Ab urbe condita

Although the portents had been averted by due expiation and the answers given by the soothsayer and the oracle were matters of common knowledge, and all that man could do had been done by the selection of M. Furius, the greatest of all commanders —notwithstanding

all this, when the capture of Veii was announced in Rome, after so many years of undecided warfare and numerous defeats, the rejoicing was as great as if there had been no hope of success.

Anticipating the order of the senate, all the temples were filled with Roman mothers offering thanksgivings to the gods. The senate ordered that the public thanksgivings should be continued for four days, a longer period than for any previous war.

The arrival of the Dictator, too, whom all classes poured out to meet, was welcomed by a greater concourse than that of any general before.

His triumph went far beyond the usual mode of celebrating the day; himself the most conspicuous object of all, he was drawn into the City by a team of white horses, which men thought unbecoming even for a mortal man, let alone a Roman citizen.

They saw with superstitious alarm the Dictator putting himself on a level in his equipage with Jupiter and Sol, and this one circumstance made his triumph more brilliant than popular.

After this he signed a contract for building the temple of Queen Juno on the Aventine and dedicated one to Matuta the Mother. After having thus discharged his duties to gods and men he resigned his Dictatorship. Subsequently a difficulty arose about the offering to Apollo.

Camillus stated that he had vowed a tenth of the spoils to the deity, and the college of pontiffs decided that the people must fulfil their religious obligation.[*](Camillus had made his vow in the name of the State, as Dictator, and so the whole people were bound to take their share in redeeming it.)