were besieging Clusium; Fabius Ambustus was sent as an ambassador to their camp to make terms on behalf of the besieged.  His proposals met with a harsh reply, and he, thinking that his mission was at an end, had the audacity to appear before the ranks of the men of Clusium in arms, and to challenge the bravest of the barbarians to single combat.  He won the fight, slew his opponent and stripped his body; but the Gauls recognised him, and sent a herald to Rome, complaining that Fabius had broken faith and not kept his word, and had waged war against them without its being previously declared.  Hereupon the Feciales urged the Senate to deliver the man up to the Gauls, but he appealed to the people, and by their favour escaped his just doom.  Soon after the Gauls came and sacked Rome, except the Capitol.  But this is treated of more at length in the ’Life of Camillus.’

XIII.  The priests called Salii are said to owe their origin to the following circumstances:  In the eighth year of Numa’s reign an epidemic raged throughout Italy, and afflicted the city of Rome.  Now amidst the general distress it is related that a brazen shield fell from heaven into the hands of Numa.  Upon this the king made an inspired speech, which he had learned from Egeria and the Muses.  The shield, he said, came for the salvation of the city, and they must guard it, and make eleven more like it, so that no thief could steal the one that fell from heaven, because he could not tell which it was.  Moreover the place and the meadows round about it, where he was wont to converse with the Muses, must be consecrated to them, and the well by which it was watered must be pointed out as holy water to the vestal virgins, that they might daily take some thence to purify and sprinkle their temple.  The truth of this is said to have been proved by the immediate cessation of the plague.  He bade workmen compete in imitating the shield, and, when all others refused to attempt it, Veturius Mamurius, one of the best workmen of the time, produced so admirable an imitation, and made all the shields so exactly alike, that even Numa himself could not tell which was the original.  He next appointed the Salii to guard and keep them.  These priests were called Salii, not, as some say, after a man of Samothrace or of Mantinea named Salius, who first taught the art of dancing under arms, but rather from the springing dance itself, which they dance through the city when they carry out the shields in the month of March, dressed in scarlet tunics, girt with brazen girdles, with brazen helmets on their heads and little daggers with which they strike the shields.  The rest of their dance is done with their feet; they move gracefully, whirling round, swiftly and airily counter-changing their positions with light and vigorous motions according to rhythm and measure.  The shields are called ancilia, because of their shape; for they are not round, nor with a perfect circumference, but are cut out of a