The following story is about a historical event that happened in ancient Rome many centuries ago. The city was captured by the Gauls and destroyed utterly, so Romans lost their houses and all the buildings were in ruins except for several temples that survived the attack. The most famous general back in that era was Camillus, who had a tough faith and suffered through multiple challenges throughout his life. At some point, he was captured due to the false accusations and removed from duty, but when the attack of the Gauls happened, he was asked to help bring back the city, and due to his attempts, the Gauls left the city.
In 390 B.C.E., the Gauls headed to the gates of Rome to conquer the city to occupy it and make the citizens surrender by challenging them with famine. They arrived to find the city mostly abandoned and with very few people capable of fighting to resist the attack. All the civilians who had stayed gathered in the Citadel, hoping it would strategically help protect themselves. At the same time, priests took relics and escaped as well as some marginals who managed to take the edible supplies along the way (Dyck). Once the Gauls realized they could take Rome effortless, they began to kill citizens and rob them, leaving everything in ruins.
Nevertheless, when the enemies attempted to attack the Citadel, they were exposed in the open space and were entirely defeated by the Romans. This is why they chose to starve them until they surrendered, but the Gauls did not consider that they burned most of the crops and supplies during the occupation and had a shortage of food themselves. At the same time, Camillus organized the citizens of Ardea into an improvised army to resist the attack of the Gauls. He managed to unexpectedly assault the troop of the enemies and kill them all.
Continuing the attack on Rome, the Gauls tried to invade the Citadel. They almost succeeded and even managed to pass the guarding dogs without waking them up when the honk of the sacred geese by Juno’s temple notified the Romans that the enemies were coming (Dyck). The general fought two soldiers, and the rest of the army joined him. They pushed the enemies from the wall and resisted their attack of that night that could drastically change the faith of the Romans.
The Gauls were holding the Romans inside the Citadel for seven long months. However, it all came to an end when the supplies of both sides finished, and everyone started to suffer from terrible hunger. In addition, the Gauls had malaria that caused the death of many warriors and significantly reduced the number of the army for the required win. Despite the opportunities to beat the enemies, Romans were too exhausted and weak from the famine and blockade that lasted for months.
Eventually, they agreed to surrender and pay a decent amount of gold to the opponents so they would leave them peacefully. However, there are several theories on what happened next, and different sources suggest multiple ideas. Living, for example, claims that when the Gauls refused to leave the city by the Camillus command, they started to fight. Since the enemies were strengthless, they were easily defeated by the general (Dyck). Consequently, all those events made Romans realize the weakness in their defense and the military forces that led to that scenario, so they worked on the improvement of the protection.
Work Cited
Dyck, Ludwig H. The Sack of Rome by the Gauls, 390 BCE. World History Encyclopedia, 2018. Web.