19.
And now the games and the Latin Festival had been repeated, now the water had been let out from the Alban Lake upon the fields, and the doom of Veii drew on apace.
[2]
Accordingly the commander destined to destroy that city and to save his country, [p. 67]Marcus Furius Camillus, was appointed dictator, and1 named Publius Cornelius Scipio as his master of the horse.
[3]
The change in the command at once made a change in all things else; there was new hope and a new spirit, and even the fortune of the City seemed to be renewed.
[4]
The dictator's first act was to visit military punishment upon those who had fled from Veil in the panic there, and to teach his men that the enemy was not the worst thing they had to fear.
[5]
He then fixed the levy for a certain day, and in the interval hastened to Veii to encourage his soldiers; thence he returned to Rome to enroll the new army, and found no one who refused to serve.
[6]
Even foreign troops, Latins and Hernicans, came with promises to help in this war, and the dictator thanked them in the senate.2 All things being now in readiness for the campaign, Camillus vowed, in pursuance of a senatorial decree, to celebrate the great games,3 if he should capture Veii, and to restore and dedicate anew the temple of Mater Matuta, which in time gone by had been consecrated by King Servius Tullius.
[7]
Marching out from the City, where he left a greater feeling of suspense than of confidence, he first engaged the Faliscans and Capenates, in the Nepesine country.
[8]
There all his measures, being executed with consummate skill and prudence, were attended, as generally happens, with good fortune. Not only did he rout the enemy in battle, but he also deprived them of their camp and got possession of enormous booty, the chief part of which was made over to the quaestor, and no great quantity given to the soldiers.
[9]
He then led his army to Veii, where he increased the number of redoubts, and withdrawing the troops from the [p. 69]skirmishes which frequently took place, on the spur4 of the moment, in the space between the town wall and the stockade, by an edict forbidding
[10??]
any man to fight without orders, he employed them in digging. Of all the works, much the greatest and most laborious was a mine they began to drive into the enemy's citadel.
[11]
That this work might not be interrupted nor the same men become exhausted by perpetually toiling under ground, he divided the workers into six parties and assigned them six-hour shifts in rotation; night and day the work went on unceasingly, till they had made a way into the citadel.
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