Camillus

The Falerians had just become aware of the teacher’s treachery, and the whole city, as was natural, was filled with lamentation over a calamity so great. Men and women alike rushed distractedly to the walls and gates, when lo! there came the boys, bringing their teacher back stripped, bound, and maltreated, while they called Camillus their saviour, their lather, and their god.

On this wise not only the parents of the boys, but the rest of the citizens as well, when they beheld the spectacle, were seized with admiration and longing for the righteousness of Camillus. In haste they held an assembly and sent envoys to him, entrusting him with their lives and fortunes. These envoys Camillus sent to Rome.

Standing in the Senate, they declared that the Romans, by esteeming righteousness above victory, had taught them to love defeat above freedom; not so much because they thought themselves inferior in strength, as because they confessed themselves vanquished in virtue. On the Senate’s remanding to Camillus the decision and disposition of the matter, he took a sum of money from the Falerians, established friendship with all the Faliscans, and withdrew.

But the soldiers thought to have had the sacking of Falerii, and when they came back to Rome empty-handed, they denounced Camillus to the rest of the citizens as a hater of the common people, and as begrudging to the poor the enjoyment of their rightful booty. And when the tribunes once more put forward the law for the division of the city and summoned the people to vote upon it, then Camillus, shunning no hatred nor any boldness of utterance, was manifestly the chief one in forcing the multitude away from its desires.