Читать книгу THE HISTORY OF ROME (Complete Edition in 4 Volumes) - Livy - Страница 326

When such fortune manifested itself on that side where Camillus, the life and soul of the Roman interest, was, a great alarm had fallen on another quarter. For almost all Etruria, taking up arms, were besieging Sutrium, allies of the Roman people, whose ambassadors having applied to the senate, imploring aid in their distress, obtained a decree, that the dictator should at the earliest opportunity bear aid to the Sutrians. And when the circumstances of the besieged would not suffer them to brook the delay of this hope, and the small number of the townsmen were spent with labour, watching, and wounds, all which fell heavily on the same individuals, and when, the city being delivered up to the enemy by a capitulation, they were leaving their habitations in a miserable train, being discharged without their arms with only a single garment; at that juncture Camillus happened to come up at the head of the Roman army. And when the mournful crowd prostrated themselves at his feet, and the address of the leading men, wrung from them by extreme necessity, was followed by the weeping of women and boys, who were dragged along by the companions of their exile, he bade the Sutrians to give over their lamentations: that he brought with him grief and tears to the Etrurians. He then orders the baggage to be deposited, and the Sutrians to remain there with a small guard left with them, and the soldiers to follow him in arms. Having thus proceeded to Sutrium with his army disencumbered, he found, as he expected, every thing in disorder, as usually happens in success; no advanced guard before the walls, the gates lying open, and the conquerors dispersed, carrying out the booty from the houses of the enemy. Sutrium is therefore taken a second time on the same day; the Etrurians, lately victorious, are cut down in every quarter by their new enemy, nor is time afforded them to collect and form one body, or even to take up arms. When each pushed eagerly towards the gates, to try if by any chance they could throw themselves into the fields, they found the gates shut; for the dictator had given those orders in the first instance. Upon this some took up arms, others, who happened to be armed before the tumult came on them, called their friends together in order to make battle; which would have been kindled by the despair of the enemy, had not criers, sent in every direction through the city, issued orders that their arms should be laid down, that the unarmed should be spared, and that no one should be injured except those who were armed. Then even those whose minds had been, in their last hope, obstinately bent on fighting, when hopes of life were offered, threw down their arms in every direction, and surrendered themselves unarmed to the enemy, which fortune had rendered the safer method. Their number being considerable, they were distributed among several guards; the town was before night restored to the Sutrians uninjured and free from all the calamities of war, because it had not been taken by force but delivered up on terms.