| Marcus Furius Camillus |
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When accused of having unfairly distributed the spoil taken at Veii , which he captured after a ten year long siege, he went into voluntary exile at Ardea . Along with this complaint complaint against him was added his patrician haughtiness and his triumphal entry into Rome in a chariot drawn by white horses which, to many Romans, recalled the days of the kings. Subsequently the Romans, when besieged in the Capitol by the Gaul s after the Battle Of The Allia , created him dictator. After assembling the roman forces in allied towns as well as the remenants of the army at Veii he drove the Senones Tribe from the streets of Rome and subsequently defeated them completely just south of the city. He dissuaded the Romans, disheartened by the devastation wrought by the Gauls, from migrating to Veii, and induced them to rebuild the city. He afterwards fought successfully against the Aequi , Volsci and Etruscans , and repelled a fresh invasion of the Gauls in 367 BC . Though patrician in sympathy, he saw the necessity of making concessions to the Plebeian s and was instrumental in passing the Licinian laws. He died of the Plague in his eighty-first year ( 365 ). The story of Camillus is no doubt largely apocryphal. To this element probably belongs the story of the schoolmaster who, when Camillus was attacking Falerii , attempted to betray the town by bringing into his camp the sons of some of the principal inhabitants of the place. Camillus, it is said, had him whipped back into the town by his pupils, and the Faliscans were so affected by this generosity that they at once surrendered. REFERENCES
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