The Veientines continuing troublesome, Furius Camillus was appointed dictator, when, with an engineering talent rare in those days, he commenced a mine, and overcoming all minor, as well as major, or general difficulties, he forced a way into the city. The King of Veii was offering a sacrifice in the Temple of Juno, just as the Romans had completed their tunnel, and as the soldiers burst like a crop of early champions through the earth, he saw his fate written in bold Roman characters. Everything was given to the conquerors, and it is said that the statue of Juno, followed of its own accord; but the probability is, the statue remained in statu quo, for miraculous instances of going over to Rome were not in those days numerous.
Rome was once more at peace, when the citizens, with peculiar ingratitude, having no other foes, began to quarrel with Camillus himself, to whom they owed their tranquillity. They accused him of having unduly trafficked in shares, by appropriating more than his due portion of the booty. His unpopularity had not, however, come down upon him until it was found that he had, in a fit of piety, dedicated a tenth of the spoils of Veii to the Delphic God—a circumstance he had forgotten to mention, until he had disposed of the whole of his own share of the prize, and it became necessary for the other participators in the plunder to redeem his promise at their own cost, and, with their own ready money, to save his credit. His name fell at once from the highest premium of praise to the lowest discount of disparagement, and he incurred the especial detestation of those whom he had served; for kindnesses are often written in marble in the hearts of those who remember them only to repay them with ingratitude. Not liking to lie under the imputation of dishonesty, and being unable to get over it, he chose a middle course, and passed a sort of sentence of transportation upon himself by going into voluntary exile. He, however, with a littleness of mind that was not uncommon among the early Romans, vented his spite as he left the city gate, expressing a wish that Rome might rue his absence; but Rome consoled herself for the loss she might sustain in him by confiscating the whole of his property.
Among the incidents of the life of Camillus, a story is told of an event that happened, when, after having subdued the Veientines, he drove the Faliscans out their city of Falerii. There existed within the walls a fashionable boys' school, to which the patricians sent their sons, who were frequently taken out walking in the suburbs. One morning the pupils, who were two and two, found themselves growing very tired one by one, for their promenade had been prolonged unusually by the pedagogue. The wretch and his ushers had, in fact, ushered the unsuspecting infants into the camp of Camillus, with an intimation that the parents of the boys were immensely opulent, that the schooling was regularly paid, and there could be no doubt that a rich ransom could be procured for such a choice assemblage of fathers' prides and mothers' darlings. Camillus nobly answered, that he did not make war on young ideas not yet taught to shoot, and he concluded by giving the schoolmaster a lesson; for, causing him to be stripped, and putting a scourge into the hands of the boys, the young whipper-snappers snapped many a whip on the back of their master.
School-boys flogging the Schoolmaster.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] It has been often a subject of regret that the particulars of this expedition have not been handed down to us, and that the three Roman excursionists did not put their heads together to form a log during their voyage. It is, however, seldom that the marine expeditions of the sages are fully detailed, for nothing can be scantier than the account of the journey of the three wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl; and there is reason to believe that many a chapter has been lost to the philosophical transactions of the world, by the chapter of nautical accidents.
[19] "Law of the Twelve Tables," B.C. 450. "Lex Canuleia," B.C. 445.
[20] It seems, however, to have been the custom of the period for plebeians to send their daughters from six to sixteen to a scholastic establishment from about nine to five; and it is ten to one that Virginia was a pupil at one of these cheap nursery grounds, in which young ideas were planted out for the purpose of shooting.