4 Before the consuls came home to Rome, Marcus Fulvius, the proconsul, returned from Ætolia. He, when he had as usual recited to the senate, in the temple of Apollo, the services which he had performed in Ætolia and Cephallenia, then requested of the fathers, that, in consideration of his having conducted the business of the public with good fortune and success, they would think proper to order public thanks to be offered to the immortal gods, and to decree a triumph to him. Marcus Abutius, a tribune of the commons, gave notice, that, if any thing were determined on that subject before the arrival of Marcus Æmilius, he would enter his protest: for “the consul intended to oppose that measure; and, at his setting out for his province, had given him a charge to keep the discussion of it open until he should come home. That Fulvius would suffer a loss of nothing but time; for, notwithstanding the presence of the consul, the senate would determine according to their own wishes.” Fulvius replied, that, “even if the quarrel subsisting between him and Marcus Æmilius was unknown to the world, or with what overbearing, and, in some measure, tyrannical rancour, that man prosecuted his enmity; yet it was insufferable, that the absence of the consul should both obstruct the worship of the immortal gods, and delay a triumph merited and due; that a commander, after performing signal services, and his victorious army with its booty and prisoners, should remain outside the gates, until a consul, who purposely delayed abroad, should be pleased to return to Rome. But, in the present case, when the animosity between him and the consul was most notorious, what fair dealing could any one expect from a man who procured clandestinely, in a thin house, and lodged in the treasury, a decree of the senate, that “it did not appear that Ambracia was taken by force:” a town which was attacked with mounds and engines; where, after the works were burned, others were constructed anew; where a fight was carried on around the walls for fifteen days, both above and under ground; where, from the first dawn, when the soldiers mounted the walls, a battle, for a long time doubtful, lasted until night; and where more than three thousand of the enemy were killed? Then, again, what a malicious misrepresentation did he make to the pontiffs, of the temples of the immortal gods being plundered in a captured city! If it were allowable that Rome should be decorated with the ornaments of Syracuse, and other conquered places, then the laws of war must lose their force in the case of Ambracia alone, among conquered towns. For his part, he besought the conscript fathers, and requested the tribunes, not to suffer him to become a subject of derision to a most haughty enemy.”
5 All around were in his favour; and some entreated the tribune to desist, while others sharply reproved his conduct. The speech of his colleague, Tiberius Gracchus, moved him most, that, “for a man in office to prosecute even his own quarrels, was an example of no good tendency; but, that a tribune of the people should take upon himself to be a solicitor in the quarrel of another, was infamous, and highly unworthy of the power and sacred laws of the order to which he belonged. That men ought to love or hate others, approve or disapprove of measures, according to the dictates of their own judgment; but that a tribune ought not to depend on the look or nod of another man, veer about at the movements of another’s will, and make himself a tool to his displeasure; nor remember a private charge, committed to him by Marcus Æmilius, and forget that the tribuneship was a public charge, intrusted to him by the Roman people, for the protection and liberty of private citizens, not to aggrandize the arbitrary power of a consul. His colleague did not seem to consider that this circumstance would be committed to record and posterity: that, of two plebeian tribunes of the same college, one sacrificed his own resentment to the public good, the other prosecuted the resentment of another man which was merely intrusted to him.” When the tribune, overcome by these severe rebukes, had withdrawn from the meeting, a triumph was voted to Marcus Fulvius, on the motion of Servius Sulpicius, the prætor. When he returned thanks to the conscript fathers, he then mentioned, that, “on the day of his taking Ambracia, he had vowed to celebrate the great games in honour of Jupiter the supremely good and great; that a contribution for that purpose had been made to him by the several states, amounting to one hundred and ten pounds’ weight of gold; and he requested them to order that sum to be set apart, out of the money which he was to deposit in the treasury, after being borne in triumph.” The senate ordered the college of pontiffs to be consulted, whether it were necessary that the whole of that sum should be expended on the games: when the pontiffs had answered, that it mattered little to religion what was the expense of the games, the senate gave permission to Fulvius to expend as much as he thought proper, provided he did not exceed eighty thousand sesterces.40 He, at first, intended to celebrate his triumph in the month of January; but, hearing that the consul Æmilius, in consequence of a letter from the tribune Abutius, concerning his waving his protest, was coming in person to Rome, to hinder his triumph, but had been obliged, by sickness to halt on the road, he hastened the time of the celebration, lest he should have more contests about it than he had met in the war. He triumphed over the Ætolians and Cephallenia on the tenth day before the calends of January. There were carried before his chariot, golden crowns to the amount of one hundred and twelve pounds’ weight; of silver, eighty-three thousand pounds; of gold, two hundred and forty-three thousand; of Attic tetradrachms, one hundred and eighteen thousand;41 of the coin called Philippeans, twelve thousand four hundred and twenty-two;42 brazen statues, two hundred and eighty-five; marble statues, two hundred and thirty; arms, weapons, and other spoils in great quantities: besides these, catapultas, ballistas, and engines of every kind; and in the procession were led twenty-seven commanders, either Ætolian and Cephallenian, or belonging to king Antiochus, and left with them. Before he rode into the city, in the Flaminian circus, he presented great numbers of tribunes, præfects, horsemen, centurions, both Romans and allies, with military gifts; to each of the soldiers he distributed out of the booty twenty-five denariuses,43 double to a centurion, triple to a horseman.
6 The time of the election of consuls now approached; and as Marcus Æmilius, to whose lot that business had fallen, could not attend, Caius Flaminius came home to Rome. Spurius Posthumius Albinus and Quintus Marcus Philippus were elected consuls by him. Then were chosen as prætors—Titus Mænius, Publius Cornelius Sulla, Caius Calpurnius Piso, Marcus Licinius Lucullus, Caius Aurelius Scaurus, and Lucius Quintius Crispinus. At the close of the year, after the magistrates were appointed, on the third day before the nones of March, Cneius Manlius Vulso triumphed over the Gauls inhabiting Asia. The reason of his deferring his triumph so long was, to avoid standing a trial under the Petillian law, during the prætorship of Quintus Terentius Culleo; and the being involved in the ill consequences of the sentence passed on another, that by which Lucius Scipio was condemned; especially as the judges would be more disposed to severity against him than against Scipio, for this reason, because fame had reported, that he, Scipio’s successor, had, by tolerating every description of licentiousness, ruined military discipline, so strictly preserved by his predecessor. Nor were the facts, which were reported to have happened in the province far from the eyes of spectators, the only things that disgraced his character; but still more so, those circumstances which were every day beheld in his soldiers; for by this army returning from Asia was the origin of foreign luxury imported into the city. These men first brought to Rome gilded couches, rich tapestry, with hangings and other works of the loom; and, what were then deemed magnificent furniture, single-footed tables and buffets. At entertainments, likewise, were introduced female players on the harp and timbrel, with buffoons for the diversion of the guests. Their meats also began to be prepared with greater care and cost; while the cook, whom the ancients considered as the meanest of their slaves both in estimation and use, became highly valuable, and what was considered as a servile office began to be considered an art. Nevertheless, those introductions which were then looked on as remarkable were scarcely even the seeds of the future luxury.
7 Cneius Manlius carried in the triumph two hundred golden crowns of twelve pounds’ weight; two hundred and twenty thousand pounds’ weight of