Whilst they stood gazing on these as on statues, it is said that Marcus Papirius, one of them, roused the anger of a Gaul by striking him on the head with his ivory, while he was stroking his beard, which was then universally worn long; and that the commencement of the bloodshed began with him, that the rest were slain in their seats.

After the slaughter of the nobles, no person whatever was spared; the houses were plundered, and when emptied were set on fire.
42.

But whether it was that all were not possessed with a desire of destroying the city, or it had been so determined by the leading men of the Gauls, both that some fires should be presented to their view, [to see] if the besieged could be forced into a surrender through affection for their dwellings, and that all the houses should not be burned down, so that whatever portion should remain of the city, they might hold as a pledge to work upon the minds of the enemy; the fire by no means spread either indiscriminately or extensively on the first day, as is usual in a captured city.

The Romans beholding from the citadel the city filled with the enemy, and their running to and fro through all the streets, some new calamity presenting itself in every different quarter, were neither able to preserve their presence of mind, nor even to have perfect command of their ears and eyes.

To whatever direction the shouts of the enemy, the cries of women and children, the crackling of the flames, and the crash of falling houses, had called their attention, thither, terrified at every incident, they turned their thoughts, faces, and eyes, as if placed by fortune to be spectators of their falling country, and as if left as protectors of no other of their effects, except their own persons: so much more to be commiserated than any others who were ever besieged, because, shut out from their country, they were besieged, beholding all their effects in the power of the enemy.