After Rome had already for eight years worn herself out against Veii, and the most perfect tranquility reigned with the Æquians and Volscians, a _prodigium_ came to pass. The waters of the Alban lake, which otherwise stood always below the brink of the old crater, now began to swell, and threatened to overflow. This is the general tenor of the old tradition: with regard to the details the accounts differ. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Dio Cassius in Zonaras, the stream ran straight from the lake into the sea; according to others, it merely threatened to overflow its banks. The Romans did not know what to do. They had stationed outposts before Veii, but when there was no actual fighting, a sort of armistice was kept. On this, an Etruscan haruspex laughed at the Romans for giving themselves so much trouble to conquer Veii, saying, that, so long as they were not masters of the Alban lake, they would not be able to take the town. A Roman, bearing this in mind, sent for the haruspex under the pretext of a _procuratio rei domesticæ_, who was then seized by the enemy, and compelled to tell them, what was to be done. He answered that they ought to drain the waters of the Alban lake, so that a stream from thence might reach the sea by a neighbouring river. The same thing was told by the Delphian god. The Romans now undertook the work and executed it. When it was all but finished, the Veientines sent an embassy to Rome, adjuring the Romans to receive them _in deditionem_. But the Romans would not listen to any such prayer; for they knew that the spell was broken. The Veientines said that this was true; yet that it was also stated in their books, that, if Veii were destroyed, Rome would likewise soon be taken by barbarians, and this the haruspex had forborne to tell them. The Romans now ran this risk, and appointed Camillus as dictator, who called upon all the people to share the booty, and undertook the assault. The sacred matters having been attended to, human wisdom was in requisition. He ran a gallery under the Arx of Veii, and led from thence a passage to the temple of Juno; as the fates had decreed, that he who made the offering in the Arx of Veii should be victorious. The Romans rushed in by that passage, slew the Etruscan king, and made the offering. Then the wall was scaled on all sides. If we now reflect upon the historical absurdity of this account, we cannot doubt for one moment, the existence of a poetical fiction. There are traces of the citadel of Veii to this very day. It is situated on the Aqua rossa, is almost wholly surrounded by water, and rises to a considerable height: it is a rock of tufa. The Romans must then have had to dig a passage under the bed of the river, and to make the gallery with such consummate art, that no one could observe any thing; so that when all was done, they would only have quietly to raise the last stone in the temple and to climb out, as from a trap door.