...ahh...neoclassicism. time honored virtues of western philosophy as explained to you via the actions of ancient characters in history or Biblical mythology. really, that was what subject most neoclassical works portrayed. in our fine example, we are shown the wrongness of cheating and betraying our own countryman courtesy of the drama played out between honorable general camillus and the evil schoolmaster of falerii -- who willingly traded the lives of his students in an attempt to save his own. even though general camillus is the one who is invading the town of falerii, he is depicted as a more ethical person due to his refusal to take the schoolmaster's trade. the benevolence of the invading leader may be a reference to a specific event that involved the king louis the 13th of france, or else some other french leader, as this painting was created during the 30 years war.

...cloaking political statements over classical stories is a trademark of neoclassical art. as a revival in the interest of the classical studies (you know, reading stuff written by plato or homer), artists influenced by the neoclassical ideas often used ancient historical stories to make a point about current political events in their time. believing in the classical ideals of personal sacrifice for the greater good and never acting out of self-interest, many of the artists created works that extolled such noble virtues as working for the greater good of one's nation. in our example, the schoolmaster's willingness to sacrifice his own people to insure his personal safety is exactly the kind of selfish behavior the neoclassicists deemed evil. by visually depicting his punishment, the artist is warning the viewer not to follow the path of the betraying schoolmaster.

...artistically, neoclassicism is a return to the naturalistic and well-proportioned form of the renaissance. no more of the chubby babies or rosy cheeks seen in roccoco style art. in the painting above, only the schoolmaster's body is out of proportion and only he has a grotesquely painted face. these distortions emphasized his evilness (the guy's all bent out of shape har har) and the lack of God's blessing of physical and mental perfection.