Читать книгу The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus, Told to Boys and Girls онлайн

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But this did not satisfy the brave Roman, who knew that he was guiltless. He determined to leave the city for which he had done so much, without waiting to hear his sentence pronounced.

As he passed through the gates, he turned, and stretching out his hands toward the Capitol, he cried to the gods: ‘If not for evil I have done,’ he cried, ‘but through the hatred of my enemies I have been driven into exile, grant that the Romans may soon grow sorry and send for Camillus to help them when trouble befalls.’

And his prayer was answered. For when, in 390 B.C., the Gauls descended upon Rome, soldiers and citizens alike demanded that the Senate should send to Camillus and beseech him to come to help them in their dire need.

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The inhabitants of Gaul, who dwelt in the country we now call France, were tall, fair, blue-eyed warriors. Long before the time of which I am going to tell you, they had crossed the Alps and made themselves masters of Northern Italy.