Ab urbe condita

Still more disquieting rumours were current in Rome; at one moment they imagined that the camp before Veii had been stormed, at another that a part of the enemies' forces was in full march to the City.

They hurried to the walls; the matrons, whom the general alarm had drawn from their homes, made prayers and supplications in the temples; solemn petitions were offered up to the gods that they would ward off destruction from the houses and temples of the City and from the walls of Rome, and divert the fears and alarms to Veii if the sacred rites had been duly restored and the portents expiated.

By[*](The Capture of Veii.) this time the Games and the Latin Festival had been celebrated afresh, and the water drawn off from the Alban Lake on the fields, and now the fated doom was closing over Veii.

Accordingly the commander destined by the Fates for the destruction of that city and the salvation of his country —M. Furius Camillus —was nominated Dictator.

He appointed as his Master of the Horse P. Cornelius Scipio.

With the change in the command everything else suddenly changed; men's hopes were different, their spirits were different, even the fortunes of the City wore a different aspect. His first measure was to execute military justice upon those who had fled during the panic from the camp, and he made the soldiers realise that it was not the enemy who was most to be feared.

He then appointed a day for the enrolment of troops, and in the interim went to Veii to encourage the soldiers, after which he returned to Rome to raise a fresh army. Not a man tried to escape enlistment. Even foreign troops —Latins and Hernicans —came to offer assistance for the war.

The Dictator formally thanked them in the senate, and as all the preparations for war were now sufficiently advanced, he vowed, in pursuance of a senatorial decree, that on the capture of Veii he would celebrate the Great Games and restore and dedicate the temple of Matuta the Mother, which had been originally dedicated by Servius Tullius.

He left the City with his army amid a general feeling of anxious expectation rather than of hopeful confidence on the part of the citizens, and his first engagement was with the Faliscans and Capenates in the territory of Nepete.

As usual where everything was managed with consummate skill and prudence, success followed. He not only defeated the enemy in the field, but he stripped them of their camp and secured immense booty. The greater part was sold and the proceeds paid over to the quaestor, the smaller share was given to the soldiers. From there the army was led to Veii.