was no sign of surrender, the Senones attacked Capitoline Hill at dawn. The defenders let the enemy climb up the steep hill and flung them down the slope. The Gauls stopped halfway up the hill. The Romans charged and inflicted such high casualties that the enemy never tried to take the hill again. Instead, they prepared a siege. They divided their forces into two. One division besieged the hill, and the other went foraging in the territories of the neighbouring cities because all the grain around Rome had been taken to Veii by the Roman soldiers who had fled there. Some Gauls arrived at Ardea, where Marcus Furius Camillus, a great Roman military commander who had seized Veii a few years earlier, had gone when he was exiled because of accusations of embezzlement. Camillus rallied the people of Ardea to fight. He marched at night, caught the camp of the Gauls by surprise, and massacred the enemy in their sleep. Some Gallic fugitives got near Antium and were surrounded by its townsmen. Meanwhile, in Rome, both sides were quiet. The Senones conducted the siege "with great slackness" and concentrated on preventing the Romans from slipping through their lines. The patrician clan of the Fabii held an annual sacrifice on the Quirinal Hill. Gaius Fabius Dorsuo came down the Capitoline carrying the sacred vessels, passed through the enemy pickets and went to the Quirinal. He duly performed the sacred rites and returned the Capitoline. Livy commented, "Either the Gauls were stupefied at his extraordinary boldness, or else they were restrained by religious feelings, for as a nation they are by no means inattentive to the claims of religion". In the meantime, the survivors of the battle who had fled to Veii began to regroup. Led by Quintus Caedicius, the centurion they chose as their leader, they routed a force of Etruscans who looted the territory of Veii and intended to attack this city. They made some prisoners lead them to another Etruscan force, which was at the salt works, and inflicted even greater losses on that force. Caedicius' forces grew, and some Romans who had fled the city went to Veii. Volunteers from Latium also joined them. Caedicius decided to summon Camillus to take the command, but that required approval of the Senate. They sent Cominius Pontius, a soldier, to Rome as a messenger. He went down the River Tiber on