Despite the above statement, Livy wrote that the fires were not as widespread as one could expect in the first day of the capture of a city and speculated that the Gauls wanted not to destroy the city but only to intimidate the men on the Capitoline Hill into surrender to save their homes. Despite the anguish at hearing "the shouts of the enemy, the shrieks of the women and boys, the roar of the flames, and the crash of houses falling in", the men were resolved to continue to defend the hill. As that continued day after day, "they became as it were hardened to misery". After a few days, seeing that even though nothing survived "amidst the ashes and ruin" of the city, there was no sign of surrender, the Senones attacked the 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.