siege and under the leadership of Brennus they marched onto and subsequently sacked Rome. Roman history At the time of the invasion of the Gauls in 391 BC, Clusium was on friendly terms with Rome. It was once thought that it was the action of the Roman envoys who had come to intercede for the people of Clusium with the Gauls, and then, contrary to international law, took part in the battle which followed, which determined the Gauls to march on Rome; whether this was true or not, the Gauls needed no real provocation. Near Clusium too, according to Livy, a battle occurred in 296 BC between the Gauls and Samnites combined, and the Romans; a little later the united forces of Clusium and Perusia were defeated by the Romans. The precise period at which Clusium came under Roman supremacy is, however, uncertain, though this must have happened before 225 BC, when the Gauls advanced as far as Clusium. In 205 BC duing the Second Punic War it was reported that they promised ship timber and corn to Scipio Africanus. The Via Cassia, constructed after 187 BC, passed just below the town. In Sulla's civil war, Papirius Carbo took up his position here, and two battles occurred in the neighbourhood. Sulla appears to have increased the number of colonists, and a statue was certainly erected in his honour here. In imperial times we hear little of it, though its grain and grapes were famous. Christianity found its way into Clusium as early as the 3rd century, and the tombstone of a bishop of AD 322 exists. In 540 it was named as a strong place to which the Ostrogothic king Vitiges sent a garrison of a thousand men. Archaeology The site of ancient Clusium was reoccupied in Roman and later times, obscuring and obliterating much of the Etruscan layers. For example, the ancient sources describe the tomb of Lars Porsena at Clusium as well as the sacking and levelling of the city by Sulla. Much of what remains are its tombs and its underground passages, some of which might have been associated with the monument to Porsena. The following description from the early 20th century shows that excavation of the ancient site had by then been extensive. Of pre-Roman or Roman buildings in the town itself there are few remains, except for some fragments of the Etruscan town walls composed