Camillus

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. II. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1914.

Well, then, his accuser was Lucius Apuleius, and the charge was theft of Tuscan goods. It was said, forsooth, that certain bronze doors belonging to the booty had been seen at his house. But the people were exasperated, and would plainly lay hold of any pretext whatever for condemning him.

So then he assembled his friends and comrades in arms, who were many in number, and begged them not to suffer him to be convicted on base charges and to be made a laughingstock by his foes. When his friends had laid their heads together and discussed the case, they answered that, as regarded his trial, they thought they could be of no help to him; but if he were punished with a fine, they would help him pay it. This he could not endure, and in his wrath determined to depart the city and go into exile.

Accordingly, after he had kissed his wife and son good-bye, he went from his house in silence as far as the gate of the city. There he stopped, turned himself about, and stretching his hands out towards the Capitol, prayed the gods that, if with no justice, but through the wantonness of the people and the abuse of the envious he was now being driven from his country, the Romans might speedily repent, and show to all men that they needed and longed for Camillus.