25.
In taking account of the prisoners, they recognized some as being Tusculans. These were separated from the rest and brought before the tribunes, to whom they confessed, on being questioned, that they had served at the bidding of the state.
[
2]
The danger of so near a war disturbed Camillus, who declared that he would straight-way carry the prisoners to Rome, that the Fathers might not be kept in ignorance how the Tusculans had broken the alliance.
[
3]
In the meantime he proposed that his colleague should, if agreeable, take charge of the camp and the army. A single day had taught Lucius Furius not to prefer his own to wiser counsels, yet neither he nor anyone in the army supposed that Camillus would condone his fault, which had plunged the commonwealth into such desperate peril;
[
4]
and everybody, not in the army only, but also in Rome, agreed in saying, that in the ups and downs of the Volscian war, the responsibility for the defeat and flight lay with Lucius Furius, and all the credit for the victory with Camillus.
[
5]
But when the prisoners had been introduced into the senate, and the Fathers, having decided that they must make war on Tusculum, had
[p. 285]designated Camillus to conduct it, he requested that
1 he might have a single lieutenant to assist him, and being permitted to select any one of his colleagues whom he might desire, contrary to everybody's expectation he selected Lucius Furius —an instance of magnanimity which, while it lightened the disgrace of his colleague, also brought great honour to himself.
[6]
But no war was, in fact, waged with the Tusculans: by their steadfast adherence to peace they saved themselves from violation by the Romans, as they could not have done by resorting to arms.
[7]
When the Romans entered their territory, they did not withdraw from the places near the line of march, nor break off their labour in the fields; the gates of their city stood wide open; the citizens, wearing the toga, came out in great numbers to meet the generals;
[8]
and provisions for the army were obligingly brought into the camp from the city and the farms.
[9]
Camillus set up his camp before the gates, and desirous of knowing whether the same aspect of peace prevailed within the walls that was displayed in the country, entered the city and beheld the house-doors open, the shops with their shutters off and all their wares exposed, the craftsmen all busy at their respective trades, the schools buzzing with the voices of the scholars, crowds in the streets, and women and children going about amongst the rest, this way and that, as their several occasions called them —with
[10]
never anywhere an indication of surprise, much less of fear.
[11]
He looked everywhere for any visible evidence that a war had been on foot; but there was no sign that anything had been either removed or brought out for the moment; everything looked so undisturbed and [p. 287]peaceful that it seemed scarce credible that so much2 as a rumour of war should have come there.
