The History of Rome, Book 41

…had armed the region which had been held in peace under his father, and for this was said to be very welcome to the young men greedy for plunder. When the consul was holding a council about the Istrian war, some thought it should be waged at once, before the enemy could gather their forces; others that the Senate should first be consulted. The opinion prevailed which did not put off the day. Setting out from Aquileia, the consul pitched his camp by the lake of Timavus; that lake overhangs the sea. To the same place came Gaius Furius, duumvir-navalis/">duumvir of the fleet, with ten ships. Duumvirs of the fleet had been appointed against the fleet of the Illyrians, to guard with twenty ships the coast of the upper sea, holding Ancona as a hinge: from there Lucius Cornelius was to protect the right-hand shores as far as Tarentum, Gaius Furius the left as far as Aquileia. These ships, with transports and a great store of provisions, were sent to the nearest harbor on the borders of Istria; and the consul, following with the legions, pitched his camp about five miles from the sea. In the harbor a crowded market quickly arose, and from there everything was carried up to the camp. And that this might be done the more safely, outposts were set around on every side of the camp: toward Istria an improvised cohort of Placentia was posted as a standing garrison; between the sea and the camp, and so that the same guard might also protect the water-carriers at the river, Marcus Aebutius, tribune of the soldiers of the legion/">second legion, was ordered to lead two maniples; Titus and Gaius Aelius, tribunes of the soldiers, had led the third legion, to protect the foragers and wood-gatherers, by the road that leads to Aquileia. In the same quarter, about a mile off, was a camp of the Gauls; Catmelus, as chieftain, was in command, with no more than three thousand armed men.

As soon as the Roman camp had been moved to the lake of Timavus, the Histri took post in a hidden place behind a hill, and from there followed the column by oblique paths, intent on every chance; and nothing of what was being done by land and sea escaped them. After they saw that the outposts before the camp were weak, that the market between the camp and the sea was thronged with an unarmed crowd of traders without any defense by land or sea, they attacked at once both garrisons, that of the Placentine cohort and that of the maniples of the legion/">second legion. The morning mist had covered the undertaking; as it dispersed at the first warmth of the sun, the light — now letting something through, yet still uncertain, as it commonly is, and giving to the beholder a manifold and shifting appearance of everything — then too deceived the Romans and showed them an enemy line far larger than it was. Terrified by this, the soldiers of both outposts, when in vast confusion they had fled into the camp, made there far more terror than what they had themselves brought with them. For they could neither say what they had fled from, nor give an answer to those who questioned them; and a shout was heard at the gates, as where there was no outpost to sustain the charge, and the running together in the dark of men falling upon one another had made it doubtful whether the enemy were within the rampart. One cry alone was heard, of men calling "to the sea!"; and that, shouted by chance at random by a single man, rang everywhere through the whole camp. And so at first, as though under orders, a few — some armed, the greater part unarmed — ran down to the sea, then more, at last almost all, and the consul himself, when he had tried in vain to call back the fleeing and at the end had availed nothing, neither by command nor by authority nor by entreaty. One man remained: Marcus Licinius Strabo, tribune of the soldiers of the second legion, left behind with three companies of his legion. Upon him, as he was drawing up and exhorting his men in the headquarters, the Histri, having made a rush into the empty camp with no other armed man going to meet them, fell. The fight was more savage than befitted the fewness of those who resisted, and it was not ended until the tribune and those who had stood about him were killed. The headquarters thrown down and what was in it plundered, the enemy came to the quaestor’s quarters, to the forum, and to the via quintana. There, when they had found a supply of all things ready and laid out, and couches spread in the quaestorium, the chieftain reclined and began to feast. Soon all the rest do the same, forgetful of arms and of enemies; and, as men to whom a more lavish fare was unaccustomed, they load their bodies the more greedily with wine and food.

By no means the same then was the look of things among the Romans: by land and sea there is panic. The sailors strike their tents and snatch into the ships the provisions laid out on the shore; the soldiers in their terror rush into the boats and the sea; the sailors, in fear the vessels be overfilled, some withstand the crowd, others drive the ships from the shore into the deep. From this a struggle arose, and soon even a fight, with wounds and slaughter by turns of soldiers and sailors, until by the consul’s order the fleet was moved far from land. Then he began to separate the unarmed from the armed. Scarcely twelve hundred out of so great a multitude were found who had arms, very few horsemen who had brought their horses out with them; the rest were an unshapely crowd, like sutlers and camp-servants, and a sure prey had the enemy remembered the war. Then at last a messenger was sent to recall the third legion and the Gallic garrison; and at the same time, from all quarters, men began to return to recover the camp and wipe out the disgrace. The tribunes of the third legion order the fodder and the wood to be thrown away; they command the centurions to set the soldiers heavier in years, two each, on the pack-animals from which the loads had been cast off, and the horsemen each to take up one of the younger foot-soldiers with him on his horse: it would be a signal glory for the legion, if it recovered by its own valor the camp lost through the fear of the men of the second. And it would be easy to recover, if the barbarians, busy with plunder, were suddenly overwhelmed: as they had taken it, so it could be taken. With the highest eagerness the soldiers heard the exhortation. They bear the standards at speed, nor do the armed men wait upon the standard-bearers. Yet the consul and the forces being led back from the sea reached the rampart first. Lucius Atius, first tribune of the second legion, not only was exhorting the soldiers but even showing them that, had the victorious Histri meant to keep the camp they had taken by the same arms by which they had taken it, they would first have pursued the enemy, stripped of their camp, down to the sea, and then at the least would have set outposts before the rampart: in all likelihood they lay sunk in wine and sleep. Upon this he ordered Aulus Baeculonius, his standard-bearer, a man of known bravery, to carry the standard forward. He answered that, if they would follow the standard and himself, he would do it the quicker; and, with a great effort, when he had hurled the standard across the rampart, he was the first of all to enter the gate. And on another side Titus and Gaius Aelius, tribunes of the third legion, arrive with the cavalry; and immediately the men whom they had set two by two on the pack-animals followed, and the consul with the whole column. But of the Histri the few who had used wine in moderation had been mindful of flight; for the rest sleep was prolonged into death; and the Romans recovered all their own intact, save what of wine and food had been consumed. The sick soldiers too, who had been left in the camp, when they perceived their own within the rampart, snatched up arms and made a huge slaughter. Conspicuous before all was the work of Gaius Popilius, a horseman whose cognomen was Sabellus; left behind with a wounded foot, he killed by far the most of the enemy. About eight thousand of the Histri were slain, not one taken prisoner, because anger and indignation made them forgetful of plunder. The king of the Histri, however, drunk from the feast, was hastily set upon a horse by his men and fled. Of the victors two hundred and thirty-seven soldiers perished, more in the morning flight than in the recovery of the camp.

It chanced to fall out that Gnaeus and Lucius Gavillius Novellus, men of Aquileia, coming with supplies, all but fell unawares into the camp now taken by the Histri. When these, leaving their baggage behind, had fled back to Aquileia, they filled all places with terror and confusion, not at Aquileia only but at Rome too within a few days; for thither was brought word not only that the camp had been taken by the enemy and that there had been a flight — which were true — but that all was lost and the whole army destroyed. And so, as commonly happens in a panic, extraordinary levies were proclaimed, not in the city only but throughout all Italy. Two legions of Roman citizens were enrolled, and ten thousand foot with five hundred horse were levied from the allies of the Latin name. Marcus Junius the consul was ordered to cross into Gaul and to exact from the states of his province as many soldiers as each could furnish. At the same time it was decreed that Tiberius Claudius the praetor should give notice to the soldiers of the fourth legion, and to five thousand of the allies of the Latin name and two hundred and fifty horse, to assemble at Pisae, and should guard that province while the consul was away from it; and that Marcus Titinius the praetor should order the first legion, with an equal number of allied foot and horse, to assemble at Ariminum. Nero set out in his general’s cloak for his province at Pisae; Titinius, having sent Gaius Cassius, tribune of the soldiers, to Ariminum to command the legion, held the levy at Rome. Marcus Junius the consul, crossing from Liguria into the province of Gaul, after at once levying auxiliaries through the states of Gaul and soldiers from the colonies, came to Aquileia. There, being informed that the army was safe, he wrote to Rome that they should not be in a panic; and, himself dismissing the auxiliaries he had levied from the Gauls, set out to his colleague. At Rome there was great and unlooked-for joy; the levy was abandoned, those who had taken the military oath were discharged, and the army which at Ariminum had been afflicted with pestilence was sent home. The Histri, who with great forces had their camp not far from the consul’s, after they heard that the other consul had arrived with a fresh army, slipped away in all directions to their cities; and the consuls led the legions back into winter quarters at Aquileia.

The Histrian alarm at last allayed, a decree of the Senate was passed that the consuls should arrange between themselves which of the two should return to Rome to hold the elections. When the plebs/">tribunes of the plebs Licinius Nerva and Gaius Papirius Turdus were tearing at the absent Manlius in their public meetings, and were promulgating a bill that Manlius should not retain his command beyond the Ides of March — for the provinces had already been prorogued to the consuls for the year — so that, once he had laid down his magistracy, he might be made to plead his cause at once, to this bill his colleague Quintus Aelius interposed his veto, and by great struggles obtained that it should not be carried through.

During those days Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Lucius Postumius Albinus, having returned from Spain to Rome, were granted audience of the Senate by Marcus Titinius the praetor in the temple of Bellona, to set forth the things they had done, and to ask that the honor they had earned be paid to the immortal gods.

At the same time it was learned, from a letter of Titus Aebutius the praetor which his son had brought to the Senate, that in Sardinia too there was a great rising. The Ilienses, with the auxiliaries of the Balari joined to them, had invaded the pacified province, and they could not be resisted with a feeble army, a great part of it carried off by pestilence. The envoys of the Sardinians reported the same, begging that the Senate would bring aid at least to the cities — for the fields, they said, were already given up for lost. This embassy, and the whole matter that touched Sardinia, was referred to the new magistrates.

Equally pitiable was the embassy of the Lycians, who complained of the cruelty of the Rhodians, to whom they had been assigned by Lucius Cornelius Scipio. They had been, they said, under the dominion of Antiochus; yet that royal servitude, set beside their present condition, had seemed a glorious liberty. Not in their public capacity only were they crushed by command, but each man as an individual suffered a downright slavery. Their very wives and children were maltreated; cruelty was vented upon their bodies, upon their backs; their good name — a thing past bearing — was stained and dishonored, and hateful deeds were done openly, for the very purpose of asserting a right over them, that they might hold it beyond doubt that there was no difference between themselves and chattels bought for silver. Moved by these things, the Senate gave the Lycians a letter to carry to the Rhodians: that it was not their pleasure that Lycians should be given into slavery to Rhodians, or any men born free to anyone whatsoever; that the Lycians were under the command and at the same time under the protection of the Rhodians on such terms as allied states are under the dominion of the Roman people.

Then two triumphs from Spain were celebrated, one after the other. First Sempronius Gracchus triumphed over the Celtiberians and their allies; on the next day Lucius Postumius over the Lusitanians and the other Spaniards of the same region. Tiberius Gracchus carried in procession forty thousand pounds of silver, Albinus twenty thousand. To the soldiers they both distributed twenty-five denarii apiece, double to the centurion, triple to the horseman, and to the allies as much as to the Romans.

About the same days, by chance, Marcus Junius the consul came from Histria to Rome for the elections. When the plebs/">tribunes of the plebs Papirius and Licinius had wearied him in the Senate with questions about what had been done in Histria, they brought him out before a public meeting too. To this, when the consul answered that he had been not more than eleven days in that province, and that of what had been done in his absence he, like them, had knowledge only by report, they went on to ask further why it was not rather Aulus Manlius who had come to Rome to render account to the Roman people; why he had crossed from the province of Gaul, which he had drawn by lot, into Histria; when had the Senate decreed that war, when had the Roman people ordered it? But — by Hercules — granted the war had been undertaken on private initiative, yet it had been waged prudently and bravely. Nay, whether it had been the more wickedly undertaken or the more rashly waged could not be told. Two outposts had been surprised and overwhelmed by the Histri, a Roman camp taken, what foot and horse had been in the camp cut down; the rest, unarmed and routed — before all the consul himself — had fled to the sea and the ships. As a private man he should render account of these things, since as consul he had refused.

The elections were then held. Created consuls were Gaius Claudius Pulcher and Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. And on the next day the praetors were made: Publius Aelius Tubero a second time, Gaius Quinctius Flamininus, Gaius Numisius, Lucius Mummius, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio, Gaius Valerius Laevinus. To Tubero fell the urban jurisdiction, to Quinctius the foreign; to Numisius Sicily, to Mummius Sardinia — but that, on account of the magnitude of the war, was made a consular province. [Gracchus draws it by lot, Claudius Histria.] Scipio and Laevinus drew by lot Gaul, divided into two provinces. On the Ides of March, the day on which Sempronius and Claudius entered upon the consulship, there was mention only of the provinces of Sardinia and Histria, and of the enemies of each who had stirred up war in those provinces. On the next day the envoys of the Sardinians, who had been deferred to the new magistrates, and Lucius Minucius Thermus, who had been a legate of the consul Manlius in Histria, came into the Senate. By these the Senate was informed how great a war those provinces held.

The Senate was moved too by the embassies of the allies of the Latin name, which had wearied both the censors and the former consuls, and were at last brought into the Senate. The sum of their complaints was that their citizens, registered at home, had for the most part migrated to Rome; and that, if this were permitted, in a very few lustra it would come about that the deserted towns and deserted fields could furnish no soldier. The Samnites and Paeligni complained too that four thousand households had passed over from them to Fregellae, and that neither these nor those gave the fewer in the levy on that account. Two kinds of fraud, moreover, in changing citizenship man by man, had been brought in. A law granted to the allies and the Latin name, who should leave offspring of their own at home, that they might become Roman citizens. By an evil use of that law some wronged the allies, others the Roman people. For, to avoid leaving offspring at home, they handed over their children by mancipium to any Romans whatever, on the condition that they should be manumitted, and being freedmen these became citizens; and those to whom offspring was wanting which they might leave, became Roman citizens all the same. Afterward, these very semblances of law being scorned, indiscriminately, without law and without offspring, they passed over into Roman citizenship by migration and the census. To prevent these things being done thereafter, the envoys begged, and that they should order the allies to return to their states; and then, that they should provide by law that no man might make another his own, or alienate him, for the sake of changing citizenship, and that if any had so been made a Roman citizen, he should not be a citizen. These things were obtained from the Senate.

Then the provinces that were at war, Sardinia and Histria, were decreed to the consuls. For Sardinia two legions were ordered to be enrolled, each of five thousand two hundred foot and three hundred horse, and twelve thousand foot of the allies and the Latin name and six hundred horse, and ten quinquereme ships, if he should wish to bring them down from the docks. As many foot and horse were decreed for Histria as for Sardinia. And the consuls were ordered to send one legion with three hundred horse, and five thousand foot of the allies and two hundred and fifty horse, into Spain to Marcus Titinius. Before the consuls drew their provinces by lot, prodigies were announced: that a stone had fallen from the sky in the territory of Crustumerium into the grove of Mars; that in the Roman territory a boy had been born with a maimed body, and a four-footed snake been seen; that at Capua many buildings in the forum had been struck from heaven; and that at Puteoli two ships had been burned up by a stroke of lightning. Amid these reports a wolf too, in broad day, roaming into Rome, when it had entered by the Colline gate, escaped through the Esquiline amid a great uproar of pursuers. On account of these prodigies the consuls sacrificed full-grown victims, and for one day there was a supplication at all the sacred couches. The sacrifices duly performed, they drew their provinces by lot: to Claudius fell Histria, to Sempronius Sardinia.

Then Gaius Claudius, pursuant to a decree of the Senate, carried a law concerning the allies, and proclaimed by edict that whoever of the allies and the Latin name — themselves or their forebears — had been registered among the allies of the Latin name in the censorship of Marcus Claudius and Titus Quinctius, or since that time, should all return, each to his own state, before the Kalends of November. The inquiry into those who did not so return was assigned to Lucius Mummius the praetor. To the law and the consul’s edict a decree of the Senate was added: that whatever dictator, consul, interrex, censor, or praetor then was or should thereafter be, before whomever of these a man was being manumitted and claimed into liberty, the man who manumitted him should give his oath that he was not manumitting him for the sake of changing his citizenship; and that in any case in which he did not so swear, they ruled the man was not to be manumitted. These things were guarded against for the future; and by the edict of the consul Gaius Claudius the inquiry was decreed to Claudius.

While these things were being done at Rome, Marcus Junius and Aulus Manlius, who had been consuls the year before, having wintered at Aquileia, at the beginning of spring led their army into the borders of the Histri; and when they were ravaging far and wide, it was grief and indignation, rather than any sure hope that they had strength enough against two armies, that roused the Histri, seeing their goods plundered. A levy of their young men gathered from all the peoples, and a sudden and disorderly army fought more keenly in the first onset than perseveringly. About four thousand of them were slain in the line; the rest, abandoning the war, scattered in flight to their cities. Thence they sent envoys, first to the Roman camp to sue for peace, then the hostages that were demanded. When these things were learned at Rome from the letters of the proconsuls, Gaius Claudius the consul, fearing this might perchance take from him his province and army, with no vows pronounced, no lictors in the general’s cloak, with only his colleague informed, set out by night and went headlong into his province — where he behaved more rashly than he had come. For when, an assembly being called, he had flung in the soldiers’ teeth — disagreeable to their ears, since they themselves had been the first to flee — the flight from the camp of Aulus Manlius, and had heaped reproaches on Marcus Junius for making himself the partner of his colleague’s disgrace, at the last he ordered both to quit the province. When they answered that they would obey the consul’s command once he had set out from the city in the fashion of the ancestors — his vows pronounced on the Capitol, his lictors in the cloak — raging with anger he called for the man who was Manlius’s proquaestor and demanded chains, threatening to send Junius and Manlius to Rome in bonds. By him too the consul’s command was spurned; and the army, thronging round, favoring its commanders’ cause and hostile to the consul, gave them spirit to disobey. At last the consul, worn out both by the affronts of individuals and by the mockery of the crowd — for they jeered at him besides — returned in the same ship he had come in to Aquileia. Thence he wrote to his colleague to give notice to that part of the new soldiers enrolled for the province of Histria to assemble at Aquileia, so that nothing might hold him at Rome from setting out from the city in his cloak with vows pronounced. This his colleague did obligingly, and a short day was named for assembling. Claudius almost overtook his own letters. An assembly being held on his arrival about Manlius and Junius, he delayed not beyond three days at Rome, and, his lictors in the cloak and his vows pronounced on the Capitol, set out for his province with the same headlong speed as before. A few days earlier Junius and Manlius had begun to assault with the utmost force the town of Nesactium, whither the chiefs of the Histri and the king himself, Aepulo, had withdrawn. Thither Claudius, bringing up two new legions and dismissing the old army with its own leaders, himself invested the town and set about assaulting it with mantlets; and the river that flowed past the walls — which both hindered the assailants and supplied the Histri with water — he diverted from its course into a new channel by the work of many days. That thing terrified the barbarians as a marvel, by the cutting-off of the water; and not even then mindful of peace, they turned to the slaughter of their wives and children, and — that the foul deed might even be a spectacle to the enemy — butchered them openly upon the walls and flung them down. Amid at once the wailing of women and children and the unspeakable slaughter, the soldiers crossed the wall and entered the town. When the king learned of its capture from the panic-stricken shouting of the fleeing, he ran himself through the breast with a sword, that he might not be taken alive; the rest were either captured or killed. Then two towns, Mutila and Faveria, were taken by storm and destroyed. The booty, considering the poverty of the nation, was greater than the hope of it, and all of it was given over to the soldiers. Five thousand six hundred and thirty-two persons were sold under the crown. The authors of the war were beaten with rods and beheaded. All Histria was pacified by the destruction of three towns and the death of the king, and the peoples on every side, having given hostages, came under Roman dominion.

Toward the end of the Histrian war, among the Ligurians councils began to be held about war. Tiberius Claudius the proconsul, who had been praetor the year before, was in command at Pisae with a garrison of one legion. Informed by his letter, the Senate resolved that those very letters be carried to Gaius Claudius — for the other consul had already crossed into Sardinia — and added a decree that, since the province of Histria was finished, he should, if he saw fit, lead his army across into Liguria. At the same time, from the consul’s own letter on the things done in Histria, a supplication for two days was decreed. And by the other consul, Tiberius Sempronius, the campaign in Sardinia was prosperously waged. He led his army into the territory of the Ilian Sardinians. Great auxiliaries of the Balari had come to the Ilienses; with both peoples he joined battle in pitched line. The enemy were routed, put to flight, and stripped of their camp; twelve thousand armed men were slain. On the next day the consul ordered the arms gathered and thrown into a heap, and burned them, a sacrifice to Vulcan. He led his victorious army back into winter quarters among the allied cities. And Gaius Claudius, having received the letter of Tiberius Claudius and the decree of the Senate, led his legions from Histria over into Liguria. The enemy had advanced into the plains and had their camp at the river Scultenna. There a pitched battle was fought with them. Fifteen thousand were slain, more than seven hundred taken either in the battle or in the camp — for that too was stormed — and fifty-one military standards captured. The Ligurians, the remnant of the slaughter, fled in scattered bands into the mountains; and to the consul, as he ravaged the fields of the plain, no arms appeared anywhere. Claudius, victor over two nations in one year, having subdued and pacified two provinces in his consulship — which rarely another had done — returned to Rome.

Prodigies were reported that year: in the territory of Crustumerium a bird called the sanqualis had broken a sacred stone with its beak; in Campania an ox had spoken; at Syracuse a bronze cow had been mounted by a wild bull which had strayed from the herd, and besprinkled with seed. In the territory of Crustumerium there was a supplication of one day on the very spot; in Campania the ox was given to be fed at public charge; and the Syracusan prodigy was expiated, the gods to whom supplication should be made being named by the haruspices.

That year the pontifex Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had been consul and censor, died. In his place his son Marcus Marcellus was substituted as pontifex. And in the same year two thousand Roman citizens were settled as a colony at Luna. The triumvirs who conducted the settlement were Publius Aelius, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Gnaeus Sicinius; fifty-one and a half iugera of land were given to each man. The land had been taken from the Ligurians; before the Ligurians it had been the Etruscans’.

Gaius Claudius the consul came to the city; and when in the Senate he had reported on the things prosperously done in Histria and among the Ligurians, on his request a triumph was decreed him, and he triumphed in his magistracy over two nations at once. He carried in that triumph three hundred and seven thousand denarii and eighty-five thousand seven hundred and two victoriati. To the soldiers fifteen denarii apiece were given, double to the centurion, triple to the horseman. To the allies half as much was given as to the citizens; and so they followed the chariot in silence, that you might perceive them angry.

While that triumph over the Ligurians was being celebrated, the Ligurians, after they perceived that not only had the consular army been led off to Rome, but the legion at Pisae had been dismissed by Tiberius Claudius, freed from fear, with their army secretly raised, by cross-paths over the mountains, descended into the plains, ravaged the territory of Mutina, and by a sudden onset took the colony itself. When this was brought to Rome, the Senate ordered Gaius Claudius the consul to hold the elections at the earliest possible time, and, the magistrates for the year being created, to return to his province and snatch the colony from the enemy. So, as the Senate resolved, the elections were held. Created consuls were Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Hispallus and Quintus Petilius Spurinus. Then praetors were made: Marcus Popilius Laenas, Publius Licinius Crassus, Marcus Cornelius Scipio, Lucius Papirius Maso, Marcus Aburius, Lucius Aquilius Gallus. To Gaius Claudius the consul the command was prorogued for a year, with the province of Gaul; and, that the Histri should not do the same as the Ligurians, he was to send into Histria the allies of the Latin name whom he had led off from the province for his triumph.

In the consulship of Gnaeus Cornelius and Quintus Petilius, on the day they entered upon their magistracy, as they were sacrificing each an ox to Jupiter, as is the custom, in the victim with which Quintus Petilius sacrificed no head was found in the liver. When he had reported this to the Senate, he was ordered to go on sacrificing oxen until he obtained favorable omens. The Senate, then consulted about the provinces, decreed Pisae and Liguria as the consuls’ provinces; the one to whom the province of Pisae should fall was ordered, when the time came for creating magistrates, to return for the elections. It was added to the decree that they should enroll two new legions apiece and three hundred horse, and levy upon the allies and the Latin name ten thousand foot and six hundred horse. To Tiberius Claudius the command was prorogued to the time when the consul should come into the province.

While these matters were being dealt with in the Senate, Gnaeus Cornelius, called out by an usher, when he had gone forth from the temple, a little after returned with troubled countenance and set forth to the conscript fathers that the liver of a six-month ox he had sacrificed had melted away. When he gave the news to the victimarius and the man believed it but little, Cornelius himself had ordered the water poured out of the pot in which the entrails were boiling, and had seen the rest of the entrails whole, but the liver wholly consumed by some indescribable wasting. While the fathers were terrified at this prodigy, the other consul added to their alarm, declaring that he had failed to obtain favorable omens with three oxen, because the head had been wanting in the liver. The Senate ordered sacrifice to be made with full-grown victims until favorable omens were obtained. With the other gods, they say, the omens were favorable; to Salus, they say, Petilius failed to obtain them. Then the consuls and praetors drew their provinces by lot. Pisae fell to Gnaeus Cornelius, Liguria to Petilius. Of the praetors, Lucius Papirius Maso drew the urban jurisdiction, Marcus Aburius that between foreigners. Marcus Cornelius Scipio Maluginensis got Farther Spain, Lucius Aquilius Gallus Sicily. Two begged off going to their provinces: Marcus Popilius from Sardinia — Gracchus, he said, was pacifying that province, and Titus Aebutius the praetor had been given him by the Senate as a helper; it was by no means fitting that the tenor of affairs, in the carrying-through of which continuity itself is most effective, should be broken; between the handing-over of a command and the newness of a successor, who must first be steeped in learning his business before doing it, occasions for successful action often slip away. Popilius’s excuse was approved. Publius Licinius Crassus pleaded that he was hindered by solemn sacrifices from going to his province. Hither Spain had fallen to him; but he was ordered either to go, or to swear before the assembly that he was prevented by a solemn sacrifice. When it had been so determined in the case of Publius Licinius, Marcus Cornelius too demanded that they accept his oath, that he need not go into Farther Spain. Both praetors swore in the same words. Marcus Titinius and Titus Fonteius, proconsuls, were ordered to remain in Spain with the same right of command; and that for their reinforcement three thousand Roman citizens with two hundred horse, and five thousand foot of the allies of the Latin name and three hundred horse, should be sent.

The Latin Festival was held on the third day before the Nones of May; in which, because at one victim the Lanuvine magistrate had not made the prayer "for the Roman people of the Quirites," there was a scruple. When this had been referred to the Senate, and the Senate had referred it to the college of pontiffs, and the pontiffs had ruled that the Latin Festival had not been rightly performed, the Festival was held anew, and it was their pleasure that the Lanuvines, by whose fault it was held anew, should furnish the victims. There had been added to the scruple this too, that Gnaeus Cornelius the consul, returning from the Alban Mount, had fallen and been disabled in part of his limbs; and, having set out for the Waters of Cumae, as the disease grew heavier died at Cumae. From there he was brought dead to Rome, borne forth in a magnificent funeral, and buried. He had been a pontifex too. Quintus Petilius the consul was ordered, as soon as he might by the auspices, to hold an assembly for substituting a colleague, and to proclaim the Latin Festival. He proclaimed the assembly for the third day before the Nones of Sextilis, the Latin Festival for the third day before the Ides of Sextilis. With men’s minds full of religious dread, prodigies were reported besides: that at Tusculum a torch had been seen in the sky; that at Gabii the temple of Apollo and several private buildings, and at Graviscae the wall and a gate, had been struck from heaven. These the fathers ordered to be expiated, as the pontiffs should advise.

While the consuls are hindered, first by religious scruples, then by the death of the one and by the elections and the renewal of the Latin Festival, meanwhile Gaius Claudius moved his army to Mutina, which the Ligurians had taken the year before. Within three days of beginning the assault, he recovered it from the enemy and restored it to the colonists. Eight thousand of the Ligurians were there slain within the walls; and letters were at once written to Rome, in which he not only set forth the matter but even boasted that by his own valor and good fortune there was now no enemy of the Roman people this side of the Alps, and that a good deal of land had been taken, which could be divided man by man among many thousands of men.

And Tiberius Sempronius at the same time, by many successful battles in Sardinia, subdued the Sardinians. Fifteen thousand of the enemy were slain; all the peoples of the Sardinians who had revolted were brought back under dominion. Upon the old tributaries a double tax was imposed and exacted; the rest contributed grain. The province pacified, and two hundred and thirty hostages received from the whole island, envoys were sent to Rome to report these things, and to ask of the Senate that, for the matters prosperously achieved under the leadership and auspices of Tiberius Sempronius, honor be paid to the immortal gods, and that he himself, on quitting the province, be allowed to bring his army home with him. The Senate, the envoys’ words heard in the temple of Apollo, decreed a supplication for two days, ordered the consuls to sacrifice with forty full-grown victims, and Tiberius Sempronius the proconsul, with his army, to remain that year in the province.

The assembly then for substituting one consul, which had been proclaimed for the third day before the Nones of Sextilis, was completed on that very day. Quintus Petilius the consul created as a colleague, to enter at once upon the magistracy, Gaius Valerius Laevinus. He himself, long since eager for a province, when a letter opportune to his desire was brought him that the Ligurians had rebelled, on the Nones of Sextilis in his general’s cloak — the Senate’s letter heard — ordered, on account of that rising, the third legion to set out to Gaius Claudius the proconsul in Gaul, and the duumvirs of the fleet to go with the fleet to Pisae, to sail round the Ligurian coast and bring terror by sea as well. To the same Pisae Quintus Petilius the consul had appointed a day for the army to assemble. And Gaius Claudius the proconsul, hearing of the Ligurian rebellion, besides the forces he had with him at Parma, with hastily collected soldiers moved his army to the borders of the Ligurians.

The enemy, at the coming of Gaius Claudius — the leader by whom they remembered they had lately been beaten and routed at the river Scultenna — meaning to defend themselves by the protection of the ground rather than by arms against a force they had tried unhappily, seized two mountains, Letum and Ballista, and girt them about with a wall besides. Slower to remove from the fields, about fifteen hundred were overwhelmed and perished; the rest held to the mountains, and, not even in their fear forgetful of their inbred ferocity, vented their savagery upon the spoil that had been won at Mutina. The captives they put to death with foul mangling; the cattle they butchered in the shrines, more truly slaughtering them everywhere than sacrificing in due form. Sated with the killing of living things, they dash against the walls what was lifeless — vessels of every kind, made for use rather than for show. Quintus Petilius the consul, that the war might not be finished in his absence, sent a letter to Gaius Claudius to come to him in Gaul with his army: he would await him at the Macri Campi. On receiving the letter Claudius moved his camp from the Ligurians and handed the army over to the consul at the Macri Campi. To the same place, a few days later, came Gaius Valerius the other consul. There, dividing the forces, before they parted both armies together performed the lustration. Then they drew lots — since it was not their pleasure that each should attack the enemy from the same quarter — for the regions they should make for. It was agreed that Valerius drew his lot duly under auspices, because he had been within the templum; in Petilius’s case a fault was afterward declared by the augurs to have been committed, because, while he himself was outside the templum, the lot was carried into the templum in a basket, whereas it was he himself who ought to have been outside. They set out thence into different regions. Petilius pitched his camp over against the ridge of Ballista and Letum, which joins those mountains to each other in a continuous spine. There, as he was exhorting his soldiers before an assembly, forgetful of the word’s ambiguity, he ominously declared that he would take Letum — "Death" — that day. In two parts at once he began to climb the mountains over against him. The part in which he himself was advanced briskly; when the enemy had repulsed the other, the consul, to restore the failing fortune, rode up on his horse and recalled his men from flight, but himself, while he ranged too incautiously before the standards, was struck through by a missile and fell. Neither did the enemy perceive the leader slain, and the few of his own who had seen it — not carelessly, as men who knew that on this the victory turned — hid the body. The rest of the multitude of foot and horse, the enemy dislodged, took the mountains without a leader. About five thousand Ligurians were slain; of the Roman army fifty-two fell. Over and above so plain a fulfillment of the gloomy omen, it was heard too from the keeper of the sacred chickens that there had been a fault in the auspices, and that the consul had not been ignorant of it. Gaius Valerius — when those skilled in religion and public law declared that, since the two ordinary consuls of that year had perished, one by disease, the other by the sword, a substituted consul could not rightly hold the elections…

…settled them. On this side of the Apennines had been the Garuli, the Lapicini, and the Hergates; beyond the Apennines, the Briniates. Within the river Audena, Publius Mucius waged war with those who had ravaged Luna and Pisae, and, all being reduced under dominion, took away their arms. For these things done in Gaul and among the Ligurians under the leadership and auspices of the two consuls, the Senate decreed supplications for three days and ordered sacrifice with forty victims.

And the Gallic and Ligurian rising, indeed, which had arisen at the beginning of that year, had been put down in a short time without great effort; but already the care of the Macedonian war was coming on, since Perseus was stirring up contests between the Dardanians and the Bastarnae. And the envoys who had been sent into Macedonia to look into affairs had now returned to Rome and reported that there was war in Dardania. At the same time spokesmen had come too from King Perseus, to plead that the Bastarnae had neither been summoned by him nor done anything on his authority. The Senate neither freed the king of that fault nor charged him with it; it ordered only that he be warned to take care, again and again, to hold sacred the treaty which he could be seen to have with the Romans. The Dardanians, when they perceived that the Bastarnae not only did not — as they had hoped — withdraw from their borders, but grew heavier day by day, supported by the auxiliaries of the neighboring Thracians and the Scordisci, judging that something must be ventured even rashly, all gathered in arms from every side at the town nearest to the camp of the Bastarnae. It was winter, and they had chosen that season of the year so that the Thracians and Scordisci might go off into their own borders. When this was so done, and they heard that the Bastarnae were now alone, they divide their forces in two: one part to go by the direct road to provoke the enemy in the open, the other, led round by a trackless ravine, to attack from the rear. But before they could get round the enemy’s camp, battle was joined; and the Dardanians, beaten, were driven into the city, which was about twelve miles from the camp of the Bastarnae. The victors, following at once, beset the city, in no doubt that on the next day the enemy would either surrender for fear or be stormed by force. Meanwhile the other band of the Dardanians, which had been led round, ignorant of their countrymen’s disaster, [fell upon] the camp of the Bastarnae, left without a guard…

…in the customary manner, with his ivory chair set up, he gave judgment and arbitrated controversies of the most trivial matters. And his mind clung to no one estate, wandering through every kind of life, so that neither to himself nor to others was it clear enough what manner of man he was. He would not address his friends; to those he scarcely knew he would smile familiarly; with unequal munificence he made sport of himself and others; to certain men honored and esteeming themselves highly he gave childish gifts, of sweetmeats or playthings; others, who expected nothing, he made rich. And so to some he seemed not to know what he wanted; some said he was simply playing, some said that beyond doubt he was mad. Yet in two great and honorable matters his spirit was truly kingly — in gifts to cities and in the worship of the gods. To the Megalopolitans in Arcadia he promised to throw a wall about their city, and gave the greater part of the money; at Tegea he set about making a magnificent theater of marble; at Cyzicus, in the Prytaneum — that is, the inner shrine of the city, where those to whom that honor is given dine at public charge — he placed vessels of gold for one table. To the Rhodians, though no single conspicuous gift, yet gifts of every kind, as each of their needs required, he gave. But of his magnificence toward the gods even the temple of Olympian Jupiter at Athens — the one begun on earth to match the greatness of the god — can be a witness; and he adorned Delos too with notable altars and a wealth of statues, and at Antioch a magnificent temple of Capitoline Jupiter, paneled not only with gold but gilded over all its walls with plating; and many other things in other places he promised, but, because the time of his reign was very brief, did not finish. In the magnificence of spectacles too of every kind he surpassed the kings before him, in the rest after his own usage and with abundance of Greek artists; a gladiatorial show after the Roman fashion he gave at first with greater terror to men unused to such a spectacle than pleasure; then, by giving it more often — now only to wounds, now even without quarter — he made the spectacle familiar to the eyes and welcome, and kindled in most of the young men a zeal for arms. And so, he who at first had been wont to send to Rome for gladiators procured at great prices, now from his own…

…Scipio among the foreigners. To Marcus Atilius the praetor the province of Sardinia had fallen; but he was ordered to cross over into Corsica with a new legion, which the consuls had enrolled, of five thousand foot and three hundred horse. While he should wage war there, the command was prorogued to Cornelius, to hold Sardinia. To Gnaeus Servilius Caepio for Farther Spain, and to Publius Furius Philus for Hither, three thousand Roman foot, one hundred and fifty horse, and five thousand foot of the allies of the Latin name and three hundred horse; Sicily was decreed to Lucius Claudius without reinforcement. The consuls were ordered besides to enroll two legions with the just number of foot and horse, and to levy upon the allies ten thousand foot and six hundred horse. The levy was the harder for the consuls because the pestilence which the year before had fallen upon the cattle had that year turned into diseases among men. Those who fell sick scarcely outlived the seventh day; those who outlived it were caught in a long illness, especially the quartan fever. The slaves chiefly died; of these there was a heap of unburied along all the roads. Libitina did not suffice even for the funerals of the freeborn. The corpses, untouched by dogs and vultures, a wasting consumed; and it was agreed well enough that neither that year nor the year before, in so great a destruction of cattle and men, had a vulture anywhere been seen. There died in that pestilence these public priests: Gnaeus Servilius Caepio the pontifex, father of the praetor; Tiberius Sempronius Longus, son of Tiberius, decemvir-sacris-faciundis/">decemvir of the sacred rites; Publius Aelius Paetus the augur; Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus; Gaius Atellus Mamilius the curio maximus; and Marcus Sempronius Tuditanus the pontifex. As pontiffs were substituted Gaius Sulpicius Galba in the place of Caepio, and another in the place of Tuditanus. As augurs were substituted, in the place of Gracchus, Titus Veturius Gracchus Sempronianus, and in the place of Publius Aelius, Quintus Aelius Paetus. As decemvir of the sacred rites, Gaius Sempronius Longus; as curio maximus, Gaius Scribonius Curio, is substituted. When there was no end of the pestilence, the Senate decreed that the decemvirs should consult the Sibylline books. By their decree there was a supplication of one day, and, Quintus Marcius Philippus dictating the words before them, the people in the forum took a vow that, if the sickness and pestilence were removed from Roman soil, they would hold a two-day festival and supplication. In the territory of Veii a two-headed boy was born, and at Sinuessa one with one hand, and at Auximum a girl with teeth; and a rainbow, in the clear daylight under a serene sky, was stretched over the temple of Saturn in the Roman forum; and three suns shone forth at once; and the same night several torches glided through the sky; and the people of Lanuvium and of Caere affirmed that a crested snake, sprinkled with golden spots, had appeared in their town; and it was agreed well enough that in the Campanian territory an ox had spoken.

On the Nones of June the envoys returned from Africa, who, having first met King Masinissa, had gone to Carthage; but they had learned somewhat more certainly from the king what had been done at Carthage than from the Carthaginians themselves. Yet they affirmed it ascertained that envoys had come from King Perseus, and that an audience of the Senate had been given them by night in the temple of Aesculapius. That envoys had been sent from Carthage into Macedonia both the king had affirmed and the Carthaginians themselves had denied none too steadfastly. The Senate resolved that envoys should be sent into Macedonia too. Three were sent: Gaius Laelius, Marcus Valerius Messala, Sextus Digitius.

Perseus during that time, because certain of the Dolopians would not obey and were recalling from the king to the Romans the arbitration of the matters in dispute, set out with his army and forced the whole nation under his own jurisdiction and judgment. Thence, crossing over through the Oetaean mountains, certain religious scruples being cast upon his mind, he went up to Delphi to consult the oracle. When he had appeared suddenly in the midst of Greece, he gave great terror not only to the neighboring cities, but alarming messages were sent into Asia too, to King Eumenes. No more than three days he tarried at Delphi, and through Phthiotic Achaia and Thessaly returned into his kingdom without loss or injury to any of those through whose lands he made his way. Nor was he content to win the goodwill only of those states through which he was to pass; he sent off either envoys or letters, asking that they remember no longer the quarrels which had been with his father — for these had not been so atrocious that they could not and ought not to be ended with himself; with him at least all things were untouched, for the faithful establishing of friendship; and with the nation of the Achaeans especially he sought a way of recovering favor.

This one nation out of all Greece, and the state of the Athenians, had gone so far in anger as to forbid the Macedonians their borders. And so Macedonia was a refuge for the slaves fleeing from Achaia, because, since they had forbidden them their own borders, they did not themselves dare to enter the bounds of the kingdom. When Perseus had marked this, having seized all… a letter… "But that a like flight of slaves should not happen hereafter, they too must consider." When these letters had been read out by Xenarchus the praetor, who was seeking a way to private favor with the king, and most men judged the letter written with moderation and kindness — and they most of all who, beyond their hope, were to recover their lost chattels — Callicrates, one of those who believed that the safety of the nation turned on this, that an inviolate treaty be kept with the Romans, said: "A small or middling matter, Achaeans, seems to some to be in hand; but I judge that the greatest and weightiest of all is not only in hand, but in a manner already done. For we who had forbidden their borders to the kings of the Macedonians and to the Macedonians themselves — and that decree stands, namely that we should admit neither envoys nor messengers of kings, by whom the minds of any of us might be tampered with — we now hear the king, as it were, haranguing us in his absence, and, if the gods so please, we approve his speech. And whereas wild beasts for the most part spurn and flee the food set out to entrap them, we, blind, are baited by the show of a small benefit, and, in the hope of recovering slaves of the least price, suffer our own liberty to be undermined and tried. For who does not see that a way to royal alliance is being sought, by which the Roman treaty, in which all our fortunes are bound up, may be violated? Unless this is doubtful to anyone — that the Romans must war with Perseus, and that what was looked for while Philip lived, and was interrupted by his death, will come to pass after Philip’s death. Two sons, as you know, Philip had, Demetrius and Perseus. In maternal birth, in valor, in genius, in the favor of the Macedonians, Demetrius far excelled. But because Philip had set the kingdom as the prize of hatred against the Romans, he killed Demetrius on no other charge than that of friendship entered into with Rome, and made king Perseus, whom he knew would be heir of war with the Roman people almost sooner than heir of the kingdom. And so what has this man done since his father’s death but prepare war? First, to the terror of all, he sent the Bastarnae into Dardania; who, had they held that seat, Greece would have had heavier neighbors than Asia had in the Gauls. Beaten back from that hope, he yet did not lay aside his counsels of war; nay, if we will speak truly, he has already begun the war. Dolopia he subdued by arms, and would not hear those who appealed about their disputes to the arbitration of the Roman people; then, crossing Oeta, that he might suddenly be seen in the very navel of Greece, he went up to Delphi. To what end, do you think, does this usurpation of an unwonted journey look? Then he traversed Thessaly; and because this was without harm to any of those he hated, I fear his probing the more. Then he sent a letter to us with the show of a gift, and bids us consider how, for the time to come, we may not lack this gift — that is, that we should repeal the decree by which the Macedonians are barred from the Peloponnese, that we should see again royal envoys and guest-friendships with our leading men, and soon Macedonian armies, and the king himself crossing over from Delphi — for how broad is the strait between? — into the Peloponnese, and that we should be mingled with the Macedonians as they arm against the Romans. I advise that nothing new be decreed, and that all be kept untouched until it is brought to certainty whether this fear of ours was idle or true. If peace remains inviolate between the Macedonians and the Romans, let us too have friendship and intercourse with him; but now to think of it seems dangerous and untimely."

After him Archo, the brother of Xenarchus the praetor, discoursed thus: "Callicrates has made a hard speech both for me and for all who dissent from him; for, by pleading the cause of the Roman alliance, and saying that it is being probed and assailed — which no one either probes or assails — he has brought it about that whoever dissents from him should seem to speak against the Romans. And, first of all, as though he had not been here among us, but came either from the senate-house of the Roman people, or had been present at the kings’ secret councils, he knows and reports all that has been done in secret. He divines too what would have come to pass had Philip lived, why Perseus is heir of the kingdom, what the Macedonians are preparing, what the Romans intend. But we, who know neither for what cause nor in what manner Demetrius perished, nor what Philip, had he lived, would have done, ought to suit our counsels to these things which are openly done. And we know that Perseus, on receiving the kingdom, was styled king by the Roman people; we hear that Roman envoys came to the king and were kindly received. All these things I judge to be signs of peace, not of war; nor can the Romans be offended if, as we followed them while they waged war, so now too we follow them as authors of peace. Why indeed we alone should wage an implacable war against the kingdom of the Macedonians, I do not see. Are we exposed by the very nearness of Macedonia? Or are we the weakest of all — like the Dolopians, whom he lately subdued? Nay, on the contrary, we are safe, whether by our own strength, the gods being kind, or by the distance of our region. But suppose we were as much subject as the Thessalians and Aetolians: have we no more credit and authority with the Romans — we who have always been allies and friends — than the Aetolians, who a little before were enemies? What right the Aetolians, the Thessalians, the Epirotes, all Greece in short, have with the Macedonians, let the same be ours too. Why is this abhorrent severing of human right ours alone? Granted Philip did something for which we should decree this against him while he was armed and waging war; what has Perseus, a new king, innocent of all wrong, blotting out his father’s quarrels by his own benefaction, deserved, that we alone of all should be his enemies? Although I might say this too — that the deserts of the former kings of Macedonia toward us were so great that the wrongs of Philip alone, if there were any, ought in any case to be forgotten; especially since, after his death, when the Roman fleet stood at Cenchreae and the consul was with his army at Elatea, we were three days in council deliberating whether to follow the Romans or Philip. Let no present fear from the Romans have bent our votes; yet there was certainly something which made so long a deliberation: it was the ancient bond with the Macedonians, the ancient and great deserts of their kings toward us. Let those same things avail now too, not that we should be especially friends, but that we should not be especially enemies. Let us not, Callicrates, pretend that the thing is in hand which is not in hand; no one is the author of writing up a new alliance or a new treaty by which we should rashly entangle ourselves, but let there be only the granting and reclaiming of mutual right, that we may not, by interdicting our borders, bar our own people and ourselves from the kingdom, that our slaves may not be free to flee anywhere. What is there in this against the Roman treaties? Why do we make a small and open matter great and suspect? Why do we stir up idle alarms? Why, that we ourselves may have a place for flattering the Romans, do we make others suspected and hated? If there shall be war, not even Perseus doubts that we shall follow the Romans. In peace, even if hatreds are not ended, let them be intermitted." When the same men who had assented to the king’s letter assented to this speech too, by the indignation of the leading men — that a thing which Perseus had not judged worthy even of an embassy he should obtain by a letter of a few lines — the decree was put off. Envoys, sent afterward by the king, when the council was at Megalopolis, were, by the contrivance of those who feared offense with the Romans, not admitted.

In these times the frenzy of the Aetolians, turned upon themselves, by mutual slaughters seemed likely to bring the nation to extermination. Then, worn out, both parties sent envoys to Rome and treated among themselves about reconciling concord; which a new crime shattered, and stirred up even the old angers. To the Hypataean exiles who were of the faction of Proxenus, when return to their country had been promised, and faith given through Eupolemus, a chief man of the state, eighty notable men — against whose return, among the rest of the multitude, Eupolemus too had come out to meet them — when they had been received with kindly greeting and right hands given, as they were entering the gate were killed, vainly invoking the faith pledged and the gods to witness. Thence a heavier war blazed up anew. Gaius Valerius Laevinus and Appius Claudius Pulcher and Gaius Memmius and Marcus Popilius and Lucius Canuleius had come, sent by the Senate. Before these, when at Delphi the envoys of both parties pleaded with great contention, Proxenus seemed to excel both in his cause and in eloquence; he, a few days after, was carried off by poison by his wife Orthobula, and, condemned of that crime, went into exile. The same frenzy was tearing the Cretans too. Then, at the coming of Quintus Minucius, the legate who had been sent with ten ships to settle their contests, they had come to a hope of peace. But the truce was only of six months; thence a far heavier war blazed up. The Lycians too at the same time were being harried by the Rhodians with war. But to follow out the wars of foreigners among themselves, in what manner each was waged, is not worth the while of one who has burden enough and more in writing the things done by the Roman people.

The Celtiberians in Spain, who, subdued by war, had surrendered to Tiberius Gracchus, had remained at peace while Marcus Titinius the praetor held the province. They rebelled at the coming of Appius Claudius, and began the war with a sudden assault on the Roman camp. It was almost first light when the watchmen on the rampart, and those at the outposts of the gates, having seen the enemy coming from afar, called to arms. Appius Claudius, the signal for battle displayed, having briefly exhorted the soldiers, led them out by three gates at once. As the Celtiberians withstood them at the outlet, the battle was at first equal on both sides, because, by reason of the narrows, not all the Romans could fight in the gateways; then, pressing on, one following another, when they had got out beyond the rampart, so that they could spread their line and be made equal in their wings to the enemy by whom they were being surrounded, they so suddenly broke in that the Celtiberians could not sustain their charge. Before the second hour they were routed; about fifteen thousand were slain or taken, thirty-two standards captured. The camp too was that day stormed and the war finished; for those who survived the battle slipped away to their towns. Then, quiet, they obeyed command.

The censors created that year, Quintus aedile/">Fulvius Flaccus and Aulus Postumius Albinus, chose the Senate; chosen as princeps was Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, pontifex-maximus/">pontifex maximus. From the Senate they expelled nine. Conspicuous were the marks of censure set on Marcus Cornelius Maluginensis, who two years before had been praetor in Spain, and on Lucius Cornelius Scipio the praetor, whose then was the jurisdiction between citizens and foreigners, and on Lucius Fulvius, who was the full brother and, as Valerius Antias records, even the partner in estate of the censor. The consuls, their vows pronounced on the Capitol, set out for their provinces. Of these the Senate gave Marcus Aemilius the task of putting down a sedition of the Patavini in Venetia, who, as their own envoys too had reported, had blazed into intestine war by the strife of factions. The envoys who had gone into Aetolia to put down like commotions reported that the madness of the nation could not be checked. To the Patavini the consul’s coming was their salvation; and, having nothing else to do in the province, he returned to Rome. The censors were the first of all to let out for paving with flint the roads within the city, for under-laying with gravel and embanking those outside the city, and for making bridges in many places; and a stage to be furnished to the aediles and praetors, and starting-stalls in the circus, and eggs for marking the laps of the races, and turning-posts, and iron cages to be brought in, and… at the festival on the Alban Mount for the consuls; and the Capitoline slope to be paved with flint, and a portico from the temple of Saturn to the Capitol and on to the senaculum and above it the curia. And outside the Trigemina gate they paved the emporium with stone and fenced it with posts, and saw to the repairing of the Aemilian portico, and made an ascent by steps from the Tiber into the emporium. And outside the same gate, toward the Aventine, they paved a portico with flint, and made… from the temple of Venus. The same men let out the making of walls at Calatia and Auximum; and, the public places there being sold, the money realized they spent on surrounding both their forums with shops. And one of them, Fulvius Flaccus — for Postumius said he would let out nothing save by order of the Roman Senate or people, and with their money — saw to a temple of Jupiter at Pisaurum, and at Fundi, and to the bringing of water to Potentia too, and the paving of a road with flint at Pisaurum, and at Sinuessa the adding of quarters and an aviary, and sewers among these, and the carrying round of a wall, and the closing of the forum with porticoes and shops, and three archways to be made. These works, let out by the one censor, were with great gratitude of the colonists. In the regulating of morals too the censorship was diligent and severe. From many their horses were taken.

Toward almost the end of the year there was a supplication of one day on account of the things prosperously done in Spain under the leadership and auspices of Appius Claudius the proconsul; and sacrifice was made with twenty full-grown victims. And there was a supplication of another day at the temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera, because a huge earthquake, with the ruin of many buildings, had been reported from the Sabines. When Appius Claudius had returned from Spain to Rome, the Senate decreed that he should enter the city in ovation. Now the consular elections were drawing near; and, these being held with great contention by reason of the multitude of candidates, there were created Lucius Postumius Albinus and Marcus Popilius Laenas. Then praetors were made: Numerius Fabius Buteo, Marcus Matienus, Gaius Cicereius, Marcus Furius Crassipes a second time, Aulus Atilius Serranus a second time, Gaius Cluvius Saxula a second time. The elections completed, Appius Claudius Cento, entering the city in ovation over the Celtiberians, carried into the treasury ten thousand pounds of silver and five thousand of gold. As flamen Dialis was inaugurated Gnaeus Cornelius.

In the same year a tablet was set up in the temple of Mater Matuta with this inscription: "Under the command and auspices of the consul Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus the legion and army of the Roman people subdued Sardinia. In that province above eighty thousand of the enemy were slain or taken. The commonwealth most happily administered, and the allies set free, the revenues restored, he brought back his army safe and sound and most full of booty; a second time triumphing he returned to the city of Rome. On which account he gave this tablet as a gift to Jupiter." There was a figure of the island of Sardinia, and on it the images of the battles painted.

Some gladiatorial shows were given that year, others of them small; one before the rest was notable, that of Titus Flamininus, which, on account of the death of his father, he gave for four days, with a distribution of meat and a banquet and stage-plays. Yet the sum of that great show was that over three days seventy-four men fought.