Brennus
The Latinized form of the Keltic title
bran, “a
prince.”
1.
A general of the Galli Senones, who entered Italy, defeated the Romans at the river Allia,
and entered their city without opposition. The Romans fled into the Capitol, and left the
whole city in the possession of their enemies. The Gauls climbed the Tarpeian Rock in the
night, and the Capitol would have been taken, had not the Romans been awakened by the noise
of the sacred geese in the Temple of Iuno and immediately repelled the enemy. (See
Manlius.) Camillus, who was in banishment, marched to
the relief of his country, and totally defeated the Gauls, so that not one remained to carry
home the news of their destruction.
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The Brennus Shield. (Dodwell.)
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The destruction of the Gauls by Camillus is the national account given by the Roman
writers, and is replete with error and exaggeration. The domination of the Gauls in Italy was
certainly of long continuance, and was not terminated in the dramatic manner of the legend.
See
Camillus;
Celtae;
Kuno, Vorgeschichte Roms (1878); and Mommsen,
Hist. of
Rome, vol. i. p. 427 foll.
2.
Another Gallic leader, who made an irruption into Greece at the head of an army of his
countrymen consisting of 152,000 foot and 20,000 horse. After ravaging
various parts of northern Greece, they marched against Delphi, and endeavoured to plunder the
temple. But the army of the invaders, according to the Grecian account, were seized with a
panic terror during the night, and being attacked at daybreak by the Delphians and others of
the Greeks, retreated in the utmost confusion. Large numbers perished, the Greeks continually
hanging on the skirts of the retreating foe; and Brennus, wounded, and dispirited by his
overthrow, killed himself in a fit of intoxication, B.C. 278 (Pausan. x. 19).
