Ab urbe condita

The senate were in the highest degree grateful for this, and the tradition goes that in return for this munificence the matrons had conferred upon them the honour of driving to sacred festivals and games in a carriage, and on holy days and work days in a two-wheeled car.

The gold received from each was appraised in order that the proper amount of money might be paid for it, and it was decided that a golden bowl should be made and carried to Delphi as a gift to Apollo. When the religious question no longer claimed their attention, the tribunes of the plebs renewed their agitation;

the passions of the populace were aroused against all the leading men, most of all against Camillus.

They said that by devoting the spoils of Veii to the State and to the gods he had reduced them to nothing. They attacked the senators furiously in their absence;

when they were present and confronted their rage, shame kept them silent. As soon as the plebeians saw that the matter would be carried over into the following year, they reappointed the supporters of the proposal as their tribunes; the patricians devoted themselves to securing the same support for those who had vetoed the proposal. Consequently, nearly all the same tribunes of the plebs were re-elected.

In[*](The Conquest of Falerii.) the election of consular tribunes the patricians succeeded by the utmost exertions in securing the return of M. Furius Camillus. They pretended that in view of the wars they were providing themselves with a general; their real object was to get a man who would oppose the corrupt policy of the plebeian tribunes.

His comrades in the tribuneship were L. Furius Medullinus —for the sixth time —C. Aemilius, L. Valerius Publicola, S. Postumius, and P. Cornelius —

for the second time. At the beginning of the year the tribunes of the plebs made no move until Camillus left for operations against the Faliscans, the theatre of war assigned to him. This delay took the heart out of their agitation, whilst Camillus, the adversary whom they most dreaded, was gaining fresh glory amongst the Faliscans.

At first the enemy kept within their walls, thinking this the safest course, but by devastating their fields and burning their farms he compelled them to come outside their city.

They were afraid to go very far, and fixed their camp about a mile away; the only thing which gave them any sense of security was the difficulty of approaching it, as all the country round was rough and broken, and the roads narrow in some parts, in others steep. Camillus, however, had gained information from a prisoner captured in the neighbourhood, and made him act as guide.

After breaking up his camp in the dead of night, he showed himself at daybreak in a position considerably higher than the enemy. The Romans of the third line[*](For the triarii, see note, chap xlvii, Book II.) began to entrench, the rest of the army stood ready for battle.

When the enemy attempted to hinder the work of entrenchment, he defeated them and put them to flight, and such a panic seized the Faliscans that in their disorderly flight they were carried past their own camp, which was nearer to them, and made for their city.

Many were killed and wounded before they could get inside their gates. The camp was taken, the booty sold, and the proceeds paid over to the quaestors, to the intense indignation of the soldiers, but they were overawed by the sternness of their general's discipline, and though they hated his firmness, at the same time they admired it.

The city was now invested and regular siege-works were constructed. For some time the townsmen used to attack the Roman outposts whenever they saw an opportunity, and frequent skirmishes took place. Time went on and hope inclined to neither side; corn and other supplies had been previously collected, and the besieged were better provisioned than the besiegers.

The task seemed likely to be as long as it had been at Veii, had not fortune given the Roman commander an opportunity of displaying that greatness of mind which had already been proved in deeds of war, and so secured him an early victory.