalanx to be surrounded and massacred. It was the worst defeat the Romans had suffered to this point in their history, but their nightmare was only just beginning.

In their haste to save themselves, the fleeing soldiers made directly for the fortified Capitol Hill citadel, leaving the walls of the city unguarded and the gates wide open. The remaining inhabitants of the city either fled outright or followed the soldiers into the citadel, giving free range of the city to the pursuing Gauls, who, incredulous at the lack of resistance and believing it to be some sort of trap, actually waited a full day before they were satisfied it was no trick and entered the city.

An initial attempt to take the capital failed, so Brennus, rather than waste his manpower in pointless fighting, decided to settle in and starve the Romans out, meanwhile stripping the city of all its movable wealth. The siege of the capital began to be measured not in days or weeks, but in months, without any sign of the deadlock breaking. The besieged Romans grew more and more desperate as their supplies and morale ran out. The Gauls were faring no better, the hot Italian summer was not what the northern tribesmen were used to, and they began to drop like flies. Disease ran rampant and Brennus saw his force dwindle daily in the foreign climate. It was a race to the bottom as both sides hoped to hold out one day longer than their equally beleaguered foe.

At one point the Romans were nearly defeated, but were saved at the last minute in dramatic fashion. A messenger had been sent from the capital to make contact with Camillus, their exiled hero, to plead with him to bring a force to lift the siege and save his former countrymen. The messenger scaled down an unguarded cliff, but the Gauls noticed the route and themselves attempted to scale the same cliff and break into the citadel. But famously, as they climbed, the sacred Capitoline geese, who the Romans had brought with them into the citadel, were roused and began to make a racket. The Romans, led by a patrician soldier named Manlius, were tipped off to the danger and drove the barbarians off the wall, preventing the only real attempt to take the Romans by force. Manlius, for his quick action and bravery, was lauded as a hero, but in a few years he would be executed for treason not far from the sight of these heroics, a tragic victim of his own vanity.

The siege stretched to seven months and both sides were at the breaking point. In their respective desperate straits, they both agreed to something neither would have considered at the start. The Romans would pay the Gauls to leave the city. Both considered this a dishonorable end to the fight, but the Romans had to get off the capital hill, or they would all die, and Brennus, who wanted nothing more than to get out of the hot, diseased city, was now able to do so and still claim victory.

The Romans agreed to pay the Gauls 1,000 pounds of gold and scales were brought in to measure the amount. As the gold was being weighed, however, the Romans noticed that the scales had been tampered with and the pounds were much heavier than they should have been. They complained and in response Brennus threw his sword onto the scales, further increasing the imbalance and stating famously, Woe to the conquered. The Romans stifled their objections and measured out the remaining gold, fuming but unable to do anything.

The story of the sack of Rome, in reality, probably ended here, with the Gauls withdrawing north after being paid off. However, later Romans spread a thick coat of triumphant propaganda over the end of the story to save themselves the embarrassment of admitting to such a dishonorable conclusion, just as they added the story of Mucius Scavola to the end of the war with Clusium to avoid admitting that they had been beaten by Lars Porsena. In the Roman Hollywood ending, Camillus is reached and raises a force from the neighboring Latin tribes and marches on the city. He arrives just after the Gauls have been paid and, fighting them sleeping off their triumph, attacks and beats the formerly invincible barbarian army, driving them out of Latium for good and recovering the Roman gold. Camillus then basks in the glow of Roman adulation as the screen fades to black and the credits roll. A nice story, but complete fiction.

Regardless of whether Roman honor was saved at the last moment by miraculous intervention or not, the fact remained that the city was in ruins. At some point during the siege, a fire had started and the city was gutted by an uncontrolled blaze. The surviving Romans, penniless and faced with the prospect of completely rebuilding their city, despaired that it was even possible and began to speak of abandoning the Seven Hills altogether and moving en masse to Vea, where they could start afresh.

Camillus strongly opposed this idea and gave an impassioned speech for the people to rebuild Rome and not flee in the face of adversity. To leave would be an admission of weakness and a moral failing. To stay would prove that Rome could never be defeated. The people, facing a choice between practical logistics and theoretical duty, remained unconvinced. But as the Senate was proceeding with the debate, a company of soldiers returning from guard duty stopped in the forum and their commander ordered a halt, saying, well, we may as well stop here. The Senators overheard this and, never once to ignore a clear omen, immediately closed the debate and rejected all further proposals to abandon the city. Rebuilding would begin at once, no matter the cost or difficulty. Rome was here to stay.

The history of Rome is bookended by barbarian sacks. It would be 850 years before another foreign invader stepped foot in the city. By then, Rome had risen, crested, declined, and was in the process of failing. Brennus's sack of Rome, on the other end, ushered in Rome's era of dominance. Until the sack, Rome was merely one among many in Italian politics, fighting and winning, but also dealing with setbacks and defeats. After the destruction of Rome, the Romans were reborn along with the physical city they lived in. It would be a more determined, more consciously imperial citizen body that would emerge in the 300s BC.

The Romans would never again find themselves under the yoke of a foreign power, nor their walls breached by an invading force. When, in the 400s AD, the Visigoths and then the Vandals finally sacked the city, the level of despair was grossly inflated because the inviolability of the city had been taken for granted. Other cities changed hands, were occupied, or expelled occupiers. This was the natural ebb and flow of ancient politics. But Rome itself would be eternally free, granted special status by the gods. The Vandal sack, for all the physical damage it did, destroyed Rome psychologically, a blow from which it never recovered. And this sense of invincibility was born in the aftermath of the last barbarian sack, 850 years earlier.

The Gallic victory humiliated, offended, and horrified the Romans who endured it, and they vowed to never let it happen again. They successfully kept their word for almost 1,000 years, a remarkable feat in the perilous and violent world of antiquity. Roman obstinacy, steadfast endurance, and unflinching resolve, a commitment to existence born out of near-total destruction.

From a practical standpoint, the sack also brings to an end the period of early Roman history about which we have no clear records or primary sources. Though all the previous records were lost in the fire, the Romans simply started again, leaving us a wealth of documentation that puts our understanding of their history on much firmer footing from this point on. I am thankful to say that the legend of Rome has finally ended and the history of Rome has begun.

Next week, the Romans begin the slow process of rebuilding. Their task was complicated by the fact that all their enemies, past and present, would attempt to take advantage of their weakened state. The Volscians and Aqueans, of course, attacked, as always, but Latin allies revolted as well and even some of Rome's own colonies decided the time was ripe to throw off the yoke of their mother city. But Camillus, not called the second founder of Rome for nothing, would lead the Romans to triumph and restore them on their inevitable path to glory.