Camillus

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.

Therefore, they did indeed reject the law, much against their will, but they were wroth with Camillus, so that even when he met with domestic affliction and lost one of his two sons by sickness, their wrath was in no wise softened by pity. And yet he set no bounds to his sorrow, being by nature a gentle and kindly man, but even after the indictment against him had been published, he suffered his grief to keep him at home, in close seclusion with the women of his household.