icked body of
troops. As he stood beneath the temple of Juno, he heard the soothsayer
declare to the king of the Veientines that whoever should complete the
sacrifice he was offering would be the conqueror. Thereupon the Romans
burst forth and seized the flesh of the victim, which Camillus offered
up. The soldiers who guarded the walls were thus taken in the rear, the
gates were thrown open, and the city soon filled with Romans. The booty
was immense, and the few citizens who escaped the sword were sold as
slaves. The image of Juno was carried to Rome, and installed with great
pomp on Mount Aventine, where a temple was erected to her. Camillus
entered Rome in a chariot drawn by four white horses. Rome had never yet
seen so magnificent a triumph (B.C. 396).

One circumstance, which occurred during the siege of Veii, deserves
notice. As the Roman soldiers were obliged to pass the whole year under
arms, in order to invest the city during the winter as well as the
summer, they now, for the first time, received pay.

Veii was a more beautiful city than Rome, and, as it was now without
inhabitants, many of the Roman people wished to remove thither. At the
persuasion of Camillus the project was abandoned; but the territory of
Veii was divided among the Plebeians.

Falerii was almost the only one of the Etruscan cities which had
assisted Veii, and she was now exposed single-handed to the vengeance of
the Romans. It is related that, when Camillus appeared before Falerii, a
schoolmaster of the town treacherously conducted the sons of the noblest
families into the Roman camp, but that Camillus, scorning the baseness
of the man, ordered his arms to be tied behind him, and the boys to flog
him back into the town; whereupon the inhabitants, overcome by such
generosity, gave up their arms, and surrendered to the Romans (B.C.
394).

Camillus was one of the proudest of the Patricians; and he now incurred
the hatred of the Plebeians by calling upon every man to refund a tenth
of the booty taken at Veii; because he had made a vow to consecrate to
Apollo a tithe of the spoil. He was accused of having appropriated the
great bronze gates at Veii, and was impeached by one of the Tribunes.
Seeing that his condemnation was certain, he went into exile, praying as
he left the walls that the Republic might soon have cause to regret him
(B.C. 491). His prayer was heard, for the Gauls had already crossed the
Apennines, and next year Rome was in