Livy wrote this History of Rome in the late first century BC. This is Book 5 of his history of early Rome, set in central Italy when Rome was still a city on the Tiber. Marriage had opened between the old clans and the common people, and Veii, a rich Etruscan rival across the river, was already under a long siege.

Camillus, Rome's greatest soldier of the age, mines under Veii for ten years and takes the city. Juno, its goddess, is invited out by a solemn calling and promised a temple on the Aventine hill. Then Gauls under Brennus, from the north in what we now call France, smash the Roman levy at the Allia river, pour through an unguarded gate, and sack Rome. Sacred geese save the Capitol, the citadel, in the night. Brennus throws his sword onto the scales of ransom. Camillus refuses the shame, drives the Gauls off, and forbids leaving the ashes for Veii's houses. He is called a second founder.