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Concerning this assault of the Gauls it will perhaps not be unseasonable to give some additional details, however briefly. After the great defeat of the Romans at the river Allia, Cf. Life of Camillus, chap. xviii. (137 e); Livy, v. 35-38. some in their flight found a haven in Rome and filled the people with consternation and terror, and caused them to scatter far and wide, although a few went to the Capitol and prepared to stand a siege. Cf. ibid. chap. xx. (138 f); Livy, v. 39-40. Others, immediately after their defeat, gathered together at Veii and appointed as dictator Furius Camillus, whom the people in their prosperity and lofty pride had rejected and deposed because he had become involved in a suit concerning the appropriation of public property. Cf. Life of Camillus, chap. xii. (134 f). But now, cowed and humbled after their defeat, they were for recalling him, and offered to hand over to him the supreme command, accountable to no one. Accordingly, that he might not be thought to be obtaining office because of the crisis, but in accordance with the law, and that he should not, as if he had given up all hope for the city, be elected by soldiery in a canvass of the remnants of the army, now scattered and wandering, it was necessary that the senators on the Capitolino should vote upon the matter after they had been informed of the decision of the soldiers. Now there was a certain Gaius Pontius, Ibid. chaps. xxv.-xxvii. (141 d-143 a); Livy v. 46. 47; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, xiii. 7. a brave man, who, by volunteering personally to report these resolutions to the Senate on the Capitol, took upon himself great danger. For the way led through the midst of the enemy, who encompassed the citadel with sentries and palisades. When, accordingly, he had come by night to the river, he bound broad strips of cork beneath his breast and, entrusting his body to the buoyancy of this support, committed himself to the stream. Encountering a gentle current which bore him slowly down stream, he reached the opposite bank in safety, and, climbing out of the river, advanced toward the section void of lights, inferring from the darkness and quiet that no one was there. Clinging to the precipitous cliff and entrusting himself to the support of sloping and circuitous ways and jagged surfaces of the rock which would allow a foothold or afford a clutch for his hand, he reached the top of the rock; he was received by the sentries, and made known to those within the decision of the army, and having obtained the decree of the Senate, he returned again to Camillus.
