14.  His usual good fortune attended Camil’lus in another expedition against the Falis’ci.  He routed their army, and besieged their capital city Fale’rii, which threatened a long and vigorous resistance. 15.  The reduction of this little place would have been scarcely worth mentioning in this scanty page, were it not for an action of the Roman general, that has done him more credit with posterity than all his other triumphs united. 16.  A school-master, who had the care of the children belonging to the principal men in the city, having found means to decoy them into the Roman camp, offered to put them into the hands of Camil’lus, as the surest means of inducing the citizens to a speedy surrender. 17.  The general, struck with the treachery of a wretch whose duty it was to protect innocence, and not to betray it, for some time regarded the traitor with a stern silence:  but, at last, finding words, “Execrable villain!” cried the noble Roman, “offer thy abominable proposals to creatures like thyself, and not to me; what, though we are the enemies of your city, are there not natural ties that bind all mankind, which should never be broken?  There are duties required from us in war, as well as in peace:  we fight not against the age of innocence, but against men—­men who have used us ill indeed; but yet, whose crimes are virtues, when compared to thine.  Against such base acts, let it be my duty to use only the Roman ones—­valour and arms.” 18.  So saying, he ordered him to be stript, his hands to be tied behind him, and, in that ignominious manner, to be whipped into the town by his own scholars. 19.  This generous behaviour in Camil’lus effected more than his arms could do; the magistrates of the town submitted to the senate, leaving to Camil’lus the condition of their surrender; who only fined them a sum of money to satisfy the army, and received them under the protection, and into the alliance, of Rome.

20.  Notwithstanding the veneration which the virtues of Camil’lus had excited abroad, they seemed but little adapted to command the respect of the turbulent tribunes at home, who raised fresh accusations against him every day. 21.  To the charge of being an opposer of their intended emigration from Rome to Ve’ii, they added that of his having concealed a part of the plunder of that city, particularly two brazen gates, for his own use; and appointed him a day on which to appear before the people. 22.  Camil’lus, finding the multitude exasperated against him on many accounts, and detesting their ingratitude, resolved not to await the ignominy of a trial; but embracing his wife and children, prepared to depart from Rome. 23.  He had already passed as far as one of the gates, unattended and unlamented.  There he could suppress his indignation no longer, but, turning his face to the Capitol, and lifting up his hands to heaven, he entreated all the gods, that his countrymen might one day be sensible of their injustice and ingratitude.  So saying, he passed forward to take refuge at Ar’dea, a town at a little distance from Rome, where he afterwards learned that he had been fined fifteen thousand ases[7] by the tribunes at Rome.