These things performed, Camillus, leaving his son Lucius in the camp
to guard the prisoners and secure the booty, passed into the enemy's
country, where, having taken the city of the Aequians and reduced the
Volscians to obedience, he then immediately led his army to Sutrium, not
having heard what had befallen the Sutrians, but making haste to assist
them, as if they were still in danger and besieged by the Tuscans.
They, however, had already surrendered their city to their enemies,
and destitute of all things, with nothing left but their clothes, and
bewailing their misfortune. Camillus himself was struck with compassion,
and perceiving the soldiers weeping, and commiserating their case,
while the Sutrians hung about and clung to them, resolved not to defer
revenge, but that very day to lead his army to Sutrium; conjecturing
that the enemy, having just taken a rich and plentiful city, without
an enemy left within it, nor any from without to be expected, would be
found abandoned to enjoyment, and unguarded. Neither did his opinion
fail him: he not only passed through their country without discovery,
but came up to their very gates and possessed himself of the walls, not
a man being left to guard them, but their whole army scattered about
in the houses, drinking and making merry. Nay, when at last they did
perceive that the enemy had seized the city, they were so overloaded
with meat and wine that few were able so much as to endeavor to
escape, but either waited shamefully for their death within doors,or
surrendered themselves to the conqueror. Thus the city of the Sutrians
was twice taken in one day; and they who were in possession lost it, and
they who had lost regained it, alike by the means of Camillus. For all
which actions he received a triumph which brought him no less honor and
reputation than the two former ones; for those citizens who before most
regarded him with an evil eye, and ascribed his successes to a certain
luck rather than real merit, were compelled by these last acts of his to
allow the whole honor to his great abilities and energy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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