The History of Rome, Books 37 to the End with the Epitomes and Fragments of the Lost Books. Livy

because they knew that nothing would disgust the people so much; but now, the vanguard of almost their whole army was composed of them. When the Lacedæmonians came to the gate of the camp, these men met them in a body, and, first, began to provoke them with insulting language; a wrangle then ensuing, and their passions being inflamed, the most furious of the exiles made an attack on the Lacedæmonians. While these appealed to the gods, and the faith of the ambassadors; and while the ambassadors and the prætor were driving back the crowd, and protecting the Lacedæmonians, and were keeping back some who were already binding them in chains—the multitude was increasing, owing to a tumult having been excited. The Achæans, at first, ran thither to view the spectacle; but then the exiles, with loud clamours, complained of the sufferings that they had undergone, implored assistance, and at the same time insisted, that they would never have such an opportunity if they neglected this; that the treaties, solemnly ratified in the Capitol, at Olympia, and in the citadel of Athens, had been rendered void by these men; and that before they should be bound by a new treaty, the guilty ought to be punished. The multitude being inflamed by these expressions, at the voice of one who called out that they should fall on, attacked them with stones; and seventeen persons, who, during the disturbance, had been put in chains, were killed. The next day, sixty-three, whom the prætor had protected from violence, not because he wished them safe, but because he was unwilling that they should perish without a defence, being taken into custody, and brought before an enraged multitude, after addressing a few words to such prejudiced ears, were all condemned and executed.

      34 After this fear had been inspired, orders were sent to the Lacedæmonians, first, that they should demolish their walls; then, that all the foreign auxiliaries, who had served for pay under the tyrants, should quit the Laconian territories; then, that the slaves, whom the tyrants had set free, who amounted to a great multitude, should depart before a certain day; that the Achæans should be authorized to seize, sell, and carry away those who might remain in the country. That they should abrogate the laws and customs of Lycurgus, and adopt the laws and institutions of the Achæans; that thus all would become one body, and concord would be established among them. They obeyed none of these injunctions more willingly than that of demolishing the walls, nor suffered any with more reluctance than the restoration of the exiles. A decree for their restoration was made at Tegea, in a general council of the Achæans; where, an account being brought, that the foreign auxiliaries had been sent away, and that the newly-registered Lacedæmonians (so they called the slaves who were enfranchised by the tyrants) had left the city and dispersed through the country, it was resolved, that, before the army was disbanded, the prætor should go with some light troops, and, seizing that description of people, sell them as spoil. Great numbers were accordingly seized, and sold; and with that money a portico at Megalopolis, which the Lacedæmonians had demolished, was rebuilt, with the approbation of the Achæans. The lands of Belbinis, of which the Lacedæmonian tyrants had unjustly kept possession, were also restored to that state, according to an old decree of the Achæans, made in the reign of Philip, son of Amyntas. The state of Lacedæmon having, by these means, lost the sinews of its strength, remained long in subjection to the Achæans; but nothing hurt it so materially as the abolition of the discipline of Lycurgus, in the practice of which they had continued during seven hundred years.

      35 After the sitting of the council, wherein the debate between the Achæans and Lacedæmonians was held in presence of the consul, as the year was expiring, Marcus Fulvius, having gone home to Rome to hold the elections, appointed Marcus Valerius Messala and Caius Livius Salinator consuls, after having, this year, procured the rejection of his enemy, Marcus Æmilius Lepidus. Then Quintus Marcius Philippus, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Caius Stertinius, Caius Atinius, Publius Claudius Pulcher, and Lucius Manlius Acidinus, were elected prætors. When the elections were finished, it was resolved, that the consul, Marcus Fulvius, should return into his province to the army; and to him and his colleague, Cneius Manlius, their command was prolonged for a year. In this year, in pursuance of directions from the decemvirs, a statue of Hercules was set up in his temple, and a gilded chariot with six horses were placed in the Capitol, by Publius Cornelius. The inscription mentioned, that Publius Cornelius, the consul,30 made the offering. Also twelve gilded shields, out of money raised by fines on corn merchants, for raising the market by hoarding the grain, were dedicated by the curule ædiles, Publius Claudius Pulcher and Servius Sulpicius Galba; and Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, the plebeian ædile, having convicted one malefactor, (for the ædiles prosecuted separately,) dedicated two gilded statues. His colleague, Aulus Cæcilius, did not convict any one. The Roman games were exhibited thrice; the plebeian, five times altogether. Marcus Valerius Messala, and Caius Livius Salinator, after entering into office on the ides of March, consulted the senate concerning the state of the commonwealth, the provinces, and the armies. With respect to Ætolia and Asia no alteration was made. With regard to the consuls, to the one Pisæ, with the Ligurians, is decreed as his province; to the other, Gaul. They were ordered to cast lots for these, or to settle the matter between themselves, to enrol new armies, two legions for each; and to levy off the allies of the Latin name, fifteen thousand foot, and one thousand two hundred horse. Liguria fell, by lot, to Messala; Gaul, to Salinator. The prætors then cast lots, and the city jurisdiction fell to Marcus Claudius; the foreign, to Publius Claudius. Quintus Marcius obtained, by lot, Sicily; Caius Stertinius, Sardinia; Lucius Manlius, Hither Spain; Caius Atinius, Farther Spain.

      36 Respecting the armies, they passed the following resolutions—that the legions which had served under Caius Lælius, should be removed out of Gaul into Bruttium, to Marcus Tuccius, the proprætor; that the army which was in Sicily should be disbanded, and that Marcus Sempronius, the proprætor, should bring back to Rome the fleet that was there. For the Spains were decreed the legions then in those provinces, one for each, with orders, that each of the two prætors should levy from among the allies, as a reinforcement, three thousand foot and two hundred horse, and bring them with them. Before the new magistrates set out for their provinces, a supplication, of three days’ continuance, was ordered by the college of decemvirs to be performed in every street, on account of a darkness having overspread the light of day, between the third and fourth hours; and the nine days’ solemnity was proclaimed, because there had been a shower of stones on the Aventine. The Campanians, as the censors obliged them, pursuant to the decree of the senate, made last year, to pass the general survey at Rome, (for before that, it had not been fixed where they should be surveyed,) petitioned that they might be allowed to take in marriage women who were citizens of Rome, and that any who had, heretofore, married such, might retain them; and, likewise, that children born of such marriages, before that day, might be legitimate, and entitled to inherit; both which requests were obtained. Caius Valerius Tappus, a tribune of the commons, proposed an order of the people concerning the citizens of the free towns of Formiæ, Fundi, and Arpinum, that they should be invested with the right of voting, for hitherto they had had the rights of citizenship without the privilege of voting. When four tribunes of the commons were protesting against the bill, because it was not made under the direction of the senate, on being informed, that the power of imparting the privilege of voting to any person they should choose belonged to the people, and not to the senate, they desisted from their opposition. An order was passed, that the Formians and Fundans should vote in the Æmilian tribe, and the Arpinians in the Cornelian; and in these tribes they were then, for the first time, rated in the census, in pursuance of the order of the people proposed by Valerius. Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the censor, having got the better of Titus Quintius in the lots, closed the lustrum. Two hundred and fifty-eight thousand three hundred and eight citizens were rated. When the lustrum was finished, the consuls set out for their provinces.

      37 During the winter wherein these acts were performed at Rome, embassies from all the nations and states which dwelt on this side of Mount Taurus, came together on all sides to Cneius Manlius, at first consul, and afterwards proconsul, passing the winter in Asia; and although the conquest of Antiochus was more splendid and glorious to the Romans than that of the Gauls, yet the latter gave greater joy to the allies than the former. Subjection to the king had been more tolerable to them than the savage nature of those wild barbarians, and the daily alarm, with the uncertainty of the direction in which the storm would, as it were, drift them in their desolating path. Therefore since to them liberty was given by the expulsion of Antiochus, and permanent peace by the conquest of the Gauls, they brought, not only congratulations, but also golden crowns, in proportion to the ability of each. Ambassadors