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And now it seemed high time that they should deliver their country out of the hand of the Gauls; only, though the body was strong, there yet lacked a head. Then, because the place wherein they were reminded them of Camillus, and because many of the soldiers had had him for their captain in time past, they all agreed that he should be sent for from Ardea.
The senate, therefore, fearing a sedition, would not suffer Camillus, though desirous, to lay down his authority within the year, though no other dictator had ever held it above six months.
In the year following, a pestilential sickness infected Rome, which, besides an infinite number of the common people, swept away most of the magistrates, among whom was Camillus; whose death cannot be called immature, if we consider his great age, or greater actions, yet was he more lamented than all the rest put together that then died of that distemper.
The next day Camillus attacked them in their camp, eight miles from Rome, and defeated them so utterly that not a man was left alive to carry home the tale of the slaughter. This story of the coming of Camillus is too much like the last act of a stage-play, or the dénouement of a novel, to be true.
When the Gauls had marched off again with their gold which only a legend of late and wretched invention represents the hero Camillus as having recovered for Rome and when the fugitives had again made their way home, the foolish idea suggested by some faint-hearted prudential politicians, that the citizens should migrate to Veii, was set aside by a spirited speech of Camillus; houses arose out of the ruins hastily and irregularly the narrow and crooked streets of Rome owed their origin to this epoch; and Rome again stood in her old commanding position.
Camillus met them on the road with their wives and children, weeping over their misfortune.
For both Coriolanus and Camillus were banished on account of the wrongs which they inflicted on the commons; and though the former was not forgiven because he constantly retained ill will against the people, the latter was not only recalled, but for the rest of his life honoured as a prince.
But when Camillus was sitting upon the tribunal, dispatching public affairs, an officer, sent by the tribunes of the people, commanded him to rise and follow him, laying his and upon him, as ready to seize and carry him away; upon which, such a noise and tumult as was never heard before, filled the whole forum; some that were about Camillus thrusting the officer from the bench, and the multitude below calling out to him to bring Camillus down.
They were afterwards beaten under the conduct and auspices of the same Camillus, in a more regular engagement, at the eighth stone on the Gabine road, whither they had betaken themselves after their defeat. There the slaughter was universal: their camp was taken, and not even one person was left to carry news of the defeat.
The tidings of this thing being brought to Rome there was great rejoicing; because, for all the prophecies of the soothsayers and the answers of the oracle, and the greatness of Camillus, men had scarce believed that so strong a city, from which so much loss had been suffered in time past, would indeed be conquered, Straightway the temples were crowded with women that gave thanks to the gods.
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