§5.40.1haec inter seniores morti destinatos iactata solacia.
These were the consolations exchanged among the elders destined for death.
versae inde adhortationes ad agmen iuvenum, quos in Capitolium atque in arcem prosequebantur, commendantes virtuti eorum iuventaeque urbis per trecentos sexaginta annos omnibus bellis victricis, quaecumque reliqua esset fortuna.
Then the words of encouragement were turned to the column of the youth, whom they were escorting to the Capitol and the citadel, committing whatever fortune might remain to their courage and youth, which belonged to a city that had been victorious in all wars for three hundred and sixty years.
§5.40.2digredientibus, qui spem omnem atque opem secum ferebant, ab iis, qui captae urbis non superesse statuerant exitio, §5.40.3cum ipsa res speciesque miserabilis erat, tum muliebris fletus et concursatio incerta nunc hos nunc illos sequentium rogitantiumque viros natosque, cui se fato darent, nihil, quod humani superesset mali, relinquebant.
As those who carried with them all hope and help were departing from those who had resolved not to survive the destruction of the captured city, not only was the event itself and the sight pitiful, but also the weeping of the women and their uncertain running about, following now these, now those, and asking their husbands and sons to what fate they were surrendering them, left nothing of human misery remaining.
§5.40.4magna pars tamen earum in arcem suos persecutae sunt nec prohibente ullo nec vocante, quia, quod utile obsessis ad minuendam inbellem multitudinem, id parum humanum erat.
Yet a great part of them followed their people into the citadel, with no one forbidding or calling them, because, although it was useful to the besieged for reducing the non-combatant multitude, it was not very humane.
§5.40.5alia maxime plebis turba, quam nec capere tam exiguus collis nec alere in tanta inopia frumenti poterat, ex urbe effusa velut agmine iam uno petiit Ianiculum.
Another crowd, mostly of the plebeians, which so small a hill could neither contain nor support in such a great scarcity of grain, poured out of the city and headed for the Janiculum as if in a single column.
§5.40.6inde pars per agros dilapsi, pars urbes petunt finitimas sine ullo duce aut consensu suam quisque spem, sua consilia communibus deploratis sequentes.
From there, some dispersed through the fields, others headed for neighboring cities, without any leader or consensus, each following his own hope and plans, having despaired of the common ones.
§5.40.7flamen interim Quirinalis virginesque Vestales omissa rerum suarum cura, quae sacrorum secum ferenda, quae, quia vires ad omnia ferenda deerant, relinquenda essent, consultantes, quisve ea locus fideli adservaturus custodia esset,
Meanwhile, the flamen of Quirinus and the Vestal virgins, putting aside the care of their own affairs, were consulting which of the sacred things should be carried with them, and which had to be left behind because they lacked the strength to carry all, and what place would keep them in faithful custody.
§5.40.8optimum ducunt condita in doliolis sacello proximo aedibus flaminis Quirinalis, ubi nunc despui religio est, defodere; cetera inter se onere partito ferunt via, quae sublicio ponte ducit ad Ianiculum.
They judged it best to bury those things, packed in small jars, in the shrine nearest to the house of the flamen of Quirinus, where it is now a religious offense to spit; the rest they carried, dividing the burden among themselves, along the road that leads by the Sublician bridge to the Janiculum.
in eo clivo eas cum L. Albinius, §5.40.9de plebe homo, conspexisset plaustro coniugem ac liberos avehens inter ceteram turbam, quae inutilis bello urbe excedebat, §5.40.10salvo etiam tum discrimine divinarum humanarumque rerum, religiosum ratus sacerdotes publicas sacraque populi Romani pedibus ire ferrique ac suos in vehiculo conspici, descendere uxorem ac pueros iussit, virgines sacraque in plaustrum inposuit et Caere, quo iter sacerdotibus erat, pervexit.
On that slope, when Lucius Albinius, a man of the plebeians, had seen them as he was carrying his wife and children in a wagon among the rest of the crowd that was leaving the city as useless for war, respecting even then the distinction between divine and human affairs, and thinking it an impiety that the public priestesses and the sacred things of the Roman people should go on foot and be carried while his own family was seen in a vehicle, he ordered his wife and children to get down, placed the virgins and the sacred things in the wagon, and carried them to Caere, where the priestesses were heading.