VI.  When the city was sacked, he determined to send the statue of Juno to Rome, according to his vow.  When workmen were assembled for this purpose, he offered sacrifice, and prayed to the goddess to look kindly on his efforts, and to graciously take up her abode among the gods of Rome.  It is said that the statue answered that it wished to do so, and approved of his proceedings.  But Livy tells us that Camillus offered his prayers while touching the statue, and that some of the bystanders said, “She consents, and is willing to come.”  However, those who insist on the supernatural form of the story have one great argument in their favour, in the marvellous fortune of Rome, which never could from such small beginnings have reached, such a pitch of glory and power without many direct manifestations of the favour of Heaven.  Moreover, other appearances of the same kind are to be compared with it, such as that statues have often been known to sweat, have been heard to groan, and have even turned away and shut their eyes, as has been related by many historians before our own time.  And I have heard of many miraculous occurrences even at the present day, resting on evidence which cannot be lightly impugned.  However, the weakness of human nature makes it equally dangerous to put too much faith in such matters or to entirely disbelieve them, as the one leads to superstition and folly, and the other to neglect and contempt of the gods.  Our best course is caution, and the “golden mean.”

VII.  Camillus, either because he was elated by the magnificence of his exploit in having taken a city as large as Rome after a ten years’ siege, or else because he had been so flattered by his admirers that his pride overcame his sober judgment, conducted his triumph with great ostentation, especially in driving through Rome in a chariot, drawn by four white horses, which never was done by any general before or since, for this carriage is thought to be sacred to Jupiter, the king and father of the gods.  The citizens, unaccustomed to splendour, were displeased with him for this, and their dislike was increased by his opposition to the law for a redistribution of the people.  The tribunes proposed that the Senate and people should be divided into two parts, one of which should stay at Rome and the other remove to the captured city, because they would be more powerful if they possessed two great cities, instead of one, and held the land in common, still remaining one nation.  The lower classes, which were numerous and poor, eagerly took up the scheme, and continually clamoured round the speakers at the rostra, demanding to have it put to the vote.  But the Senate and the nobles thought that it was not a redistribution, but the absolute destruction of Rome which the tribunes were demanding, and in their anger rallied round Camillus.  He, fearing to have a contest on the matter, kept putting off the people and inventing reasons for delay, so as to prevent the law being brought forward to be