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[5] but Brennus, with a mocking laugh, stripped off his sword, and added it, belt and all, to the weights. When Sulpicius asked, ‘What means this?’ ‘What else,’ said Brennus, ‘but woe to the vanquished?’ 1 and the phrase passed at once into a proverb. Some of the Romans were incensed, and thought they ought to go back again with their gold, and endure the siege. Others urged acquiescence in the mild injustice. Their shame lay, they argued, not in giving more, but in giving at all. This they consented to do because of the emergency; it was not honourable, but it was necessary.

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