ffered up these prayers, there
being more than a sufficient number of men, he assaults the city on
every quarter, in order that the perception of the danger threatening
them from the mine might be diminished. The Veientians, ignorant that
they had already been doomed by their own prophets, already by foreign
oracles, that the gods had been already invited to a share in their
plunder, that some, called out by vows from their city, were looking
towards the temple of the enemy and new habitations, and that they were
spending that the last day [of their existence], fearing nothing less
than that, their walls being undermined, the citadel was now filled with
enemies, briskly run to the walls in arms, wondering what could be the
reason that, when no one had stirred from the Roman posts for so many
days, then, as if struck with sudden fury, they should run heedlessly to
the walls. A fabulous narrative is introduced here, that, when the king
of the Veientians was offering sacrifice, the voice of the aruspex,
declaring that the victory was given to him who should cut up the
entrails of that victim, having been heard in the mine, incited the
Roman soldiers to burst open the mine, carry off the entrails, and bring
them to the dictator. But in matters of such remote antiquity, I should
deem it sufficient, if matters bearing a resemblance to truth be
admitted as true. Such stories as this, more suited to display on the
stage, which delights in the marvellous, than to historic authenticity,
it is not worth while either to affirm or refute. The mine, at this time
full of chosen men, suddenly discharged the armed troops in the temple
of Juno which was in the citadel of Veii.[165] Some of them attack the
rear of the enemy on the walls; some tore open the bars of the gates;
some set fire to the houses, while stones and tiles were thrown down
from the roofs by the women and slaves. Clamour, consisting of the
various voices of the assailants and the terrified, mixed with the
crying of women and children, fills every place. The soldiers being in
an instant beaten off from the walls, and the gates being thrown open,
some entering in bodies, others scaling the deserted walls, the city
become filled with enemies, fighting takes place in every quarter. Then,
much slaughter being now made, the ardour of the fight abates; and the
dictator commands the heralds to proclaim that the unarmed should be
spared. This put an end to bloodshed. Then laying d