Home > Marcus Furius Camillus

When accused of having unfairly distributed the spoil taken at Veii, which was captured by him after a ten years' siege, he went into voluntary exile at Ardea . The real cause of complaint against him was no doubt his patrician haughtiness and his triumphal entry into Rome in a chariot drawn by white horses. Subsequently the Romans, when besieged in the Capitol by the Gauls after the Battle of the Allia, created him dictator; he completely defeated the enemy and drove them from Roman territory.

He dissuaded the Romans, disheartened by the devastation wrought by the Gauls, from migrating to Veii, and induced them to rebuild the city. He afterwards fought successfully against the Aequi, Volsci and Etruscans, and repelled a fresh invasion of the Gauls in 367 BCCenturies: 5th century BC 4th century BC 3rd century BC Decades: 410s BC 400s BC 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC 340s BC 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 372 BC 371 BC 370 BC 369 BC 368 BC 367 BC 366 BC 365 BC 364 BC 363 BC 362 BC Events The temple to Conc. Though patrician in sympathy, he saw the necessity of making concessions to the plebeians and was instrumental in passing the Licinian laws. He died of the plague in his eighty-first year ( 365).

The story of Camillus is no doubt largely traditional. To this element probably belongs the story of the schoolmaster who, when Camillus was attacking FaleriiFalerii (now Civita Castellana), one of the twelve chief cities of Etruria, situated about one mile west of the ancient Via Flaminia 32 miles north Rome. According to the legend, it was of Argive origin; and Strabo's assertion that the population, the Fal, attempted to betray the town by bringing into his camp the sons of some of the principal inhabitants of the place. Camillus, it is said, had him whipped back into the town by his pupils, and the Faliscans were so affected by this generosity that they at once surrendered.

References

• LivyTitus Livius (around 59 BC AD 17), known as Livy in English, wrote a monumental history of Rome from its supposed founding in 753 BC. Life and Works The book's title, Ab Urbe Condita ("From the Founding of the City"), makes Livy's ambition clear, but not v. 10, vi. 4
• PlutarchMestrius Plutarch (c. 120) was a Greek historian/ biographer and essayist. Born in the small town of Chaeronea, in the Greek region known as Boeotia, probably during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius, Mestrius Plutarch travelled widely in the Medite, Camillus
• For the Gallic retreat, see PolybiusPolybius ca 203 BC 120 BC) was a Greek historian of the Mediterranean world, especially the rise of the Roman Republic, which he attributed to Roman fitness and the excellence of Roman civic and military institutions. He is most valued for his account of ii. 18; T. Mommsen, Römische Forschungen, ii. pp. 113-152 (1879).

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.