23.
When word came to Rome that Veii was taken, although the portents had been averted and the answers of the soothsayers and the Pythian oracle were known; and though they had done all that human wisdom could do to help, in choosing Marcus Furius Camillus, greatest of all generals, to lead them;
[2]
nevertheless, because they had warred there so many years with varying fortune and had suffered many a reverse, their joy, as though unexpected, knew no bounds; and ere the senate could act, the temples were all thronged with Roman matrons giving thanks to the gods.
[3]
The [p. 81]senate decreed supplications for four days, a longer1 period than in any former war.
[4]
Moreover, as the dictator drew near, all sorts and conditions of men ran forth to meet him in such numbers as had never welcomed a general before, and the triumph far exceeded the measure of honour usual on that day.
[5]
He was himself the most conspicuous object in it, as he rode into the City on a chariot drawn by white horses; an act which struck men as being not only undemocratic, but irreverent, for they were troubled at the thought that in respect to his steeds the dictator was made equal to Jupiter and the sun-god;
[6]
and the triumph, chiefly for this one reason, was more brilliant than popular.2
[7]
He then let the contract for the temple of Queen Juno on the Aventine, and dedicated one to Mater Matuta;3 and having fulfilled these obligations to gods and men, laid down the dictatorship.
[8]
The next thing to be discussed was the gift to Apollo, to whom Camillus said that he had solemnly promised a tenth part of the spoils. The pontiffs ruled that the people must discharge this obligation, but it was not easy to devise a method
[9??]
for compelling them to return the booty, that out of it the due proportion might be set apart for the sacred object.
[10]
They finally resorted to what seemed the least oppressive plan, namely, that whosoever wished to acquit himself and his household of obligation on the score of the vow, should appraise his own share of the spoils, and pay in a tenth part of its value to the public treasury, to the
[11??]
end that it might be converted into an offering of gold befitting the grandeur of the temple and the power of the god and corresponding to the majesty of the Roman [p. 83]People. This contribution still further alienated4 the affections of the commons from Camillus.5
[12]
In the midst of these affairs came envoys from the Volsci and the Aequi seeking peace, and their suit was granted, more that the state, worn out with so long a war, might be at rest, than because the petitioners deserved it.
1 B.C. 396
2 Livy is probably mistaken in ascribing the unpopularity of the triumph to the supposed presumption of Camillus, since it was traditional for the triumphator to suggest a likeness to Jupiter, both in his chariot and in his costume. Resentment over the disposal of the booty is more likely to have been the reason.
3 This temple was in the cattle-market, the Forum Boarium.
4 B.C. 396
5 See chap. xxii. § 1 and chap. xxiii. § 5.
Livy. Books V, VI and VII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924: no copyright notice.
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