Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.1, 1865).djvu/322

282 endure so great an indignity, he resolved in his anger to leave the city and go into exile; and so, having taken leave of his wife and his son, he went silently to the gate of the city, and, there stopping and turning round, stretched out his hands to the Capitol, and prayed to the gods, that if, without any fault of his own, but merely through the malice and violence of the people, he was driven out into banishment, the Romans might quickly repent of it; and that all mankind might witness their need for the assistance, and desire for the return of Camillus.

Thus, like Achilles, having left his imprecations on the citizens, he went into banishment; so that, neither appearing nor making defence, he was condemned in the sum of fifteen thousand asses, which, reduced to silver, makes one thousand five hundred drachmas; for the as was the money of the time, ten of such copper pieces making the denarius, or piece of ten. And there is not a Roman but -believes that immediately upon the prayers of Camillus a sudden judgment followed, and that he received a revenge for the injustice done unto him; which though we cannot think was pleasant, but father grievous and bitter to him, yet was very remarkable, and noised over the whole world; such a punishment visited the city of Rome, an era of such loss and danger and disgrace so quickly succeeded; whether it thus fell out by fortune, or it be the office of some god not to see injured virtue go unavenged.

The first token that seemed to threaten some mischief to ensue was the death of the censor Julius; for the Romans have a religious reverence for the office of a censor, and esteem it sacred. The second was, that, just before Camillus went into exile, Marcus Cædicius, a person of no o-reat distinction, nor of the rank of senator, but esteemed a good and respectable man, reported to the