V
When Caedicius bore the decree of the Senate to Camillus, by which he was made consul, he exhorted him not to lay up against his country the injury it had done him. The latter, interrupting him, said: I could not have prayed to the gods that the Romans might some time long for me if I had cherished any such feeling as that towards them. Now I pray the nobler prayer that I may render my country a service equal to the calamity that has befallen her.
VI
When the Gauls could find no means for scaling the Capitol they remained quietly in camp in order to reduce the defenders by famine. A certain priest named Dorso went down from the Capitol to make a certain yearly sacrifice in the temple of Vesta, and passed safely, with the sacred utensils, through the ranks of the enemy, who were either awed by his courage or had respect for his piety and his venerable appearance. Thus he who had incurred danger for the sake of his holy office was saved by it. That this event occurred, as related, the Roman writer Cassius tells us. This writer was L. Cassius Hemina, who lived about the beginning of the second century B.C. Schweighäuser refers to two passages in Pliny’s Natural History (xiii. 37, and xxix. 1), where he is mentioned as one of the earliest Roman annalists; also to a passage in Aulus Gellius (xvii. 21), where his name appears. All the writings of Cassius Hemina have been lost except a few fragments preserved in the works of other authors.
