im upon
his success, he lifted up his hands to heaven, and broke out into this
prayer: "O most mighty Jupiter, and ye gods that are judges of good and
evil actions, ye know that not without just cause, but constrained by
necessity, we have been forced to revenge ourselves on the city of our
unrighteous and wicked enemies. But if, the the vicissitude of things,
there by any calamity due, to counter-balance this great felicity, I beg
that it may be diverted from the city and army of the Romans, and fall,
with as little hurt as may be, upon my own head." Having said these
words, and just turning about (as the custom of the Romans is to turn
to the right after adoration or prayer), he stumbled and fell, to the
astonishment of all that were present. But, recovering himself presently
from the fall, he told them that he had received what he had prayed for,
a small mischance, in compensation for the greatest good fortune.

Camillus, however, whether puffed up with the greatness of his
achievement in conquering a city that was the rival of Rome, and held
out a ten years' siege, or exalted with the felicitations of those that
were about him, assumed to himself more than became a civil and legal
magistrate; among other things, in the pride and haughtiness of triumph,
driving through Rome in a chariot drawn with four white horses, which no
general either before or since ever did; for the Romans consider such a
mode of conveyance to be sacred and specially set apart to the king and
father of the gods. This alienated the hearts of his fellow-citizens,
who were not accustomed to such pomp and display.

The second pique they had against him was his opposing the law by which
the city was to be divided; for the tribunes of the people brought
forward a motion that the people and senate should be divided into two
parts, one of which should remain at home, the other, as the lot should
decide, remove to the new-taken city. By which means they should
not only have much more room, but, by the advantage of two great and
magnificent cities, be better able to maintain their territories and
their fortunes in general. The people, therefore, who were numerous and
indigent, greedily embraced it, and crowded continually to the forum,
with tumultuous demands to have it put to the vote. But the senate and
the noblest citizens, judging the proceedings of the tribunes to tend
rather to a destruction than a division of Rome, greatly averse to it,
went to