§5.42.1ceterum, — seu non omnibus delendi urbem libido erat, seu ita placuerat principibus Gallorum, et ostentari quaedam incendia terroris causa, si compelli ad deditionem caritate sedum suarum obsessi possent, et non omnia concremari tecta, §5.42.2ut, quodcumque superesset urbis, id pignus ad flectendos hostium animos haberent, — nequaquam perinde atque in capta urbe prima die aut passim aut late vagatus est ignis.
But—whether because not all of them had the desire to destroy the city, or because it had seemed best to the leaders of the Gauls both that some fires should be displayed for the sake of terror, to see if the besieged could be forced to surrender by their affection for their homes, and that not all houses should be burned down, so that, whatever of the city might remain, they might hold it as a pledge to bend the minds of their enemies—the fire did not spread by any means so widely or generally on the first day as is usual in a captured city.
§5.42.3Romani ex arce plenam hostium urbem cernentes vagosque per vias omnes cursus, cum alia atque alia parte nova aliqua clades oreretur, non mentibus solum concipere rem, sed ne auribus quidem atque oculis satis constare poterant.
The Romans, beholding from the citadel the city full of enemies and the running hither and thither through all the streets, since some new disaster was rising now in one place, now in another, could not only not comprehend the reality in their minds, but could not even keep their ears and eyes sufficiently steady.
§5.42.4quocumque clamor hostium, mulierum puerorumque ploratus, sonitus flammae et fragor ruentium tectorum avertisset, paventes ad omnia animos oraque et oculos flectebant velut ad spectaculum a fortuna positi occidentis patriae nec ullius rerum suarum relicti praeterquam corporum vindices, §5.42.5tanto ante alios miserandi magis, qui umquam obsessi sunt, quod interclusi a patria obsidebantur omnia sua cernentes in hostium potestate.
Whithersoever the shout of the enemies, the lamentations of women and children, the sound of the flame, and the crash of falling houses turned them, they directed their trembling minds, faces, and eyes to everything, as if they had been placed by fortune before the spectacle of their dying country, left as defenders of nothing of their own except their bodies, they were by so much more to be pitied than any others who had ever been besieged, because, shut off from their country, they were being besieged while seeing all their possessions in the power of the enemy.
§5.42.6nec tranquillior nox diem tam foede actum excepit; lux deinde noctem inquietam insecuta est, nec ullum erat tempus, quod a novae semper cladis alicuius spectaculo cessaret.
Nor did a quieter night succeed a day spent so foully; then light followed the restless night, nor was there any time which ceased from the spectacle of some ever-new disaster.
§5.42.7nihil tamen tot onerati atque obruti malis flexerunt animos, quin, etsi omnia flammis ac ruinis aequata vidissent, quamvis inopem parvumque, quem tenebant, collem libertati relictum virtute defenderent; §5.42.8et iam, cum eadem cotidie acciderent, velut adsueti malis abalienaverant ab sensu rerum suarum animos, arma tantum ferrumque in dextris velut solas reliquias spei suae intuentes.
Yet, weighed down and overwhelmed by so many evils, they in no way bent their minds from defending with courage—even if they should see everything leveled by flames and ruins—the hill, however poor and small, which they held, left as it was for freedom; and now, since the same things happened every day, as if accustomed to evils, they had alienated their minds from the sense of their own condition, looking only at the arms and the iron in their right hands as the sole remnants of their hope.