[THE GEESE AND THE CAPITOL.]
THE GAULS MOUNTING THE WALLS OF THE CAPITOL.
Geese are not remarkable for bravery or for thoughtful care of the interests of their owners, yet the Romans firmly believed that geese once saved their Capitol from capture.
The Gauls, a savage people coming from the North, once captured the city of Rome, and burned it. Some of the Romans fled to Veii, a town not very far distant, and others shut themselves up in the Capitol, which was a strong building on the top of a steep and rocky hill. The Gauls encamped at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and resolved to wait until the Roman garrison should be forced to surrender through hunger. One night a young Roman came from Veii, and climbed up to the Capitol to encourage his countrymen to resist the Gauls until help should come. In the morning the Gauls saw the foot-prints of the young man, and said to themselves that they could climb wherever he could. So the next night a strong party of Gauls tried to capture the Capitol by climbing up the rocks.
Now a temple, sacred to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, three of the divinities of the Romans, stood on the top of the hill close to the place where the Gauls were stealthily climbing. There were some geese in the temple that were supposed to belong to Juno, and although the Gauls made so little noise, that neither the Romans nor their watch-dogs heard them, the geese knew that something was wrong, and they set up a noisy cackling. This awoke Marcus Manlius, a brave Roman soldier, who seized his sword and shield, and calling to his comrades to follow him, rushed upon the Gauls, and hurling one of them backward who had just reached the top of the hill, he so alarmed the other Gauls that they hastily retreated. Some years afterward the brave Manlius was cruelly put to death by the Romans on a false charge of treason, but the Romans always professed to feel great gratitude to the geese.
There is good reason for believing that this story is not strictly true, and it is probable that it was invented in order to account for the fact that among the Romans geese were sacred to Juno. Still, it is so good a story that people will always be quite willing to believe it.