Camillus

The Senate, therefore, fearful of this clamour, would not suffer Camillus, much as he wished it, to lay down his office within a year, although no other dictator had served more than six months. Meanwhile the Senators, by dint of kindly greetings and persuasive words, tried to soften and convert the people, pointing out the sepulchres and tombs of their fathers, and calling to their remembrance the shrines and holy places which Romulus, or Numa, or some other king, had consecrated and left to their care.

Among other signs from Heaven, they laid chief stress on the newly severed head that was found when the foundations of the Capitol were dug, showing, as it did, that the place where it was found was fated to be the head of Italy; also on the sacred fire of Vesta, which had been kindled anew by her virgins after the war. If they should quench and extinguish this again by their abandonment of the city, it would be a disgrace to them, whether they saw that city occupied by immigrants and aliens, or abandoned to flocks and herds.

Thus did the Senators remonstrate with the people, both individually in private, and often in the public assemblies. They, in their turn, were moved to compassion by the wailing complaints of the multitude, who lamented the helplessness to which they were come, and begged, now that they had been saved alive as it were from a shipwreck, in nakedness and destitution, that they be not forced to piece together the fragments of their ruined city, when another stood all ready to receive them.

Accordingly, Camillus decided that the question should be debated and settled in council. He himself spoke at great length, in exhortation to preserve their common country, and every one else who wished did likewise. Finally, he called upon Lucius Lucretius, to whom custom gave the first vote, and bade him declare his opinion first, and then the other senators in the order due.

Silence fell, and Lucretius was on the point of beginning, when it chanced that a centurion with a squad of the day watch passed by outside, and calling with a loud voice on the man who led with the standard, bade him halt and plant his standard there, for that was the best place to settle down and stay in. The utterance fell at the crisis of their anxious thought for the uncertain future, and Lucretius said, with a devout obeisance, that he cast his vote with the god. The rest, one by one, followed his example.