After the devastating attacks of the Gauls, the Romans wanted to leave the city and immigrate to Veii. Camillus, as a “Romulus and as the father of his country and second founder of the city,” developed a powerful speech (Livy 395). Using non-religious arguments, Camillus remembered the time when Romans tried to abandon the unharmed city and explained it as “victory, glorious for us and for our posterity” (Livy 401). Now, leaving the city was “pitiful and shameful for us, but glorious for the Gauls” because the Romans must go “not as victors but as vanquished men who have lost their city” (Livy 401). However, his religious arguments had a stronger impact because Camillus underlined the worth of ancestors, priests, “sacred rites and temples” (Livy 400). Even if the Romans thought that gods turned away, they should not interrupt their worship but restore the land and obtain gods’ grace and support.
Reference
Livy. The History of Rome: Books 1-5. Translated by Valerie M. Warrior, Hackett Publishing Company, 2006.