Camillus

So strangely was Rome taken, and more strangely still delivered, after the Barbarians had held it seven months in all. They entered it a few days after the Ides of July, and were driven out about the Ides of February. Camillus celebrated a triumph, as it was meet that a man should do who had saved a country that was lost, and who now brought the city back again to itself.

For the citizens outside, with their wives and children, accompanied his triumphal chariot as it entered the city, and those who had been besieged on the Capitol, and had narrowly escaped death by starvation, came forth to meet them, all embracing one another, and weeping for the joy that was theirs. The priests and ministrants of the gods, bringing whatever sacred objects they had either buried on the spot or carried off with them when they took to flight, displayed them, thus preserved in safety, to the citizens, who caught the welcome sights with delight, believing in their hearts that the gods themselves were now coming back to Rome with them.

After Camillus had made sacrifices to the gods and purified the city, in the manner prescribed by those who were versed in such rites, he restored the existing temples, and erected a new one to Rumour and Voice,[*](Ara Aii Locutii) having sought out carefully the spot where by night the voice from Heaven, announcing the coming of the Barbarian host, had fallen upon the ears of Marcus Caedicius.