Shortly after the Ides of July (Tacitus claims the date is July 18th), sometime around 390BCE (Plutarch says 387, Polybius says 393), a small (or medium, or large) force of the Gallic people known as the Senones (possibly intermingled with Etruscans), fought a battle at the River Allia where it flows into the Tiber and routed Roman forces. They then crossed the Tiber and took Rome, leaving very little evidence of a sack except for an undying, intergenerational fear of Gaul in the hearts of Roman patricians.
This vague tale also left a mark on Roman time. In the lunar calendar of Numa Pompilus, used by the Republic until Julius Caesar redefined time in 46BCE, the days were counted by nines, tabulated into thirteen months, and deemed auspicious or untimely depending on where they fell. For example, every ninth day was denoted by a red A and was considered a market day, when nothing else was supposed to happen — the origin of our term “red letter day”. The oldest existing representation of this Republican calendar is the Fasti Antiates Majores, a fresco painted on a crypt wall in Antium, believed to be a coastal villa of Nero’s. Apart from the table of days and months, this calendar names a very few state recognized holy days, and among those few, one of only two nominally historical dates marked on the calendar, is the Dies Alliensis — the day of the Battle of Allia, and the subsequent sacking of Rome.
In the preserved fragments of this calendar we can see the name of the day and that it was a few days after the Ides of Quintilis, the fifth month, the first month being March. The months were already out of step with their names in this calendar. January and February were the first two columns but were not included in the numbered names. Hence Quintilis is the seventh column but the fifth month. And the Dies Alliensis is painted in red right in the middle of the seventh column.
We don’t know whether it was marked as fasti, a good day for business, or nefasti, when civil and legal business were prohibited. However, there was a widespread superstition against beginning anything on the days following the Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides. Plutarch, following Livy, ascribed this to the cultural memory of the Dies Alliensis. The theory is that the violation of Rome tainted the day (or so) after the Ides, and from there the days following the Kalends and Nones became suspect as well. This theory was already besmirched by Plutarch’s time, given his smirking description of the myth. But it is significant that the day was thought to have that significant an effect on the Roman mind. The day was still observed on Republican calendars over three centuries after the battle.
Rome was not at the height of its power in 390BCE, but neither was it powerless. Yet, by all accounts, its famous legions were slaughtered and then turned and ran. The Senones, led by Brennus, are sometimes portrayed as a force some thirty to seventy thousand strong, but more realistic estimates put them at about twelve thousand — and even that is quite large for a Gallic warband. So the military might of Rome was put to shame by a group of people roughly the size of my town. That’s like a band of bog Yankees from New Hampshire overrunning Boston (or Washington DC…). And though the Senones besieged the city for over eight months, there is very little evidence of destruction, so little that many historians doubt the sack actually happened. Is it a sack if all the buildings are left intact and no piles of burned bones are left behind?
Perhaps it didn’t happen. But if not, why was the day recorded in red in a calendar made some fourteen or fifteen generations later? Why the long-lasting superstition?
I find this all fascinating because I am a nerd, but this tale has significance for today. One lesson is that the might of the center is often a mirage. Push at it just a little and it will evanesce — or run away to the hills. How many times was Rome sacked? Even at the height of its power! And by people who had no resources but their own collective will. And that does not include the secessio plebis, the original general strike of the laboring classes, when all the plebs up and left the patricians to fend for themselves. Turns out patricians don’t fend.
These sorts of things are not emphasized in the history books. We know a lot about Nero and Julius and the successful campaigns for Empire. We don’t hear as much about Brennus and Spartacus and Vercingetorix, never mind the nameless plebs who calmly set down their tools and brought the Republic to its knees. Those tales don’t get told… and the conspiracy theorist in me tends to believe that this is because those who direct the narrative and write the books don’t want us to get ideas above our station. They don’t want us to remember, to know, how easy it is to bring down the empire. Just march determinedly up to the walls and yell “Avast!”. Or… just walk away.
The fragility of Empire is well supported by the evidence. It depends on the masses following the rules. It also depends on all the machinery of the empire working well. If any part fails, the whole thing crashes. And in a time of hurricanes and power outages… empires will fall.
Might be a good time to leave the patricians to not fending…
©Elizabeth Anker 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 
It’s not the fall of empires that is important but what comes after — the transformational change of society. There is more to leaving the patricians to fend for themselves than a paid holiday. The patricians – and Rome’s – power was the ability to organize and wield the collective action of the plebeians. No collective action, no power. The moral of the story is power to the people when the plebs organized their own collective action. It appears that after the Senones sacked Rome, little changed except in the minds of the Patricians. They tend to not forget such things. The Pleb’s general strike was another matter. That is the kind of thing the Pats try to forget!
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Hear, Hear!
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