* Belonging to the 17th book.
The day before the Nones. The day before the Ides.—Priscian.
* Belonging to the 18th book.
Beardless.—Charis. book i.
There is also mention made by Livy of a serpent, in a narrative alike interesting and eloquent.
For he says that there was in Africa, at the river Bagradas, a snake of such enormous size, that it prevented the army of Atilius Regulus from using the water: and that, after seizing many of the soldiers in its powerful fangs, and crushing several to death in the folds of its tail, as soon as they discovered that it could not be injured by weapons cast by the hand, it was at last attacked on every side by missiles from the engines, and killed by numerous and ponderous blows of huge stones; and that it appeared to all, both cohorts and legions, more terrible than Carthage itself. He narrates that the Romans were compelled to remove their camp, owing to the river being tinged with its blood, and the air in the vicinity being corrupted by the pestilential effluvia.
He says, too, that the skin of the monster, which was a hundred and twenty feet long, was sent to Rome.—Valerius Maximus.
* Belonging to the 19th book.
The third (secular) games were celebrated, according to Antias and Livy, in the consulship of Publius Claudius Pulcher, and Caius Junius Pullus.—Censorinus.
It is recorded in Livy that when a certain general, who was desirous of carrying on a war, was prevented by one of the tribunes of the commons from setting out on the expedition, he ordered the sacred chickens to be brought forward: when they did not eat the corn that was cast before them, the consul, in derision of the augury, said, “let them drink,” and cast them into the Tiber. Afterwards, when returning victorious in his ships, he was drowned off the coast of Africa, with all that he commanded.—Servius. Virg. Æn. vi. 198.