The general was extremely beloved by his troops; and in order to prevent those mutinies which were ready to break out every moment, and which their affection alone for him had hitherto restrained, he led them to Rome, and promised to enrich them by the plunder of that opulent city.
He was himself killed, as he was planting a scaling ladder against the walls; but his soldiers, rather enraged than discouraged by his death, mounted to the assault with the utmost valor, and entering the city sword in hand, exercised all those brutalities which may be expected from ferocity excited by resistance, and from insolence which takes place when that resistance is no more.

This renowned city, exposed by her renown alone to so many calamities, never endured, in any age, even from the barbarians by whom she was often subdued, such indignities as she was now compelled to suffer.

The unrestrained massacre and pillage, which continued for several days, were the least ills to which the unhappy Romans were exposed.[*] Whatever was respectable in modesty or sacred in religion, seemed but the more to provoke the insults of the soldiery.

Virgins suffered violation in the arms of their parents, and upon those very altars to which they had fled for protection.
* Guicciard.lib.xviii.Bellai.Stowe, p.

527.
Aged prelates, after enduring every indignity, and even every torture, were thrown into dungeons, and menaced with the most cruel death, in order to make them reveal their secret treasures, or purchase liberty by exorbitant ransoms.