Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 6
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

28. For when the Praenestini were informed that no army had been enrolled in Rome, that there was no one definitely in command, that patricians and plebeians had turned against each other, their leaders [2??] concluded that their opportunity had come, and quickly putting their troops in motion, they devastated the fields along their line of march and advanced against the Colline Gate. [3] Great was the consternation in the City. The call to arms was given, and men hurried to the walls and gates. [4] They [p. 295]had turned at last from domestic strife to war, and¹ proceeded to make Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus dictator, who named Aulus Sempronius Atratinus master of the horse. No sooner was this known —so great was the terror the dictatorship inspired —than the enemy at once withdrew from before the walls, and the Romans of military age assembled without offering objection, in accordance with the edict.

[5] While the army was being enrolled at Rome, the enemy had gone into camp not far from the Allia. [6] From this centre they pillaged in all directions, and boasted to one another that they had occupied a position that was fraught with fate for the City of Rome; there would be another rout there like the one in the Gallic war; for if the Romans feared a day infected with evil omen and marked it with the name of that place, how much more than the Day of the Allia would they dread the Allia itself, that memorial of their great defeat? [7] They were sure to behold there apparitions of ruthless Gauls, and to have the sound of their voices in their ears. Indulging these idle speculations on idle themes, they had rested their hopes on the fortune of the place. [8] The Romans on the other hand were well assured that wherever their Latin enemy was, he was one whom they had conquered at Lake Regillus and had held in peaceable subjection for a hundred years; a place notorious for the memory of disaster would rather inspire them to wipe out the recollection of the disgrace than cause them to fear that any ground was inauspicious for their victory; [9] nay, if the Gauls themselves should confront them on that spot, they would fight as they had fought at Rome in recovering [p. 297]their City and on the following day at Gabii, when² they left no enemy who had entered the walls of Rome, to bear home tidings either of weal or woe.