7 Two triumphs for conquests in Spain were then successively celebrated. First, Sempronius Gracchus triumphed over the Celtiberians and their allies; next day, Lucius Postumius triumphed over the Lusitanians, and the other Spaniards in that quarter. Tiberius Gracchus carried in the procession forty thousand pounds’ weight of silver, Albinus twenty thousand. They distributed to each of their soldiers twenty-five denariuses,[69] double that sum to a centurion, triple it to a horseman; the same sums to the allied troops as to the Roman. The consul, Marcus Junius, happened to arrive at Rome at this time from Istria, in order to hold the elections. The plebeian tribunes, Papirius and Licinius, after harassing him in the senate, with questions relative to what had passed in Istria, brought him into the assembly of the people. To which inquiries the consul answered, that “he had been not more than eleven days in that province; and that as to what had happened when he was not present, he, like themselves, gained his information from report.” But they still proceeded to ask, “why, then, did not Manlius rather come to Rome, that he might account to the Roman people for his having quitted Gaul, the province allotted to him, and gone into Istria? When had the senate decreed a war with that nation? When had the people ordered it? But he will say, ‘Though the war was indeed undertaken by private authority, yet it was conducted with prudence and courage.’ On the contrary, it is impossible to say, whether it was undertaken with greater injustice than the rashness with which it was conducted. Two advanced guards were surprised by the Istrians; a Roman camp was taken, with whatever infantry and cavalry were in it; the rest in disorder, without arms, and among the foremost the consul himself, fled to the shore and the ships. But he should answer for all these matters when he became a private citizen, since he had been unwilling to do so while consul.”
8 The elections were then held, in which Caius Claudius Pulcher and Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus were chosen consuls. Next day the following persons were elected præters, Publius Ælius Tubero, a second time, Caius Quintus Flamininus, Caius Numisius, Lucius Mummius, Cneius Cornelius Scipio, and Publius Valerius Lævinus. The city jurisdiction fell, by lot, to Tubero; the foreign, to Quintus; Sicily, to Numisius; and Sardinia, to Mummius; but this last, on account of the importance of the war there, was made a consular province. Gracchus obtains it by lot; Claudius, Istria; Scipio and Lævinus received Gaul, which was divided into two provinces. On the ides of March, the day when Sempronius and Claudius assumed the administration, a cursory mention only was of the provinces of Sardinia and of Istria, and of those who had commenced hostilities there; but on the day following, the ambassadors of the Sardinians, who had been referred to the new magistrates, were introduced, and Lucius Minucius Thermus, lieutenant-general under the consul Manlius in Istria, attended; and by them the senate was accurately informed how far these provinces were involved in war. Ambassadors from the confederate states of Latium, who, after having ineffectually applied to the former consuls and censors, were at last introduced to an audience, made a powerful impression on the senate. The amount of their complaints was that “their citizens, having been rated in the general survey at Rome, had most of them removed thither; and that if this practice were allowed, it would come to pass, in the course of a very few lustrums, that their deserted towns and country would be unable to furnish any soldiers.” The Samnites and the Pelignians also represented, that four thousand families had emigrated to Fregellæ; and that neither of these places furnished less soldiers on that account. That there had been practised two species of fraud in individuals changing their citizenship: there was a law, which granted liberty to any of the allies or Latins, who should not leave his offspring at home, to be enrolled a citizen of Rome; yet, by an abuse of this law, some did injury to the allies, others to the Roman people. For, at first, to evade the leaving offspring at home, they made over their children as slaves to some Roman, under an agreement that they should be again set free, and thus become citizens by emancipation; and then those men, who had now no children to leave, became Roman citizens. Afterwards, they neglected even these appearances of law; and, without any regard either to the ordinances or to progeny, passed indiscriminately into the Roman state by migration, and getting themselves included in the survey. To prevent such proceedings in future, the ambassadors requested the senate to order the allies to return to their respective states, and to provide by a law that no one should make any man his property, or alienate such property for the purpose of a change of citizenship; and that if any person should by such means be made a citizen of Rome, he should not enjoy the rights of a citizen.”
9 The senate granted their petitions; and then Sardinia and Istria, the provinces which were in arms, were disposed of. Two legions were ordered to be enrolled for Sardinia, each containing five thousand two hundred foot and three hundred horse; and of allies and Latins, twelve thousand foot and six hundred horse; and it was decided that the consul should have ten ships, of five banks of oars, if he should think it requisite to take them from the docks. The same numbers of infantry and cavalry were decreed for Istria as for Sardinia. The consuls were ordered to send into Spain to Marcus Titinius, one legion, with three hundred horse and five thousand foot, and two hundred and fifty horse of the allies. Before the consuls cast lots for their provinces, several prodigies were reported: that in the Crustumine territory, a stone fell from the sky into the grove of Mars; that in the Roman territory, a boy was born defective in his limbs; that a serpent with four feet had been seen; that at Capua, many buildings in the forum were struck by lightning; and, that at Puteoli, two ships were burned by lightning. Amidst these prodigies which were reported from abroad, a wolf also, after entering Rome by the Colline gate, was chased during the day, and, to the great consternation of its pursuers, escaped through the Esquiline gate. On account of these prodigies, the consuls sacrificed victims of the larger kinds, and there was a supplication, for one day, at all the shrines. When the sacrifices were duly performed, they cast lots for their provinces; Istria fell to Claudius, Sardinia to Sempronius. Then Caius Claudius, by direction of the senate, proposed a law and issued a proclamation, that “any of the allies and Latin confederates, who themselves, or whose ancestors, had been surveyed among the associated states of Latium in the censorship of Marcus Claudius and Titus Quintius, or at any time since, should all return, each to his respective state, before the calends of November.” Inquiry concerning such as did not obey, was intrusted to Lucius Mummius the prætor. To the law and the proclamation of the consul, was added a decree of the senate, that “the dictator, consul, interrex, censor, or prætor, who then should be in office, before whom any slave should be brought, to receive manumission, should cause the said slave who was about to be made free, to make oath, that the person giving him liberty did not do it for the purpose of his changing his citizenship;” they ordered that he, whoever would not swear this oath, should not be manumitted. The cognizance and jurisdiction in this business was, for the future, assigned to Caius Claudius the consul.
10 While these matters passed at Rome, Marcus Junius and Aulus Manlius, the consuls of the preceding year, after remaining during the winter at Aquileia, led their army early in the spring into the Istrian territories; where when they spread their depredations through a great part of the country, grief and indignation, rather than any well-grounded hope of being able to make head against these joint forces, roused the Istrians, on perceiving the plunder of their property. A hasty levy of their young men being made from all their cantons this raw and tumultuary army made its first onset with more vigour than perseverance. About four thousand of them were slain in the field; and the rest, giving over the war, fled in different directions to their respective states. Soon after, they sent ambassadors to the Roman camp to sue for peace, and then delivered up the hostages required of them. When these transactions were made known at Rome, by letters from the proconsul, Caius Claudius, the consul, fearing that this proceeding might, perhaps, take the province and the army out of his hands, without offering vows, without assuming the military habit, and unaccompanied by his lictors, having acquainted his colleague alone with his intention, set out in the night, and with the utmost speed hastened to the province, where he conducted himself even with less prudence than he had shown in coming. For, in an assembly which he called, after making severe remarks on Manlius’s running away from the camp, which were very offensive to the ears of the soldiers, as they themselves had begun the flight, and after railing at Marcus Junius, as having made himself a sharer in the disgrace of his colleague, he at last ordered both of them to quit the province. And when they replied, that when the consul should come, in the regular manner, agreeably to ancient practice; when he should set out from the city, after offering vows in the Capitol, attended by his lictors and dressed in the military habit, then they would obey his orders. Maddened by anger, he summoned the person who acted as quæstor to Manlius, and ordered him to bring fetters, threatening to send Junius and Manlius to Rome in chains. The consul’s command was slighted by this man too; and the surrounding crowd of soldiers, who favoured the cause of their commanders, and were incensed against the consul, supplied him with resolution to refuse obedience. At last the consul, overpowered by the reproaches of individuals and the scoffs of the multitude, for they even turned him into ridicule, went back to Aquileia in the same ship in which he had come. Thence he wrote to his colleague, desiring him to give notice to that part of the new-raised troops who were enlisted for Istria, to assemble at Aquileia, in order that he should have no delay at Rome, but set out, in the military habit, as soon as the ceremony of offering vows was finished. These directions his colleague punctually executed, and an early day was appointed for the assembling of the troops. Claudius almost overtook his own letter. On his arrival he called an assembly, that he might represent the conduct of Manlius and Junius; and, staying only three days in Rome, he offered his vows in the Capitol, put on the military habit, and, attended by his lictors, set out to his province with the same rapid speed which he had used in the former journey.
11 A few days before his arrival, Junius and Manlius had laid vigorous siege to the town of Nesatium, in which the principal Istrians, and Epulo their king, had shut themselves up. Claudius, bringing thither the two new legions, dismissed the old army, with its commanders; invested the town himself; and prosecuted the siege with regular works. He by the labour of many days changed the course of, and carried away in a new channel, a river which flowed on the outside of the wall, and greatly impeded the proceedings of the besiegers, while it supplied the Istrians with water. This event, of the water being cut off, terrified the barbarians, as if effected by some supernatural power; yet still they entertained no thoughts of peace, but set about killing their wives and children; exhibiting a spectacle shocking even to their enemies; and, after putting them to death in open view on the walls, tumbled them down. Amid the simultaneous shrieking of women and children, and this horrid carnage, the soldiers, scaling the walls, effected an entrance into the town. As soon as the king heard the uproar of the captured city, from the cries of terror uttered by the flying inhabitants, he plunged his sword into his breast, that he might not be taken alive; the rest were either killed or taken prisoners. After this, two other towns, Mutila and Faveria, were stormed and destroyed. The booty, which exceeded expectation, considering the poverty of the nation, was all given up to the soldiers. Five thousand six hundred and thirty-two persons were sold by auction, and the fomenters of the war were beaten with rods and beheaded. By the destruction of these three towns, and the death of the king, the whole country of Istria was brought to terms of peace; every one of its states, giving hostages, submitted to the dominion of the Romans.
12 For some time before, the conclusion of the war with Istria, consultations were held among the Ligurians about the renewal of hostilities. Tiberius Claudius, proconsul, who had been consul the year before, with a garrison of one legion, held the command of Pisæ. And when the senate was informed by his letter of their proceedings, they vote that “the same letter should be carried to Caius Claudius,” for the other consul had already crossed over into Sardinia; and they added a decree, that, since the province of Istria was subdued, he might, if he thought proper, lead his army into Liguria. At the same time, a supplication for two days was decreed, in consequence of the letter which he wrote concerning his actions in Istria. The other consul, Sempronius, likewise was successful in his operations in Sardinia. He carried his army into the territory of the Ilian tribe of Sardinians. Powerful reinforcements from the Balarians had come to the Ilians. He fought a pitched battle against the combined forces of the two states. The enemy were routed and put to flight, and driven from their camp; twelve thousand armed men were slain. Next day, the consul ordered their arms to be gathered into a heap and burned, as an offering to Vulcan. He then led back his victorious troops into winter quarters in the allied cities. Caius Claudius, on receipt of the letter of Tiberius Claudius and the decree of the senate, marched his legions out of Istria into Liguria. The enemy, having advanced into the plains, were encamped on the river Scultenna: here a pitched battle was fought, in which fifteen thousand of the enemy were killed, and about seven hundred captured in the fight, and in the camp, for that too was stormed; and also fifty-one military standards were taken. The Ligurians who survived the slaughter, fled back in every direction into the mountains. No appearance of arms any where met the consul while ravaging the low country. Claudius, having thus in one year subdued two nations, and, what has rarely been achieved in a single consulate, completed the reduction of two provinces, came home to Rome.
13 Several prodigies were reported this year: that at Crustuminum a bird, which they call the ospray, cut a sacred stone with its beak; that a cow spoke in Campania; that at Syracuse a brazen statue of a cow was mounted by a farmer’s bull which had strayed from the herd. A supplication of one day was performed in Crustuminum, on the spot; the cow at Campania was ordered to be maintained at the public expense, and the prodigy at Syracuse was expiated, the deities to whom supplications should be offered, being declared by the aruspices. This year died, in the office of pontiff, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had been consul and censor; and his son, Marcus Marcellus, was chosen into the vacant place. The same year a colony of two thousand Roman citizens was settled at Luca. The triumvirs, Publius Ælius, Lucius Egilius, and Cneius Sicinius, planted it. Fifty-one acres and a half of land were given to each. This land had been taken from the Ligurians, and had been the property of the Etrurians, before it fell into their possession. Caius Claudius, the consul, arrived at the city, and after laying before the senate a detail of his successful services in Istria and Liguria, a triumph was decreed to him on demanding it. He triumphed, in office, over the two nations at once. In this procession he carried three hundred and seven thousand denariuses,[70] and eighty-five thousand seven hundred and two quinariuses.[71] To each soldier fifteen denariuses[72] were given, double that sum to a centurion, triple it to a horseman. The allied soldiers received less, by half, than the native troops, for which reason they followed his chariot in silence to show their disgust.
14 While this triumph over the Ligurians was celebrated, that people, perceiving that not only the consular army returned to Rome, but also that the legion at Pisæ had been disbanded by Tiberius Claudius, shaking off their fears, and collecting an army secretly, crossed the mountains by winding paths, and came down into the plains, and after ravaging the lands of Mutina, by a sudden assault they gained possession of the colony itself. When this account was brought to Rome, the senate ordered Caius Claudius, the consul, to hold the elections as soon as possible, and (after appointing magistrates for the ensuing year) to go back to his province, and rescue the colony out of the hands of the enemy. The elections were held as the senate had directed; and Cneius Cornelius Scipio Hispalus, with Quintus Petillius Spurinus, were chosen consuls. Then Marcus Popillius Lænas, Publius Licinius Crassus, Marcus Cornelius Scipio, Lucius Papirius Maso, Marcus Aburius, and Lucius Aquilius Gallus, were elected prætors. To Caius Claudius, the consul, his command was prolonged for a year, and likewise the administration of the province of Gaul; and he was ordered, lest the Istrians should follow the example of the Ligurians, to send into Istria the allied Latin troops, which he had brought home to attend his triumph. When the consuls, Cneius Cornelius and Quintus Petillius, on the day of entering into office, according to custom, sacrificed each an ox to Jupiter, the head of the liver was not found in the victim sacrificed by Petillius; which being reported to the senate, he was ordered to sacrifice oxen until the omens should be favourable. The senate being then consulted concerning the provinces, decreed Pisæ and Liguria to be the provinces of the consuls. They ordered that he to whose lot Pisæ fell, should, at the time of the elections, come home to preside at them; and that they should severally enlist two new legions and three hundred horse; and should order the allies, and Latin confederates, to furnish ten thousand foot and six hundred horse to each. The command was prolonged to Tiberius Claudius, until such time as the consul should arrive in the province.
15 While the senate was employed in these affairs, Caius Cornelius, being called by a beadle, went out of the senate-house; and, after a short time, returned with a troubled countenance, and told the conscript fathers that the liver of a fat ox, which he had sacrificed, had melted away; that, when this was told him by the person who dressed the victims, he did not believe it, and he himself ordered the water to be poured out of the vessel in which the entrails were boiled; and he saw all entire but the liver, which had been unaccountably consumed. While the fathers were under much terror on account of this prodigy, their alarm was augmented by the other consul, who informed them that, on account of the first victim having wanted the head of the liver, he had sacrificed three oxen, and had not yet found favourable omens. The senate ordered him to continue sacrificing the larger victims until he should find favourable omens. They say that the victims offered to the other deities at length presented good omens; but that in those offered to Health, Petillius could find none such. Then the consuls and prætors cast lots for their provinces, when Pisæ fell to Cneius Cornelius; Liguria, to Petillius. Of the prætors, Lucius Papirius Maso obtained the city jurisdiction; Marcus Abutius, the foreign; Marcus Cornelius Scipio Maluginensis, the Farther Spain; Lucius Aquilius Gallus, Sicily. Two of them petitioned to be excused from going into their provinces. First, Marcus Popillius requested that he might not be obliged to go to Sardinia, alleging that “Gracchus was bringing that province into a state of tranquillity; that Titus Æbutius the præter had been given to him by the senate as his assistant; and that it was by no means expedient to interrupt the train of business, for the completion of which there was no method so efficacious as the continuing the management in the same hands; that, amid the transfer of command and initiation of the successors, who must be impressed with a knowledge of circumstances before they can proceed to action, opportunities of successfully transacting matters were frequently lost.” The excuse of Popillius was admitted. Then Publius Licinius Crassus alleged that he was prevented from going into his province by solemn sacrifices. That which had fallen to his lot was Hither Spain. But he was ordered either to proceed thither, or to swear in the public assembly that he was hindered by the performance of solemn anniversary sacrifices. When this determination was made in the case of Publius Licinius, Marcus Cornelius demanded that his oath, of the like import, might be admitted as an excuse for his not going into the Farther Spain. Both the prætors accordingly took an oath in the same words. Marcus Titinius and Titus Fonteius, proconsuls, were ordered to remain in Spain, with authority as before; and it was decreed that a reinforcement should be sent to them of three thousand Roman foot, with two hundred horse; and five hundred Latin foot, with three hundred horse.