times been involved in war.

Year after year the army besieged the strong place, and there seemed no
hope that its walls would fall. It was allied with Fidenæ, another city
halfway between it and Rome, which was taken by means of a mine in the
year 426. A peace with Veii ensued, after which the incessant war began
again, and fortune sometimes favored one side and sometimes the other.
The siege of the city can be fittingly compared to that of Troy, Seven
years had passed without result, when of a sudden, in the midst of an
autumn drought, the waters of the Alban Lake, away off to the other
side of Rome, began to rise. Higher and still higher they rose without
any apparent cause, until the fields and houses were covered, and then
they found a passage where the hills were lowest, and poured down in a
great torrent upon the plains below. Unable to understand this portent,
for such it was considered, the Romans called upon the oracle at Delphi
for counsel, and were told that not until the waters should find their
way into the lowlands by a new channel, should not rush so impetuously
to the sea, but should water the country, could Veii be taken. It is
hardly necessary to say that no one but an oracle or a poet could see
the connection between the draining of a lake fifteen miles from Rome
on one side, and the capture of a fortress ten miles away on the other.
However, the lake was drained. With surprising skill, a tunnel was
built directly through the rocky hills, and the waters allowed to flow
over the fields below. The traveller may still see this ancient
structure performing its old office. It is cut for a mile and a half,
mainly through solid rock, four feet wide and from seven to ten in
height. The lake is a thousand feet above the sea-level, and of very
great depth.

Marcus Furius Camillus is the hero who now comes to the rescue. He was