Camillus was a favorite. He therefore turned to the plebeians, and
devoted his large fortune to relieving suffering debtors. The
patricians looking upon him as a deserter from their party, brought up
charges against him, and though he showed the marks of distinction that
he had won in battles for the country, and gained temporary respite
from their enmity, they did not relent until his condemnation had been
secured. He was hurled from the fatal Tarpeian Rock, and his house was
razed to the ground in the year 384.

Eight years after the death of Manlius (B.C. 376), two tribunes of the
plebeians, one of whom was Caius Licinius Stolo, proposed some new laws
to protect poor debtors, whose grievances had been greatly increased by
the havoc of the Gauls, and after nine more years of tedious discussion
and effort, they were enacted (B.C. 367), and are known as the Licinian
Laws, or rather, Rogations, for a law before it was finally passed was
known as a rogation, and these were long discussed before they were
agreed to. (_Rogare_, to ask, that is, to ask the opinion of one.)
So great was the feeling aroused by this discussion, that Camillus was
called upon to interfere, and he succeeded in pacifying the city;
Lucius Sextius was chosen as the first plebeian consul, and Camillus,
having thus a third time saved the state, dedicated a temple to
Concord. As a plebeian had been made consul, the disturbing struggles
between the two orders could not last much longer, and we find that the
plebeians gradually gained ground, until at last the political
distinction between them and the patricians was wiped out for
generations. The laws that finally effected this were those of
Publilius, in 339, and of Hortensius, the dictator, in 286.

The period of the death of Camillus is to be remembered on account of
several facts connected with a plague that visited Rome in the year