Ab urbe condita

The Tiburtines laughed at Poetilius' triumph. “When,” they said, “had he ever met them in a pitched battle? A few of them had come outside their gates to watch the disordered flight of the Gauls, but when they found that they, too, were being attacked and cut down indiscriminately they retreated into their city.

Did the Romans deem that sort of thing worthy of a triumph? They must not look upon it as too great and wonderful a thing to create disorder in an enemy's gates; they would themselves see greater confusion and panic before their own walls.”

Accordingly, the following year, when M. Popilius Laenas and Cnaeus Manlius were the consuls, an army from Tibur marched in the early hours of the night when all was still against the City of Rome.