In the following year Dante was again in the field, at the siege of Caprona. To this he alludes in Canto XXI. of the Inferno, where, under convoy of the aforementioned fiends, he compares his fears lest they should break truce with him and his companion, to the apprehensions of the garrison of that fortress when they marched out on condition of being permitted to depart unmolested with their arms and property; but were so terrified, on seeing the multitude and the rage of their enemies, who cried, "Stop them! stop them! kill them! kill them!" as they passed along, that they submitted to be sent in irons, as prisoners, to Lucca, for safeguard. "Wherefore I moved right on towards my guide, The devils marshalling themselves before, For much I fear'd lest they should not keep faith: So saw I once Caprona's garrison Come trembling forth, upon capitulation, To find themselves among so many foes. I crouch'd with my whole frame beside my master, Nor could I turn mine eyes away from watching Their physiognomy, which was not good."[9] During this active period of his citizenship, Dante is stated to have been frequently employed on important embassies; and, among others, to the kings of Naples, Hungary, and France; in all of which his eloquence and address enabled him to acquit himself with honour and advantage to his country: but as there is no allusion in any of his works, even to the most distinguished of these, it is very questionable whether the traditions are not, in many cases, wholly unwarranted; and probably founded upon misapprehension of the verbiage and bombast of Boccaccio, in his account of the political, philosophical, and literary labours of his hero. In the year 1300, Dante was chosen, by the suffrages of the people, chief prior of his native city; and from that era of his arrival at the highest honour to which his ambition could aspire, he himself dated all the miseries which (like the file of evil spirits above mentioned) accompanied him thenceforward to the end of his life. In one of his epistles, quoted by Aretino, he says,--"All my calamities had their origin and occasion in my unhappy priorship, of which, though I might not for my wisdom have been worthy, yet on the ground of age and fidelity was I not unworthy; ten years having elapsed since the battle of Campaldino, in which the Ghibelline party was routed and nearly exterminated; wherein, also, I proved myself no novice in arms, but experienced great perils in the various fortunes of the fight, and the highest gratification in the issue of it." Since that triumph, the Guelfs had maintained undisputed predominance in Tuscany; but the citizens of Florence split into two minor factions as bitterly opposed to each other as the Guelfs and Ghibellines.