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47.
The autumnal equinox was now at hand, and the Euboean gulf, which they call Coela, is dangerous to mariners. So, wanting to get away from there before the winter storms, they returned to Piraeus, whence they had set out on the campaign.
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[p. 139]Apustius left thirty ships there and sailed past1 Malea to Corcyra. The king waited for the day of the mysteries of Ceres,2 that he might take part in the ceremonies; after the celebration he too departed for Asia, having previously sent Agesimbrotus and the Rhodians home.
[3]
This is the record of the actions of this summer on land and sea performed against Philip and his allies by the Roman consul and lieutenant with the aid of King Attalus and the Rhodians.
[4]
The other consul, Gaius Aurelius,3 having arrived in his province and found the campaign finished, made no secret of his anger at the praetor for having fought in his absence.4
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Sending him accordingly to Etruria, he himself led the legions into the enemy's country, and, laying it waste, carried on the war with more booty than glory.
[6]
Lucius Furius, partly because there was nothing for him to do in Etruria, partly because he was ambitious for a triumph over the Gauls, which he thought he could more easily obtain in the absence of the angry and jealous consul, when he had unexpectedly appeared in Rome, summoned the senate in the temple of
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Bellona,5 gave an account of his achievements and asked that he be allowed to enter the city in triumph.
1 B.C. 200
2 See xiv. 7 above and the note.
3 The narrative continues from xxii. 3 above.
4 We do not know what effect the senatorial decree reported in xi. 1 above had on the imperium of Furius. Normally, he would have become a subordinate of Aurelius, and as such he would have no authority to fight without explicit orders from the consul and would be ineligible for a triumph. This is Aurelius' position. Furius seems to argue that his own imperium authorized him to act independently of the consul, and both of these claims are maintained in the debate that follows. The complicated legal question of the military status of Furius with respect to Aurelius is probably insoluble. The whole story of Furius' victory (xxi. 1-xxii. 3 above) and his triumph (xlvii. 6-xlix. 3 below) is rejected by some scholars as an anticipation of the events related in xxxii. 30, but their reasons seem inadequate.
5 Magistrates and others possessing the imperium were not permitted to cross the pomerium, the religious boundary of Rome. The temple of Bellona was outside this limit, and the senate often met there under circumstances like these.
Livy. Books XXXI-XXXIV with an English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935: no copyright notice.
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