If the citadel and Capitol, the mansion of the gods, if the senate, the source of public counsel, if the youth of military age, should survive the impending ruin of the city, the loss would be light of the aged, the crowd left behind in the city, and who were sure to perish[170] under any circumstances.

And in order that the plebeian portion of the multitude might bear the thing with greater resignation, the aged men, who had enjoyed triumphs and consulships, openly declared that they would die along with them, and that they would not burden the scanty stores of the armed men with those bodies, with which they were now unable to bear arms, or to defend their country.
Such was the consolation addressed to each other by the aged now destined to death.
[Footnote 170: The aged were doomed to perish under any circumstances, (_utique_,) from scarcity of provisions, whether they retired into the Capitol with the military youth, or were left behind in the city.] 40.

Their exhortations were then turned to the band of young men, whom they escorted to the Capitol and citadel, commending to their valour and youth whatever might be the remaining fortune of a city, which for three hundred and sixty years had been victorious in all its wars.

When those who carried with them all their hope and resources, parted with the others, who had determined not to survive the ruin of their captured city; both the circumstance itself and the appearance [it exhibited] was really distressing, and also the weeping of the women, and their undecided running together, following now these, now those, and asking their husbands and children what was to become of them, [all together] left nothing that could be added to human misery.

A great many of them, however, escorted their friends into the citadel, no one either preventing or inviting them; because the measure which was advantageous to the besieged, that of reducing the number of useless persons, was but little in accordance with humanity.