And although he perceived it would be so small work to
take it, and no little time would be required for it, yet he was
willing to exercise the citizens and keep them abroad, that they
might have no leisure, idling at home, to follow the tribunes in
factions and seditions: a very common remedy, indeed, with the
Romans, who thus carried off, like good physicians, the ill humors
of their commonwealth. The Falerians (The Falerians, in this
narrative, are the people of the town; the Faliscans, the nation
in general.), trusting in the strength of their city, which was
well fortified on all sides, made so little account of the siege,
that all, with the exception of those that guarded the walls, as
in times of peace, walked about the streets in their common dress;
the boys went to school, and were led by their master to play and
exercise about the town walls; for the Falerians, like the Greeks,
used to have a single teacher for many pupils, wishing their
children to live and be brought up from the beginning in each
others company.
This schoolmaster, designing to betray the Falerians by their
children, led them out every day under the town wall, at first but
a little way, and, when they had exercised, brought them home
again.
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