Gallic tribes invade Italy sweeping all before them. They threatened the city of Clusium which begged the Romans for help. Rome sent a delegation to discuss terms with the Gauls. They couldn’t come to an agreement but then the Romans breached diplomatic protocol by fighting in the Etruscan lines with one of the Romans slaying a Gallic chieftain. This enraged the Gauls who sent a delegation to Rome seeking restitution. They were ignored. As a result, the Gauls shifted their attention from Clusium to Rome. The Romans were rather cavalier in their preparations. They hastily called a levy which consisted mostly of raw recruits. When the two armies met at the river Allia, the Romans barely put up a fight and fled the field in panic. The retreat was so precipitous that the city of Rome didn’t even close its gates against the invaders. Some Patricians and their families retired to the Citadel on the Capitoline hill in order to hold out against the occupying force. The rest either left the city or stayed and were left to the tender mercies of the Gauls. Much of the city was burned to the ground.