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The Gauls in Rome

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I've colored another 150 year old illustration. Once again this piece is made either by "C. LaPlante" or "A de N" of whom little to nothing is known.

The image is of the Gauls led by their chieftain Brennus entering Rome. In 390 BC Brennus' horde scoured upper Italy and carved a swath of destruction down to the Etruscan city of Clusium. The Romans uncharacteristically interjected on behalf of the Etruscans, despite being their time attested enemies and in the parley that followed a senior Roman statesman murdered one of the Gauls lessor chieftains. Infuriated by this war crime the Gauls immediately abandoned their siege of Clusium and marched on Rome.

The Romans deployed their legions ahead of her gates however the battle hardened and technologically superior Celtic force slaughtered them with the same ease and impunity they displayed against the rabble of the north. During the route the citizens in Rome declined to close their gates on their retreating brethren and it appears that Celtic advance skirmishers captured Romes gatehouse ahead of Brennus' army.

Seeing the writing on the walls, specifically the dead Roman blood on the walls, the vast majority of the citizenry is known to have fled in a blind terror while the Senate and any soldiers they could rally hid away in the Capitol temple. The city proper was not quite abandoned however and the Gauls found in the "Vestibulum" (either entrance to the city or entrance to a public office) the Roman elders who had been unable to flee the advancing army and who had been denied the protection of the overcrowded Capitol. It is said that they sat motionlessly and stoically awaiting their deaths... probably... if they weren't awaiting their deaths they don't appear to have had a plan B. After a predictably short duration the Gauls murdered them.

All that remained of the cities’ defenders where the Senators, their personal guard and a rapidly tightening noose around their improvised fortress. Though mild skirmishes appear to have taken the center stage of this battle, the siege continued for seven months. Trapped in their citadel the remaining senators and soldiers were forced by their lack of provisions to admit defeat and agreed to a second parley. Abandoning their previous strategy of arbitrarily stabbing diplomats, they agreed to pay the Gauls 1000 pounds of gold.

Not content to leave well enough alone the Roman delegates, clearly men of rockets and science, accused the physically present and profoundly stab happy Gauls of using fraudulent weights. One can only assume that this was because no knife was handy and they where unable to find a more expedient means of suicide. Brennus drew his sword creating an outward ripple of tension as his soldiers prepared for the inevitable charge command before climatically dropping his sword on his side of the scales further increasing the amount the Romans had to pay. At this point Brennus famously cites "Vae Victus!" which translates literally to "woe to the vanquished!" but more realistically to "suck it"





With the city reduced, the population decimated and the wealth of a nation under his arm Brennus realized that there was no further degradation he could inflict on the Romans and nothing else of value remained. Leading his army back to their newly conquered homeland in the north the divergent clans under his assembly set about the process of nation building. Initiating further waves of immigration and conquest that stretched into the Far East...

See Brennus the 2nd for Details.
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NEWATLAS7's avatar
Excellent !! This is a great scene when its colored !!