service, and charged the people to leave the Forum and meet him on the Field of Mars, threatening those who disobeyed with a heavy fine.  But when the tribunes answered his threats by vowing that they would fine him fifty thousand drachmas unless he ceased his interference with the people’s right of voting, he retired to his own house, and after a few days laid down his office on pretence of sickness.  This he did, either because he feared a second condemnation and banishment, which would be a disgrace to an old man and one who had done such great deeds, or else because he saw that the people were too strong to be overpowered, and he did not wish to make the attempt.

The Senate appointed another dictator, but he made that very Licinius Stolo, the leader of the popular party, his master of the horse, and thus enabled him to pass a law which was especially distasteful to the patricians, for it forbade any one to possess more than five hundred jugera of land.  Stolo, after this success, became an important personage; but, a short time afterwards, he was convicted of possessing more land than his own law permitted, and was punished according to its provisions.

XL.  There still remained the difficulty about the consular elections, the most important point at issue between the two parties, and the Senate was greatly disturbed at it, when news arrived that the Gauls, starting from the Adriatic Sea, were a second time marching in great force upon Rome.  At the same time evident traces of their approach could be seen, as the country was being plundered, and such of the inhabitants as could not easily reach Rome were taking refuge in the mountains.

This terrible tidings put an end to all internal disputes.  The Senate and people formed themselves into one assembly, and with one voice appointed Camillus dictator for the fifth time.  He was now a very old man, being near his eightieth year; but at this pressing crisis he made none of his former excuses, but at once took the chief command and levied an army for the war.  As he knew that the chief power of the Gauls lay in their swords, with which they dealt heavy blows on the heads and shoulders of their enemy, without any skill in fence, he prepared for most of his soldiers helmets made entirely of smooth iron, so that the swords would either break or glance off them, while he also had brass rims fitted to their shields, because the wood by itself could not endure a blow.  He also instructed the soldiers to use long pikes, and to thrust them forward to receive the sword-cuts of the enemy.

XLI.  When the Gauls were encamped on the banks of the Anio, near the city, loaded with masses of plunder, Camillus led out his troops and posted them in a glen from which many valleys branched out, so that the greater part of the force was concealed, and that which was seen appeared to be clinging in terror to the hilly ground.  Camillus, wishing to confirm the enemy in this idea, would not move to