Without opposition on the part of the patricians, the prerogative tribe elect Publius Licinius Calvus military tribune without his suing for it, a man of tried moderation in his former tribunate, but now of extreme old age; and it was observed that all were re-elected in regular succession out of the college of the same year, Lucius Titinius, Publius Mænius, Publius Mælius, Cneius Genucius, Lucius Atilius: before these were proclaimed, the tribes being summoned in the ordinary course, Publius Licinius Calvus, by permission of the interrex, spoke as follows: "Romans, I perceive that from the recollection of our administration you are seeking an omen of concord, a thing most important at the present time, for the ensuing year. If you re-elect the same colleagues, improved also by experience, in me you no longer behold the same person, but the shadow and name of Publius Licinius now left. The powers of my body are decayed, my senses of sight and hearing are grown dull, my memory falters, the vigour of my mind is blunted. Behold here a youth," says he, holding his son, "the representation and image of him whom ye formerly made a military tribune, the first from among the commons. This youth, formed under my own discipline, I present and dedicate to the commonwealth as a substitute for myself. And I beseech you, Romans, that the honour readily offered by yourselves to me, you would grant to his suit, and to my prayers added in his behalf." The favour was granted to the request of the father, and his son, Publius Licinius, was declared military tribune with consular power along with those whom I have mentioned above. Titinius and Genucius, military tribunes, proceeded against the Faliscians and Capenatians, and whilst they conduct the war with more courage than conduct, they fall into an ambush. Genucius, atoning for his temerity by an honourable death, fell among the foremost in front of the standards. Titinius, having collected his men from the great confusion [into which they were thrown] on a rising ground, restored their order of battle; nor did he, however, venture to engage the enemy on even ground. More of disgrace than of loss was sustained; which was well nigh proving a great calamity; so much alarm was excited not only at Rome, whither an exaggerated account of it had reached, but in the camp also at Veii. There the soldiers were with difficulty restrained from flight, as a report had spread through the camp that, the generals and army having been cut to pieces, the victorious Capenatians and Faliscians and all the youth of Etruria were not far off. At Rome they gave credit to accounts still more alarming than these, that the camp at Veii was now attacked, that a part of the enemy was now advancing to the city prepared for an attack: they crowded to the walls, and supplications of the matrons, which the public panic had called forth from their houses, were offered up in the temples; and the gods were petitioned by prayers, that they would repel destruction from the houses and temples of the city and from the walls of Rome, and that they would avert that terror to Veii, if the sacred rites had been duly renewed, if the prodigies had been expiated.
The games and the Latin festival had now been performed anew; now the water from the Alban lake had been discharged upon the fields, and the fates were demanding [the ruin of] Veii. Accordingly a general destined for the destruction of that city and the preservation of his country, Marcus Furius Camillus, being nominated dictator, appointed Publius Cornelius Scipio his master of the horse. The change of the general suddenly produced a change in every thing. Their hopes seemed different, the spirits of the people were different, the fortune also of the city seemed changed. First of all, he punished according to military discipline those who had fled from Veii in that panic, and took measures that the enemy should not be the most formidable object to the soldier. Then a levy being proclaimed for a certain day, he himself in the mean while makes an excursion to Veii to strengthen the spirits of the soldiers: thence he returns to Rome to enlist the new army, not a single man declining the service. Youth from foreign states also, Latins and Hernicians, came, promising their service for the war: after the dictator returned them thanks in the senate, all preparations being now completed for the war, he vowed, according to a decree of the senate, that he would, on the capture of Veii, celebrate the great games, and that he would repair and dedicate the temple of Mother Matuta, which had been formerly consecrated by King Servius Tullius. Having set out from the city with his army amid the high expectation[161] rather than mere hopes of persons, he first encountered the Faliscians and Capenatians in the district of Nepote. Every thing there being managed with consummate prudence and skill, was attended, as is usual, with success. He not only routed the enemy in battle, but he stripped them also of their camp, and obtained a great quantity of spoil, the principal part of which was handed over to the quæstor; not much was given to the soldiers. From thence the army was marched to Veii, and additional forts close to each other were erected; and by a proclamation being issued, that no one should fight without orders, the soldiers were taken off from those skirmishes, which frequently took place at random between the wall and rampart, [so as to apply] to the work. Of all the works, far the greatest and more laborious was a mine which they commenced to carry into the enemies' citadel. And that the work might not be interrupted, and that the continued labour under ground might not exhaust the same individuals, he divided the number of pioneers into six companies; six hours were allotted for the work in rotation; nor by night or day did they give up, until they made a passage into the citadel.
When the dictator now saw that the victory was in his hands, that a most opulent city was on the point of being taken, and that there would be more spoil than had been obtained in all previous wars taken together, that he might not incur either the resentment of the soldiers from a parsimonious partition of the plunder, or displeasure among the patricians from a prodigal lavishing of it, he sent a letter to the senate, "that by the kindness of the immortal gods, his own measures, and the perseverance of the soldiers, Veii would be soon in the power of the Roman people." What did they think should be done with respect to the spoil? Two opinions divided the senate; the one that of the elder Publius Licinius, who on being first asked by his son, as they say, proposed it as his opinion, that a proclamation should be openly sent forth to the people, that whoever wished to share in the plunder, should proceed to the camp before Veii; the other that of Appius Claudius,[162] who, censuring such profusion as unprecedented, extravagant, partial, and one that was unadvisable, if they should once judge it criminal, that money taken from the enemy should be [deposited] in the treasury when exhausted by wars, advised their pay to be paid to the soldiers out of that money, so that the commons might thereby have to pay less tax. For that "the families of all would feel their share of such a bounty in equal proportion; that the hands of the idlers in the city, ever greedy for plunder, would not then carry off the prizes due to brave warriors, as it generally so happens that according as each individual is wont to seek the principal part of the toil and danger, so is he the least active as a plunderer." Licinius, on the other hand, argued that the money in that case would ever prove the source of jealousy and animosity, and that it would afford grounds for charges before the commons, and thence for seditions and new laws. "That it was more advisable therefore that the feelings of the commons should be conciliated by that bounty; that succour should be afforded them, exhausted and drained by a tax of so many years, and that they should feel the fruits arising from a war, in which they had in a manner grown old. What each took from the enemy with his own hand and brought home with him would be more gratifying and delightful, than if he were to receive a much larger share at the will of another." That the dictator himself wished to shun the odium and recriminations arising from the matter; for that reason he transferred it to the senate. The senate, too, ought to hand the matter thus referred to them over to the commons, and suffer every man to have what the fortune of war gave to him. This proposition appeared to be the safer, as it would make the senate popular. A proclamation was therefore issued, that those who chose should proceed to the camp to the dictator for the plunder of Veii.
The vast multitude who went filled the camp. Then the dictator, going forth after taking the auspices, having issued orders that the soldiers should take arms, says, "Under thy guidance, O Pythian Apollo, and inspired by thy divinity, I proceed to destroy the city of Veii, and I vow to thee the tenth part of the spoil.[163] Thee also, queen Juno, who inhabitest Veii, I beseech, that thou wilt accompany us, when victors, into our city, soon to be thine, where a temple worthy of thy majesty shall receive thee."[164] Having offered up these prayers, there being more than a sufficient number of men, he assaults the city on every quarter, in order that the perception of the danger threatening them from the mine might be diminished. The Veientians, ignorant that they had already been doomed by their own prophets, already by foreign oracles, that the gods had been already invited to a share in their plunder, that some, called out by vows from their city, were looking towards the temple of the enemy and new habitations, and that they were spending that the last day [of their existence], fearing nothing less than that, their walls being undermined, the citadel was now filled with enemies, briskly run to the walls in arms, wondering what could be the reason that, when no one had stirred from the Roman posts for so many days, then, as if struck with sudden fury, they should run heedlessly to the walls. A fabulous narrative is introduced here, that, when the king of the Veientians was offering sacrifice, the voice of the aruspex, declaring that the victory was given to him who should cut up the entrails of that victim, having been heard in the mine, incited the Roman soldiers to burst open the mine, carry off the entrails, and bring them to the dictator. But in matters of such remote antiquity, I should deem it sufficient, if matters bearing a resemblance to truth be admitted as true. Such stories as this, more suited to display on the stage, which delights in the marvellous, than to historic authenticity, it is not worth while either to affirm or refute. The mine, at this time full of chosen men, suddenly discharged the armed troops in the temple of Juno which was in the citadel of Veii.[165] Some of them attack the rear of the enemy on the walls; some tore open the bars of the gates; some set fire to the houses, while stones and tiles were thrown down from the roofs by the women and slaves. Clamour, consisting of the various voices of the assailants and the terrified, mixed with the crying of women and children, fills every place. The soldiers being in an instant beaten off from the walls, and the gates being thrown open, some entering in bodies, others scaling the deserted walls, the city become filled with enemies, fighting takes place in every quarter. Then, much slaughter being now made, the ardour of the fight abates; and the dictator commands the heralds to proclaim that the unarmed should be spared. This put an end to bloodshed. Then laying down their arms, they commenced to surrender; and, by permission of the dictator, the soldiers disperse in quest of plunder. And when this was collected before his eyes, greater in quantity and in the value of the effects than he had hoped or expected, the dictator, raising his hands to heaven, is said to have prayed, "that, if his success and that of the Roman people seemed excessive to any of the gods and men, it might be permitted to the Roman people to appease that jealousy with as little detriment as possible to himself and the Roman people."[166] It is recorded that, when turning about during this prayer, he stumbled and fell; and to persons judging of the matter by subsequent events, that seemed to refer as an omen to Camillus' own condemnation, and the disaster of the city of Rome being akin, which happened a few years after. And that day was consumed in slaughtering the enemy and in the plunder of this most opulent city.
On the following day the dictator sold the inhabitants of free condition by auction: that was the only money applied to public use, not without resentment on the part of the people: and for the spoil they brought home with them, they felt no obligation either to their commander, who, in his search for abettors of his own parsimony, had referred to the senate a matter within his own jurisdiction, or to the senate, but to the Licinian family, of which the son had laid the matter before the senate, and the father had been the proposer of so popular a resolution. When all human wealth had been carried away from Veii, they then began to remove the offerings to their gods and the gods themselves, but more after the manner of worshippers than of plunderers. For youths selected from the entire army, to whom the charge of conveying queen Juno to Rome was assigned, after having thoroughly washed their bodies and arrayed themselves in white garments, entered her temple with profound adoration, applying their hands at first with religious awe, because, according to the Etrurian usage, no one but a priest of a certain family had been accustomed to touch that statue. Then when some one, moved either by divine inspiration, or in youthful jocularity, said, "Juno, art thou willing to go to Rome," the rest joined in shouting that the goddess had nodded assent. To the story an addition was afterwards made, that her voice was heard, declaring that "she was willing." Certain it is, we are informed that, having been raised from her place by machines of trifling power, she was light and easily removed, like as if she [willingly] followed; and that she was conveyed safe to the Aventine, her eternal seat, whither the vows of the dictator had invited her; where the same Camillus who had vowed it, afterwards dedicated a temple to her. Such was the fall of Veii, the wealthiest city of the Etrurian nation, which even in its final overthrow demonstrated its greatness; for having been besieged for ten summers and winters without intermission, after it had inflicted considerably greater losses than it had sustained, eventually, fate now at length urging [its destruction], it was carried after all by the contrivances of art, not by force.