Brennus (ca. 391 BC) (or Brennos) was a chieftain of the Senones. He defeated the Romans at the Battle of the Allia (18 July 390 BC). In 387 BC he led an army of Cisalpine Gauls in their attack on Rome and captured most of the city, holding it for several months. Brennus's sack of Rome was the only time the city was occupied by a non-Roman army before the fall of the city to the Goths in 410 AD.
|This article about a military figure is a stub. You can help Wikiquote by expanding it.|
- Vae Victis!
- Latin: Woe to the Defeated
- See Livy v. 33-49; Plutarch, Camillus, 17, 22, 28; Polybius i. 6, ii. 18; Dion. Halic. xiii. 7
- Variant translation: Down with the defeated!
- His statement to the conquered Romans following the capture of Rome (circa 390 BC), as quoted in Livy Ab urbe condita, bk. 5, ch. 48, section 9 (reference taken from 1997's Chambers Dictionary of Quotations, p. 187).