Camillus as dictator. Camillus gathered soldiers from the allies and went to Veii, where there were 20,000 soldiers. After the episode of the geese of Juno, the Gauls were less hopeful. They were short of provisions but did not go foraging because they feared Camillus. They were also affected by the disease because they were encamped amid ruins, and there were dead bodies scattered everywhere. The wind scattered ash, which made breathing difficult. They were also suffering from the Mediterranean heat to which they were not accustomed. The Gauls "were now whiling away the seventh month in its siege. For all these reasons the mortality was great in their camp; so many were the dead that they could no longer be buried". The defenders of the Capitoline, in turn, could not get news from Camillus because the city was closely guarded by the enemy. Famine worsened, and the city became dejected and agreed to pay a ransom. When Camillus arrived in Rome, he lifted the gold from the scales and said that it was the Roman custom to deliver the city with iron, not gold. He then said that the agreement to pay a ransom had not been made legally since it was made without him, who had been made the legal ruler, and so it was not binding. The Gauls now had to say what they wanted because "he [had] come with legal authority to grant pardon to those who asked it, and to inflict punishment on the guilty, unless they showed repentance". Brennus began a skirmish. The two sides could not fight a battle because no battle array was possible "in the heart of the ruined city". Brennus led his men to their camp and then left the city during the night. At dawn, Camillus caught up with them and routed them "[of] the fugitives, some were at once pursued and cut down, but most of them scattered abroad, only to be fallen upon and slain by the people of the surrounding villages and cities". News of the Gallic sack reached Greece. Plutarch mentions an inaccurate story by Heracleides Ponticus and that Aristotle wrote about the capture of Rome by the Gauls and said that the saviour of the city was "a certain Lucius", not Camillus. Assessment of Augustine Augustine discusses the causes in De Civitate Dei, part I, book III. Modern assessment of accounts The accounts of