After the triumph, the election of consuls came on. The persons chosen were Lucius Furius Purpureo and Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Next day, the following were elected praetors; Quintus Fabius Buteo, Tiberius Sempronius Longus, Quintus Minucius Thermus, Manius Acilius Glabrio, Lucius Apustius Fullo, and Caius Laelius. Toward the close of this year, a letter came from Titus Quinctius, with information that he had fought a pitched battle with Philip in Thessaly, and that the army of the enemy had been routed and put to flight. This letter was read by Sergius, the praetor, first in the senate, and then, by the direction of the fathers, in a general assembly; and supplications of five days' continuance were decreed on account of those successes. Soon after arrived the ambassadors, both from Titus Quinctius and from the king. The Macedonians were conducted out of the city to the Villa Publica, where lodgings and every other accommodation were provided for them, and an audience of the senate was given them in the temple of Bellona. Not many words passed; for the Macedonians declared, that whatever terms the senate should prescribe, the king was ready to comply with them. It was decreed, that, conformably to ancient practice, ten ambassadors should be appointed, and that, in council with them, the general, Titus Quinctius, should grant terms of peace to Philip; and a clause was added, that, in the number of these ambassadors, should be Publius Sulpicius and Publius Villius, who in their consulship had held the province of Macedonia. On the same day the inhabitants of Oossa having presented a petition, praying that the number of their colonists might be enlarged; an order was accordingly passed, that one thousand should be added to the list, with a provision, that no persons should be admitted into that number who, at any time since the consulate of Publius Cornelius and Tiberius Sempronius, had been partisans of the enemy.
25
This year the Roman games were exhibited in the circus, and on the stage, by the curule aediles, Publius Cornelius Scipio and Cneius Manlius Vulso, with an unusual degree of splendour, and were beheld with the greater delight, in consequence of the late successes in war. They were thrice repeated entire, and the plebeian games seven times. These were exhibited by Manius Acilius Glabrio and Caius Laelius, who also, out of the money arising from fines, erected three brazen statues, to Ceres, Liber, and Libera. Lucius Furius and Marcus Claudius Marcellus, having entered on the consulship, when the distribution of the provinces came to be agitated, and the senate appeared disposed to vote Italy the province of both, exerted themselves to get that of Macedonia put to the lot along with Italy. Marcellus, who of the two was the more eager for that province, by assertions that the peace was merely a feigned and delusive one, and that, if the army were withdrawn thence, the king would renew the war, caused some perplexity in the minds of the senate. The consuls would probably have carried the point, had not Quintus Marcius Rex and Caius Antinius Labeo, plebeian tribunes, declared, that they would enter their protest, unless they were allowed, before any further proceeding, to take the sense of the people, whether it was their will and order that peace be concluded with Philip. This question was put to the people in the Capitol, and every one of the thirty-five tribes voted on the affirmative side. The public found the greater reason to rejoice at the ratification of the peace with Macedonia, as melancholy news was brought from Spain; and a letter was made public, announcing that "the proconsul, Caius Sempronius Tuditanus, had been defeated in battle in the Hither Spain; that his army had been utterly routed and dispersed, and several men of distinction slain in the fight. That Tuditanus, having been grievously wounded, and carried out of the field, expired soon after." Italy was decreed the province of both consuls, in which they were to employ the same legions which the preceding consuls had; and they were to raise four new legions, two for the city, and two to be in readiness to be sent whithersoever the senate should direct. Titus Quinctius Flamininus was ordered to continue in the government of his province, with the army of two legions, then on the spot. The former prolongation of his command was deemed sufficient.
26
The praetors then cast lots for their provinces. Lucius Apustius Fullo obtained the city jurisdiction; Manius Acilius Glabrio, that between natives and foreigners; Quintus Fabius Buteo, Farther Spain; Quintus Minucius Thermus, Hither Spain; Caius Laelius, Sicily; Tiberius Sempronius Longus, Sardinia. To Quintus Fabius Buteo and Quintus Minucius, to whom the government of the two Spains had fallen, it was decreed, that the consuls, out of the four legions raised by them, should give one each whichever they thought fit, together with four thousand foot and three hundred horse of the allies and Latin confederates; and those praetors were ordered to repair to their provinces at the earliest possible time. This war in Spain broke out in the fifth year after the former had been ended, together with the Punic war. The Spaniards now, for the first time, had taken arms in their own name, unconnected with any Carthaginian army or general. Before the consuls stirred from the city, however, they were ordered, as usual, to expiate the reported prodigies. Publius Villius, a Roman knight, on the road to Sabinia, had been killed by lightning, together with his horse. The temple of Feronia, in the Capenatian district, had been struck by lightning. At the temple of Moneta, the shafts of two spears had taken fire and burned. A wolf, coming in through the Esquiline gate, and running through the most frequented part of the city, down into the forum, passed thence through the Tuscan and Maelian streets; and scarcely receiving a stroke, made its escape out of the Capenian gate. These prodigies were expiated with victims of the larger kinds.
27
About the same time Cneius Cornelius Lentulus, who had held the government of Hither Spain before Sempronius Tuditanus, entered the city in ovation, pursuant to a decree of the senate, and carried in the procession one thousand five hundred and fifteen pounds' weight of gold, twenty thousand of silver; and in coin, thirty-four thousand five hundred and fifty denarii.[[19]] Lucius Stretinius, from the Farther Spain, without making any pretensions to a triumph, carried into the treasury fifty thousand pounds' weight of silver; and out of the spoils taken, built two arches in the cattle-market, at the fronts of the temple of Fortune and Mother Matuta, and one in the great Circus; and on these arches placed gilded statues. These were the principal occurrences during the winter. At this time Quinctius was in winter quarters at Elatia. Among many requests, made to him by the allies, was that of the Boeotians, namely, that their countrymen, who had served in the army with Philip, might be restored to them. With this Quinctius readily complied; not because he thought them very deserving, but that, as king Antiochus was already suspected, he judged it advisable to conciliate every state in favour of the Roman interest. It quickly appeared how very little gratitude existed among the Boeotians; for they not only sent persons to give thanks to Philip for the restoration of their fellows, as if that favour had been conferred on them by him, and not by Quinctius and the Romans; but, at the next election, raised to the office of Boeotarch a man named Brachyllas, for no other reason than because he had been commander of the Boeotians serving in the army of Philip; passing by Zeuxippus, Pisistratus, and the others, who had promoted the alliance with Rome. These men were both offended at the present and alarmed about the future consequences: for if such things were done when a Roman army lay almost at their gates, what would become of them when the Romans should have gone away to Italy, and Philip, from a situation so near, should support his own associates, and vent his resentment on those who had been of the opposite party?