The Third Veientine War was from 406-396 B.C.E. The war was marked by the ten-year siege of Veii. (The siege of Troy was also for ten years.) Rome laid siege to Veii for several months during the summer, but her soldiers had to return to their farms for the rest of the year. This happened for several years. The Roman government solved this problem by paying its soldiers a stipendium (“small payment”). Originally it was paid out in bronze ingots since Rome did not have coinage yet. It was raised through a special tax. This allowed the Romans to have campaigns that lasted through a growing season. Rome was on the road to a professional army. The Roman besiegers had to fight off attacks from the allies of Veii. Livy claims the Romans built lines of circumvallation (an earthen wall constructed around a city to keep the besieged in) and contravallation (a wall constructed around a wall of circumvallation to protect the Roman besiegers from a relief army) for the first time during this siege. (Centuries later, Julius Caesar would use the two types of fortifications to win the siege of Alesia.) In 396 B.C., dictator Marcus Furius Camillus defeated the allies and took Veii by having his picked legionaries infiltrate through its sewer system. Better sanitation was deadly, in this case. (Luckily, we can’t smell the Romans in the picture. I don’t think their uniforms looked that well.) In the ensuing sack, all the adult men were killed and the women and children were sold into slavery. Worse was the Romans taking the statue of the Veientes’ patron goddess Juno Regina to be installed in a temple in Rome dedicated by Camillus.
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