A Gallic chief, who, 300 B.C., after taking and pillaging Rome, invested the Capitol for so long that the Romans offered him a thousand pounds' weight of gold to retire; as the gold was being weighed out he threw his sword and helmet into the opposite scale, adding Væ victis , "Woe to the conquered," an insolence which so roused Camillus, that he turned his back and offered battle to him and to his army, and totally routed the whole host.