Livy wrote the History of Rome. This is Book 7 of his history of early Rome, set in the 300s BC. After the Gallic sack the city was rebuilt, a hero was thrown from the Tarpeian Rock for seeming to want a throne, and laws opened the consulship — one of two yearly offices in a republic run by a senate and elected men, not a king — to plebeians.

A young Manlius kills a Gallic giant in single combat, takes the torque, a gold collar, from his neck, and is Torquatus forever. The sack is remembered whenever Gallic horsemen appear. Italians contest the plain. Plague and the levy compete for men. They read the auspices, signs from the gods, before fighting. Glory drives great houses into command, and command into more land. The Samnites, highlanders of southern Italy, come into view. A citizen's rights are still paid in service under the standards. This is the last relatively small Rome: still fighting neighbors, already training the muscle that will take the peninsula.