The attacking party
carried nothing but swords, and it seemed a long business to send for
siege-engines and missiles. So they flung torches into the
nearest[188] colonnade and, following in the wake of the flames, would
have burst through the burnt gates of the Capitol, if Sabinus had not
torn down all the available statues--the monuments of our ancestors'
glory--and built a sort of barricade on the very threshold. They then
tried to attack the Capitol by two opposite approaches, one near the
'Grove of Refuge'[189] and the other by the hundred steps which lead
up to the Tarpeian Rock. This double assault came as a surprise. That
by the Refuge was the closer and more vigorous. Nothing could stop the
Vitellians, who climbed up by some contiguous houses built on to the
side of the hill, which in the days of prolonged peace had been raised
to such a height that their roofs were level with the floor of the
Capitol. It is uncertain whether the buildings at this point were
fired by the assailants or--as tradition prefers--by the besieged in
trying to dislodge their enemies who had struggled up so far. The fire
spread to the colonnades adjoining the temples, and then the
'eagles'[190] supporting the roof, which were made of very old wood,
caught the flames and fed them. And so the Capitol, with its doors
fast shut, undefended and unplundered, was burnt to the ground.
Since the foundation of the city no such deplorable and horrible 72
disaster had ever befallen the people of Rome.
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