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

exasperate the minds of the public against him, he introduced to the senate ambassadors from Ambracia, whom he had secretly instructed in the charges they were to make against him. These complained, that “war had been made on them when they were in a state of peace, after they had executed the commands of former consuls, and were ready to show the same obedience to Marcus Fulvius; that first their lands were ravaged; and that, the terror of rapine and carnage was then cast into the city, that by that fear they might be compelled to shut their gates. They were then besieged and assaulted, and all the horrors of war were inflicted on them, murders, burnings, the sacking and demolishing of their city. Their wives and children were dragged away into slavery; their goods taken from them; and, what shocked them more than all, their temples were despoiled of their ornaments, and the images of their gods, nay, the gods themselves were torn from their mansions, and carried away; so that the Ambracians had nothing left to adore, to which they could address their prayers and supplications, but naked walls and pillars.” While they were making these complaints, the consul, as had been agreed, by asking questions leading to further charges, drew them on, as if against their inclinations, to the mention of other matters. The senators being moved by these accusations, the other consul, Caius Flaminius, took up the cause of Marcus Fulvius: and he said that “the Ambracians had set out in an old course, now long out of use. In this manner Marcus Marcellus had been accused by the Syracusans; and Quintus Fulvius by the Campanians. Why might not the senate as well allow Titus Quintius to be accused by king Philip; Manius Acilius and Lucius Scipio, by Antiochus; Cneius Manlius, by the Gauls; and Fulvius himself, by the Ætolians and the states of Cephallenia? Do you think, conscript fathers, either that I in behalf of Marcus Fulvius, or that Marcus Fulvius himself, will deny the besieging and taking Ambracia, the removing thence the statues and ornaments, and the other proceedings, which are usual on the capture of cities? He is about to demand a triumph from you for those very services, and to carry before his chariot those statues, the removal of which is charged as criminal, together with the other spoils of that city, and hang them up on the pillars of his house. There is no kind of pretence for their separating themselves from the Ætolians; the cause of the Ambracians and of the Ætolians is the same. Let, therefore, my colleague either vent his malice in some other case; or, if he is determined to proceed in this, let him detain his Ambracians until Fulvius comes home. I will not suffer any determination, concerning either the Ambracians or Ætolians, to pass in the absence of Marcus Fulvius.”

      44 When Æmilius inveighed against the artful malignity of his adversary as being notorious to all, and affirmed, that he would spin out the time by affecting delays, so as not to return to Rome while an adversary was consul; two days were wasted in this dispute, and it was apparent that while Flaminius was present, no decision of the cause could be procured. The opportunity was eagerly caught at by Æmilius, when Flaminius, happening to fall sick, was absent, and on his proposing the motion the senate decreed, that, “all their effects should be restored to the Ambracians, that they should enjoy liberty, and the benefit of their own laws, and should levy what duties they might think proper on goods conveyed by land or sea, provided that the Romans and the allies of the Latin nation should be exempted therefrom. That with respect to the statues, and other ornaments, which they complained were carried away from their sacred buildings, their order was, that immediately on the return of Marcus Fulvius to Rome, the business should be laid before the college of pontiffs, and that whatever they might think proper should be done.” Nor was the consul content with this; but afterwards, in a badly attended meeting, he procured a clause to be added to the decree, “that it did not appear that Ambracia was taken by force.” A supplication of three days’ continuance was then performed for the health of the people, because a grievous pestilence was desolating the city and country. The Latin festival was afterwards celebrated, when the consuls, being relieved from these religious duties, and having finished their levies, (for both of them chose to employ new soldiers,) set out for their provinces, where they disbanded all the old troops.

      Shortly after the departure of the consuls, Cneius Manlius, the proconsul, arrived at Rome; and, when an audience of the senate was granted to him in the temple of Bellona, by Servius Sulpicius, the prætor, after enumerating the services which he had performed, he demanded that, in consideration thereof, public thanks should be offered to the immortal gods, and permission be granted to himself, to ride through the city in triumph; the greater number of the ten ambassadors, who had been in the province along with him, opposed the grant, and particularly Lucius Furius Purpureo, and Lucius Æmilius Paulus.

      45 They alleged that “they had been appointed ambassadors in conjunction with Manlius, to make peace with Antiochus, and to conclude the terms of the treaty which had been entered on with Lucius Scipio. That Cneius Manlius laboured to the utmost of his power, to confound this peace, and to seize Antiochus by treachery, if he should put his person in the consul’s power; but that he (Antiochus) having discovered the treacherous designs of the consul, though frequently tempted by proposals of a conference, had not only avoided the meeting, but even the sight of him. That Manlius, desiring to cross Mount Taurus, was with difficulty restrained by the entreaties of all the ambassadors, who besought him not to brave the curse denounced in the Sibylline verses against such as should pass those fatal limits. Nevertheless, he marched his army thither, and encamped almost on the very summit where the waters take opposite directions. As he could find no sort of pretence for hostilities, the king’s subjects being perfectly quiet, he led his army round to the Gallogræcians, against which nation war was waged, without any decree of the senate, or order of the people. Which did ever any general before presume to do in like manner, on his own judgment? The latest wars were those with Antiochus, with Philip, and with Hannibal and the Carthaginians; concerning all these the senate had passed its decrees, the people their orders; several embassies were previously sent; restitution demanded; and, finally, heralds were sent to proclaim war. Now, Cneius Manlius,” said they, “has any one of these proceedings been observed in the present case, that we should consider it a war of the Roman people, and not a predatory expedition of your own contrivance? But, were you even content with this? Did you lead your army against those whom you had chosen to consider as enemies, by the direct course; or did you ramble through every deflection of the roads, when you stopped at every division of the way, in order that, to whatever side Eumenes’s brother, Attalus, should turn his route, you the consul, as an auxiliary in his pay, might follow with a Roman army? Did you not traverse every recess and corner of Pisidia, Lycaonia, and Phrygia; levying contributions from the tyrants and peasants in those remote regions? For, what had you to do with the Oroandians, what with other states equally inoffensive?

      “But, in what manner did you conduct this war, on the merit of which you ask a triumph? Did you fight on equal ground, and at the time of your own choosing? Indeed you with propriety require that thanks be returned to the immortal gods; first, because they did not ordain that the army should undergo the penalty deserved by the temerity of its commander, in commencing a war in accordance with no law of nations; and next, because they gave us, for antagonists, brutes, and not men.

      46 “Do not suppose that the name only of the Gallogræcians is a mixed one: their bodies, and their minds, have undergone a similar process, and have been corrupted by the mixture. Had they been such Gauls as those whom we have a thousand times encountered in Italy, with various success, would any one of us, considering the conduct of our commander, have returned to tell the story? Two battles were fought; twice he sustained the disadvantages of position, and, at the bottom of a valley, almost placed his army under the feet of the enemy; so that they were able to overwhelm us, even though they did not cast their weapons from the higher ground, but merely threw themselves on us without arms. What, then, was the consequence? Great is the fortune of the Roman people; great and terrible its name! By the recent downfall of Hannibal, Philip, and Antiochus, the Gauls were, in a manner, thunderstruck. Bulky as their bodies were, they were dismayed, and put to flight, by slings and arrows; not a sword was stained in battle during the Gallic war. Like flocks of birds, they flew away at the very sound of our missiles. But, indeed, when we, the same army, were on our return, and happened to fall in with a party of Thracian robbers, (as if fortune meant to teach us what the issue would have been, if we had met an enemy,) we were beaten, routed, and stripped of our baggage. Among many other brave soldiers fell Quintus Minucius Thermus, whose death was a much greater loss, than if Cneius Manlius, to whose rashness the misfortune had happened, had perished. An army, carrying home the spoils