This fight, it
is stated, was thirteen years after the sacking of Rome; and from
henceforward the Romans took courage, and surmounted the
apprehensions they had hitherto entertained of the barbarians,
whose previous defeat they had attributed rather to pestilence and
a concurrence of mischances than to their own superior valor. And,
indeed, this fear had been formerly so great, that they made a
law, that priests should be excused from service in war, unless in
an invasion from the Gauls.
This was the last military action that Camillus ever performed;
for the voluntary surrender of the city of the Velitrani was but a
mere accessory to it. But the greatest of all civil contests, and
the hardest to be managed, was still to be fought out against the
people; who, returning home full of victory and success, insisted,
contrary to established law, to have one of the consuls chosen out
of their own body. The senate strongly opposed it, and would not
suffer Camillus to lay down his dictatorship, thinking, that,
under the shelter of his great name and authority, they should be
better able to contend for the power of the aristocracy. But when
Camillus was sitting upon the tribunal, dispatching public
affairs, an officer, sent by the tribunes of the people, commanded
him to rise and follow him, laying his and upon him, as ready to
seize and carry him away; upon which, such a noise and tumult as
was never heard before, filled the whole forum; some that were
about Camillus thrusting the officer from the bench, and the
multitude below calling out to him to bring Camillus down.
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