chosen dictator in order that he might push the war with the utmost
vigor. The people of Veii sent messengers to him to sue for peace, but
their appeal was in vain. Steadily the siege went on. We must not
picture to ourselves the army of Camillus using the various engines of
war that the Romans became acquainted with in later times through
intercourse with the Greeks, but trusting more to their strong arms and
their simple means of undermining the walls or breaking down the gates.
Their bows and slings and ladders were weak instruments against strong
stone walls, and the siege was a long and wearisome labor. It proved so
long in this case, indeed, that the soldiers, unable to make visits to
their homes to plant and reap their crops, were for the first time paid
for their services.

As the unsuccessful ambassadors from Veii turned away from the senate-
house, one of them uttered a fearful prophecy, saying that though the
unmerciful Romans feared neither the wrath of the gods nor the
vengeance of men, they should one day be rewarded for their hardness by
the loss of their own country.

Summer and winter the Roman army camped before the doomed city, but it
did not fall. At last, to ensure success, Camillus began a mine or
tunnel under the city, which he completed to a spot just beneath the
altar in the temple of Juno. When but a single stone remained to be
taken away, he uttered a fervent prayer to the goddess, and made a vow
to Apollo consecrating a tenth part of the spoil of the city to him. He
then ordered an assault upon the walls, and at the moment when the king
was making an offering on the altar of Juno, and the augur was telling
him that victory in the contest was to fall to him who should burn the
entrails then ready, the Romans burst from their tunnel, finished the
sacrifice, and rushing to the gates, let their own army in. The city