They went on for eight years, always elected by the people and always
stopping everything. At last there was another inroad of the Gauls
expected, and Camillus, though eighty years old, was for the fifth time
chosen Dictator, and gained a great victory upon the banks of the Anio.
The Senate begged him to continue Dictator till he could set their
affairs to rights, and he vowed to build a temple to Concord if he could
succeed. He saw indeed that it was time to yield, and persuaded the
Senate to think so; so that at last, in the year 367, Sextius was
elected consul, together with a patrician, Æmilius. Even then the Senate
would not receive Sextius till he was introduced by Camillus. From this
time the patricians and plebeians were on an equal footing as far as
regarded the magistracies, but the priesthood could belong only to the
patricians. Camillus lived to a great age, and was honored as having
three times saved his country. He died at last of a terrible pestilence
which raged in Rome in the year 365.

The priests recommended that they should invite the players from Etruria
to perform a drama in honor of the feats of the gods, and this was the
beginning of play-acting in Rome.

Not long after there yawned a terrible chasm in the Forum, most likely
from an earthquake, but nothing seemed to fill it up, and the priests
and augurs consulted their oracles about it. These made answer that it
would only close on receiving of what was most precious. Gold and
jewels were thrown in, but it still seemed bottomless, and at last the
augurs declared that it was courage that was the most precious thing in
Rome. Thereupon a patrician youth named Marcus Curtius decked himself in
his choicest robes, put on his armor, took his shield, sword, and spear,
mounted his horse, and leapt headlong into the gulf, thus giving it the
most precious of all things, courage and self-devotion. After this one