Camillus

Plutarch

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

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.

After he had thus, like Achilles,[*](Iliad i. 407-412.) invoked curses upon his fellow citizens, he removed from out the city. His case went by default, and he was fined fifteen thousand asses. This sum, reduced to our money, is fifteen hundred drachmas. For the as was the current copper coin, and the silver coin worth ten of these pieces was for that reason called the denarius, which is equivalent to the drachma.