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After this speech of Sulpicius, being sent to give their votes, they declared for the war as he had proposed. On which, in pursuance of a decree of the senate, a supplication for three days was proclaimed by the consuls; and prayers were offered to the gods at all the shrines, that the war which the people had ordered against Philip might turn out well and happily. The consul Sulpicius inquiring of the heralds, whether they would direct the declaration of the war against king Philip to be made to himself in person, or whether it would be sufficient to publish it in the nearest garrison, within the frontiers of his kingdom, they answered, that they would do rightly whichever course they should adopt. The consul received authority from the senate to send any person whom he thought proper, not being a senator, as ambassador, to denounce war against the king. They then arranged for the armies of the consuls and praetors. The consuls were ordered to levy two legions, and to disband the veteran troops. Sulpicius, to whom the management of this new and highly important war had been decreed, was allowed permission to carry with him as many volunteers as he could procure out of the army which Publius Scipio had brought home from Africa; but he was not empowered to take with him any veteran soldier against his will. They ordered that the consul should give to the praetors, Lucius Furius Purpureo and Quintus Minucius Rufus, five thousand of the allies of the Latin confederacy; with which forces they should hold, one, the province of Gaul, the other, Bruttium. Quintus Fulvius Gillo was ordered, in like manner, to select out of the army which Publius Aelius, late consul, had commanded, such as had been the shortest time in the service, until he also made up five thousand of the allies and Latin confederates; that this was to be the protection of the province of Sicily. To Marcus Valerius Falto, who, during the former year, had held the province of Campania, as praetor, the command was continued for a year; in order that he might go over, as propraetor, to Sardinia, and choose out of the army there five thousand of the allies of the Latin confederacy, who had served the fewest campaigns. The consuls were at the same time ordered to levy two legions for the city, which might be sent wherever occasions should require; as there were many states in Italy infected with an attachment to the Carthaginians, which they had formed during the war, and, in consequence, swelling with resentment. The state was to employ during that year six Roman legions.
9
In the midst of the preparations for war, ambassadors came from king Ptolemy, who delivered a message; that "the Athenians had petitioned the king for aid against Philip; but that although they were their common allies, yet the king would not, except with the sanction of the Roman people, send either fleet or army into Greece, for the purpose of defending or attacking any person. That he would either remain quiet in his kingdom, if the Romans were at leisure to protect their allies; or, if more agreeable to them to be at rest, would himself send such aid as might easily secure Athens against Philip." Thanks were returned to the king by the senate, and this answer: that "it was the intention of the Roman people to protect their allies; that if they should have occasion for any assistance towards carrying on the war, they would acquaint the king; and that they were fully sensible, that the resources of his kingdom were the sure and faithful support of their own state." Presents were then, by order of the senate, sent to the ambassadors, of five thousand asses[1] to each. While the consuls were engaged in the levy, and preparing what was necessary for the war, the people, prone to religious observances, especially at the beginning of new wars, after supplications had been already performed, and prayers offered up at all the shrines, lest any thing should be omitted that had ever been practised, ordered, that the consul who was to have the province of Macedonia should vow games and a present to Jove. Licinius, the chief pontiff, occasioned some delay to this public vow, alleging, that "it ought not to be fulfilled from promiscuous funds. For as the sum to be named should not be applied to the uses of the war, it should be immediately set apart, and not to be intermixed with other money; and that, unless this were done, the vow could not be properly performed." Although the objection and the author of it were influential, yet the consul was ordered to consult the college of pontiffs, whether a vow could be undertaken at an indeterminate expense? The pontiffs determined, that it could; and that it would be even more in order to do it in that way. The consul, therefore, repeating after the chief pontiff, made the vow in the same words in which those made for five years of safety used to be expressed; only that he engaged to perform the games, and make the offerings, at such expense as the senate should direct by their vote, at the time when the vow was performed. Before this, the great games so often vowed, were constantly rated at a certain expense: these first at an unspecified amount.
10
While every one's attention was turned to the Macedonian war, and at a time when people apprehended nothing less, a sudden account was brought of an inroad of the Gauls. The Insubrians, Caenomanians, and Boians, having been joined by the Salyans, Ilvatians, and other Ligurian states, and putting themselves under the command of Hamilcar, a Carthaginian, who, having been in the army of Hasdrubal, had remained in those parts, had fallen upon Placentia; and, after plundering the city, and, in their rage, burning a great part of it, leaving scarcely two thousand men among the flames and ruins, passed the Po, and advanced to plunder Cremona. The news of the calamity which had fallen on a city in their neighbourhood, having reached thither, the inhabitants had time to shut their gates, and place guards on the walls, that they might, at least, be besieged before they were taken, and send messengers to the Roman praetor. Lucius Furius Purpureo, who had then the command of the province, had, in pursuance of the decree of the senate, disbanded the army, excepting five thousand of the allies and Latin confederacy; and had remained, with these troops, in the nearest district of the province about Ariminum. He immediately informed the senate, by letter, in what confusion the province was. That, "of the two colonies which had escaped in the dreadful storm of the Punic war, one was taken and sacked by the present enemy, and the other besieged. Nor was his army capable of affording sufficient protection to the distressed colonists, unless he chose to expose five thousand allies to be slaughtered by forty thousand invaders (for so many there were in arms); and by such a loss, on his side, to augment the courage of the enemy, already elated on having destroyed one Roman colony."
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