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22. On the following day the dictator sold the free-born inhabitants into slavery.1 This was the only money that went into the state treasury, but the commons were angry about it; as for the booty they brought back themselves, they gave the credit not to their commander, who had referred to the Fathers, that they might support his niggardliness, a matter which had lain [2??] within his own discretion, nor yet to the senators, but- to the house of the Licinii, whose son had brought to a vote in the senate that popular measure which his father had proposed. [3] When the wealth that belonged to men had now been carried away out of Veii, they began to remove the possessions of the gods and the gods themselves, but more in the manner of worshippers than of pillagers. [4] For out of all the army youths were chosen, and made to cleanse their bodies and to put on white garments, and to them the duty was assigned of conveying Queen Juno to Rome. [5] Reverently entering her temple, they scrupled at first to approach her with their hands, because this image was one that according to Etruscan practice none but a priest of a certain family was wont to [p. 79]touch; when one of them, whether divinely inspired2 or out of youthful jocularity, asked, “Wilt thou go, Juno, to Rome?” —whereat the others all cried out that the goddess had nodded assent. [6] It was afterwards added to the story that she had also been heard to say that she was willing. At all events we are told that she was moved from her place with contrivances of little power, as though she accompanied them voluntarily, and [7??] was lightly and easily transferred and carried safe and sound to the Aventine, the eternal home to which the prayers of the Roman dictator had called her; and there Camillus afterwards dedicated to her the temple which he himself had vowed.

[8] Such was the fall of Veii, the wealthiest city of the Etruscan race, which gave evidence of its greatness even in its final overthrow; since after a blockade of ten continuous summers and winters, during which time it had inflicted considerably heavier losses than it had sustained, it yet was ultimately taken, when at last even destiny fought against it, by siege-works and not by force.

1 Literally, “under the chaplet,” alluding to the garlands worn by captives when they were put up for sale (Aulus Gellius, VI. iv.).

2 B.C. 396

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load focus Notes (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1898)
load focus Summary (Latin, W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1898)
load focus Summary (Latin, Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., 1924)
load focus Summary (English, Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., 1924)
load focus English (D. Spillan, A.M., M.D., 1857)
load focus Latin (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1898)
load focus Latin (Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., 1924)
load focus English (Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912)
load focus Latin (Robert Seymour Conway, Charles Flamstead Walters, 1914)
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  • Commentary references to this page (6):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 31-32, commentary, 31.2
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 34.4
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 37.20
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 39.3
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 43.19
    • Charles Simmons, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, Books XIII and XIV, 13.99
  • Cross-references to this page (8):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Manus
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Veii
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Deorum
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Dii
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Iuno
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), SERVUS
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ROMA
    • Smith's Bio, Juno
  • Cross-references in notes to this page (1):
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (15):
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