Brennus (4th century BCE)

Brennus was a chieftain of the Senones, a Gallic people of northern Italy, who according to Roman tradition defeated the Roman army at the Allia and sacked Rome in 390 BCE (about 387 BCE by modern reckoning). Livy tells that when the Romans complained about false weights used for their ransom in gold, he threw his sword on the scales with the words 'Woe to the vanquished'. Later Roman writers remembered the sack as a national disaster.