The Battle of the Allia was fought on 18 July 390 BC when a Gallic army of Senones and Arverni led by the Senone king Brennus annihilated a Roman army led by six military tribunes ten miles north of Rome. The disastrous Roman defeat allowed for the Gauls to sack Rome and massacre its elderly elite, although they were unable to take the city's fortified citadel, and the Senones were ultimately ambushed, defeated, and forced to flee the city.
Background[]
In 400 BC, the Gallic Senones invaded Italy, allegedly having been invited to do so by an Etruscan man named Aruns, whose desire to avenge the seduction of his wife by the Clusian king Lucumo drove him to persuade the Gauls to come to Clusium and make war. He supposedly tempted them by showing them wine, olives, and figs and telling them that Italy was a sparsely inhabited land without good fighters; he invited them to seize Italy's large and fertile lands for themselves. Clusium sent a request for aid to its powerful ally, the Roman Republic, which sent the brothers Quintus, Caeso, and Numerius Fabius Ambustus as ambassadors to the Senone king Brennus at his newly-founded capital of Sena Gallica on the eastern coast of Italy. The Senones agreed to peace if the Clusians would give them some land, but the Romans disagreed and a quarrel broke out. Ultimately, a Senone was killed by the Roman brothers, and the Gauls withdrew to decide what action to take.
Battle[]
Brennus and his 30,000-strong Celtic army marched on Rome to exact harsh vengenace for the death of the Senone chieftain. The Romans assembled four legions, plus several hastily-assembled citizen militiamen (including militia farmers, townsfolk, and other armed citizens), and 15,000 Roman troops under six military tribunes (with consular powers) assembled at the confluence of the Tiber and Allia Rivers 10 miles north of the city of Rome. By the time that the Romans arrived, the battlefield was already swarming with Celtic warriors. The Roman citizen army met a larger force of intimidating Gallic invaders, and the Romans were outnumbered and outfought by the more flexible Celtic warriors. The Roman phalanx broke and was massacred, and the undefended city of Rome was then sacked as a result.
Aftermath[]
The Sack of Rome
The citizens of Rome then fled the city, its religious artifacts were evacuated, and the fighting men were separated from the "useless mouths" (women, the elderly, and children) to defend Rome's citadel. Brennus and his Gauls then arrived outside of the gates of Rome, and he found that the Colline Gate was open and that the city was deserted. The long-bearded elders of Rome (including retired and successful generals, Senators, and the august and elder people of society), who were neither "useless mouths" or able-bodied to fight, decided to sacrifice their lives, putting on their finest clothing and waiting in their villas for the Senones to massacre them. The Senones left a strong guard in the city in case of an assault from the fortified heights, and they proceeded to sack the city, although they were made uneasy by the solitude and silence. They ultimately decided to storm the barricaded plebeian houses and the unguarded wealthy houses, but they briefly paused upon seeing the elderly elites of Rome staring at them. When one Gaul approached the Roman nobleman Marcus Papirius and curiously touched his beard, Papirius struck him with his ivory staff, initiating a massacre of the Roman elite. Houses were ransacked and the empty shells set on fire, and the elites were slaughtered. The Gauls then laid siege to the city's fortified citadel, but they were unable to take it.
During a peace negotiation between the Romans and the Gauls, the Romans offered 1,000 pounds of gold if the Gauls would leave. When the Romans saw that the Gauls had rigged the scale to falsify the weights to their advantage, the Romans complained, so Brennus came up to the scale, threw his heavy sword on the Gallic side of the scale, and exclaimed Vae victis!, meaning "Woe to the vanquished"; he taunted the Romans at their defeat and told them that they had no choice. The Senones ultimately took their bribe and left, but, on their way out, they were ambushed by Marcus Furius Camillus' Roman army, and the slaughter was total: Brennus was slain, his camp was captured, and not even the messenger survived to report the disaster.