What happened in the 4th century BC that made the Roman army the well oiled machine, which sometimes lost battles, but never the war? Most probably the drubbing they got from the Gauls. USA had practically no army and "I don't care about the world" policy before they got slammed in Pearl Harbor and subsequent battles, and realized that peaceful doves get barbecued for supper in the real world.   

Temples at Tiber from
1st century BC

Road to Capitoline Hill

        

The Gauls

             

The Gauls were settling in the north of Italy since 6^th century BC, but nobody took notice. Suddenly they were threatening Etruscan cities north of Rome, which forgot their adversarial relations with Rome and yelled for help. However, a Roman army was defeated and the Gauls with their king Brennus streamed to Rome. The Servian walls were in disrepair and not finished, because the Romans were used to winning and not needing fortifications. And walls cost too much. Mistake.

            Civilians fled the city (enacting many touching scenes, like when a citizen dumped his family from a cart to accommodate Vestal Virgins ) and the defenders fled to the citadel on the Capitol. The Gauls from the tribe of Sennones were not providential. They looted and burned, even though not only the besieged but also the besiegers have to eat and have to have a shelter, and if you loot and burn and then besiege, you are on par with the people inside.

            After seven months the Gauls had enough and negotiated with the Capitolian defenders. The Gauls tried several times to storm the Capitol, unsuccessfully. Since then the dogs were not in high regard in Rome (they did not rouse the sleeping sentries) but the geese sacred to the goddess Juno were, because they alerted the garrison.  Their sacredness probably saved them from barbecue. Ever since then the Romans stoically endured goose droppings on their most sacred places.

            The Gauls also heard that the Roman men hightailed it to Gaius Furrius Camillus, the exiled one, and begged him to become the Dictator and lead them against the Gauls. He could have had a supercilious moment and send the ungrateful wretches  to Hades, but no, not he. Camillus started to organize an army. The Roman politicians had quite an endurance of ungratefulness.

           For all the above reasons, the Gauls negotiated for gold with the defenders. From that time comes also the saying: “Woe to the conquered!”, uttered by Brennus, the king of Sennones. When the agreed upon amount of gold was heaped upon the scales, the Romans complained that the Gauls are cheating. Brennus pulled out his sword and threw it on the other side of the scales adding to the weights and pronounced this very true and profound sentence.

           The Gauls left rather hastily, because Camillus was coming to relieve the citadel. Livy said that the Roman army ambushed the Gauls and took the gold back.  (Maybe) The Senate and Camillus as a Dictator came back to destroyed Rome. Whereupon a huge quarrel erupted, because citizens coming back to burned houses and general mess, wanted to move somewhere else. Appeals to their better nature had no effect, so the Senate resorted to an appeal to baser natures, and announced that the building materials from state quarries were free to anybody who finished rebuilding their property within a year. This worked like charm. Canny Romans built their houses not along former streets, but haphazardly, mainly to be over branches of the sewer for instance.

View from Capitoline Hill

            The Gallic invasion had another effect on Romans. They took the Brennus sentence “Woe to the conquered”, which in Latin is shorter and more hitting “Vae victis” to heart. They quite coldbloodedly decided not to be the conquered ever again. Under Camillus’ leadership they reorganized the army, got rid of the Greek phalanx spear in favour of gladius, the short sword, and modified the armour. As well, the legion as the basic unit of the army, was reorganized, placing the youngest and strongest soldiers in front. The walls were rebuilt and strenghtened.

            The army reorganization came just in time, because the good and gentle neighbours of Rome wanted to use Rome’s weakened condition and gleefully atacked her. The Etruscans, the Volsci, the Aequi, the Hernici were all among the attackers. It took Rome the next fifty years just to stay above the water. It seems amazing that Rome is always portrayed as the mean imperialist power trampling over the peaceful nations of Italy, when Rome was only a better wolf in a pack of wolves. It is not sane to consider a nation to be a peaceful victim just because they lost.

Ancient Capua reconstructed

            However, another threat emerged which occupied Romans for better part of next fifty years.  In the Apennines lived the rugged and warlike nation of Samnites. They did not have cities, they made living herding. The numbers of Samnites were increasing, and they decided that the fertile Campanian plain was just the right thing for the their growing numbers, and it would be easy to occupy, since people living there are disgustingly civilized and therefore soft and easy picking. The central city state of Campania was Capua. The city fathers looked around in desperation and hied off to Rome which has just emerged as the top dog in Latium with the defeated Hernici, Volsci, Aequi, and others now termed “Friends and Allies of the Roman People” and happy about it.

            In Rome they asked for help against the Samnites.