The Triumph of Camillus.
The triumph of Camillus, one of a series frescoes at the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, depicting the life of Marcus Furius Camillus and painted by Francesco de’ Rossi (1510–1563) in 1545. After his first victory over the Falisci, Camillus celebrated a spectacular ‘Triumph’ in Rome that irked his political rivals much as Julius Caesar’s triumph irked Marullus and other friends of Pompey, according to William Shakespeare. See O, You Hard Hearts!.
Part 1 of 2
FURIUS Camillus, tribune of Rome, was, by his merit alone, raised from a humble origin to eminence. Not being able to conquer the Falisci, he undermined the town,* and then led his soldiers into the midst of the place, after a siege of ten years. Camillus upon his return entered Rome, having his chariot drawn by four milk-white horses, which excited the anger and jealousy of the people.
The Falisci afterwards revolting, Camillus again took the field against them. A schoolmaster, who had the care of the children of the principal men of the city, offered to surrender them to Camillus, as a sure way to compel the inhabitants to submit.
* That is, he tunnelled beneath the walls.
Précis
In 395 BC Marcus Furius Camillus finally subdued Rome’s northerly neighbours the Falisci after ten long years, and awarded himself a triumphal procession in Rome which alienated public opinion. Soon afterwards the Falisci revolted. Camillus returned to find that a schoolmaster had kidnapped the children of the most prominent townspeople, and was obligingly offering them as hostages to Rome. (58 / 60 words)
Part Two
Camillus punishes the treacherous schoolmaster.
Camillus punishes the treacherous schoolmaster, another of the frescoes painted by Francesco de’ Rossi (1510–1563) in 1545. It shows the disgraced academic being stripped ready to be whipped into town by the pupils he had tried to use as political leverage.
Camillus, struck with horror at the treachery of this man, at length exclaimed, “Execrable villain, offer thy abominable proposals to creatures like thyself, and not to me; we fight not against innocence, but against men - men who have used us ill indeed, but yet whose crimes are virtues, when compared to thine.” He then ordered him to be stripped, his hands tied behind him, and then to be whipped into the town by those very scholars he would have betrayed.
Camillus, after this, when he returned to Rome, met with such ingratitude, that to avoid being brought to trial for some supposed offence,* he determined to leave Rome; and, lifting up his hands to heaven, entreated they might one day be sensible of their ingratitude and injustice.*
* He was accused of appropriating the spoils of war for his own use, a handy tool in the hands of unscrupulous rivals if everyone does it but it is technically illegal. It was by the same ruse that Robert Clive fell victim to the East India Company he had served so well: see Clive of India.
* See A Ransom of Iron.
Précis
Instead of seizing the opportunity given to him, Camillus publicly denounced the treacherous schoolmaster, and arranged for the kidnapped children to thrash him all the way back to town. In Rome, however, Camillus was still under a cloud, and some trumped up charges were enough to secure his banishment — vowing as he went that the Senate would regret their decision. (61 / 60 words)
