Плутарх - Plutarch's Lives - Volume I

XXXVIII. By his return to Rome with great spoils, he proved that those men were right who had not feared that weakness or old age would impair the faculties of a general of daring and experience, but who had chosen him, ill and unwilling to act as he was, rather than men in the prime of life, who were eager to hold military commands. For this reason, when the people of Tusculum were reported to be in insurrection, they bade Camillus take one of the other five tribunes as his colleague, and march against them. Camillus, in spite of all that the rest of the tribunes could urge, for they all wished to be taken, chose Lucius Furius, whom no one could have supposed he would have chosen; for he it was who had been so eager to fight, against the better judgment of Camillus, and so had brought about the defeat in the late war; however, Camillus chose him rather than any other, wishing, it would appear, to conceal his misfortune and wipe out his disgrace.

The people of Tusculum cleverly repaired their fault. When Camillus marched to attack them they filled the country with men working in the fields and tending cattle just as in time of peace; the city gates were open, the boys at school, the lower classes plying various trades, and the richer citizens walking in the market–place in peaceful dress. The magistrates bustled about the city, pointing out where the Romans were to be quartered, as if the thought of treachery had never entered their minds. Camillus, though this conduct did not shake his belief in their guilt, was moved to pity by their repentance. He ordered them to go to Rome and beg the Senate to pardon them; and when they appeared, he himself used his influence to procure their forgiveness, and the admission of Tusculum to the Roman franchise. These were the most remarkable events of his sixth tribuneship.

XXXIX. After this, Licinius Stolo put himself at the head of the plebeians in their great quarrel with the Senate. They demanded that consuls should be re–established, one of whom should always be a plebeian, and that they should never both be patricians. Tribunes of the people were appointed, but the people would not suffer any election of consuls to be held. As this want of chief magistrates seemed likely to lead to still greater disorders, the Senate, much against the will of the people, appointed Camillus dictator for the fourth time. He himself did not wish for the post, for he was loth to oppose men who had been his comrades in many hard–fought campaigns, as indeed he had spent much more of his life in the camp with his soldiers than with the patrician party in political intrigues, by one of which he was now appointed, as that party hoped that if successful he would crush the power of the plebeians, while in case of failure he would be ruined. However, he made an effort to deal with the present difficulty. Knowing the day on which the tribunes intended to bring forward their law, he published a muster–roll of men for military service, and charged the people to leave the Forum and meet him on the Field of Mars, threatening those who disobeyed with a heavy fine. But when the tribunes answered his threats by vowing that they would fine him fifty thousand drachmas unless he ceased his interference with the people's right of voting, he retired to his own house, and after a few days laid down his office on pretence of sickness. This he did, either because he feared a second condemnation and banishment, which would be a disgrace to an old man and one who had done such great deeds, or else because he saw that the people were too strong to be overpowered, and he did not wish to make the attempt.

The Senate appointed another dictator, but he made that very Licinius Stolo, the leader of the popular party, his master of the horse, and thus enabled him to pass a law which was especially distasteful to the patricians, for it forbade any one to possess more than five hundred jugera of land. Stolo, after this success, became an important personage; but, a short time afterwards, he was convicted of possessing more land than his own law permitted, and was punished according to its provisions.

XL. There still remained the difficulty about the consular elections, the most important point at issue between the two parties, and the Senate was greatly disturbed at it, when news arrived that the Gauls, starting from the Adriatic Sea, were a second time marching in great force upon Rome. At the same time evident traces of their approach could be seen, as the country was being plundered, and such of the inhabitants as could not easily reach Rome were taking refuge in the mountains.

This terrible tidings put an end to all internal disputes. The Senate and people formed themselves into one assembly, and with one voice appointed Camillus dictator for the fifth time. He was now a very old man, being near his eightieth year; but at this pressing crisis he made none of his former excuses, but at once took the chief command and levied an army for the war. As he knew that the chief power of the Gauls lay in their swords, with which they dealt heavy blows on the heads and shoulders of their enemy, without any skill in fence, he prepared for most of his soldiers helmets made entirely of smooth iron, so that the swords would either break or glance off them, while he also had brass rims fitted to their shields, because the wood by itself could not endure a blow. He also instructed the soldiers to use long pikes, and to thrust them forward to receive the sword–cuts of the enemy.

XLI. When the Gauls were encamped on the banks of the Anio, near the city, loaded with masses of plunder, Camillus led out his troops and posted them in a glen from which many valleys branched out, so that the greater part of the force was concealed, and that which was seen appeared to be clinging in terror to the hilly ground. Camillus, wishing to confirm the enemy in this idea, would not move to prevent the country being plundered before his eyes, but palisaded his camp and remained quiet within it, until he saw that the foraging parties of the Gauls straggled in careless disorder, while those in the camp did nothing but eat and drink. Then, sending forward his light troops before daybreak to be ready to harass the Gauls and prevent their forming their ranks properly as they came out of their camp, he marched the heavy–armed men down into the plain at sunrise, a numerous and confident body, and not, as the Gauls fancied, a few disheartened men.

The very fact of his commencing the attack dashed the courage of the Gauls; next, the attacks of the light troops, before they had got into their wonted array and divided themselves into regiments, produced disorder. When at last Camillus led on the heavy–armed troops, the Gauls ran to meet them brandishing their swords, but the Romans with their pikes advanced and met them, receiving their sword–cuts on their armour, which soon made the Gaulish swords bend double, as they were made of soft iron hammered out thin, while the shields of the Gauls were pierced and weighed down by the pikes that stuck in them. They therefore dropped their own arms, and endeavoured to seize the pikes and turn them against their enemies. But the Romans, seeing them now defenceless, began to use their swords, and slew many of the first ranks, while the rest took to flight all over the flat country; for Camillus had taken care to guard the hills and rough ground, while the Gauls knew that they, in their over–confidence, had been at no pains to fortify their camp, and that the Romans could easily take it.

This battle is said to have been fought thirteen years after the capture of Rome, and in consequence of it the Romans conceived a contempt for these barbarians, whom they had before greatly dreaded, and even believed that their former victories over the Gauls were due to their being weakened by pestilence, and to fortunate circumstances, rather than to their own valour. This raised so great a terror of them, that a law was passed which relieved the priests from military service except in case of a Gaulish invasion.