36.
Regarding the armies, this was the decision: the legions from Gaul, which had been under the command of Gaius Laelius, to be transferred to Marcus Tuccius the propraetor for service among
[2??]
the Brutti, the army which was in Sicily to be brought home, and the fleet which was there to be conducted to Rome by Marcus Sempronius the propraetor.
[3]
For the Spains the single legions which were then in those provinces were decreed, and the praetors were allowed to enlist as reinforcements from the allies and to transport with them each three thousand [p. 119]infantry and two hundred cavalry.
[4]
Before the new1 magistrates departed for their provinces a three day period of prayer was proclaimed in the name of the college of decemvirs at all the street-corner shrines because in the day-time, between about the third and fourth hours, darkness had covered everything.2 Also a nine-day sacrifice was decreed because (so it was said) there had been a shower of stones on the Aventine.
[5]
The Campanians,3 since, according to the decree which had been passed the year before, the censors compelled them to be assessed at Rome —for previously it had been uncertain where they should be assessed —requested that they should be permitted to take Roman citizens as wives, that any who had already married Roman citizens should be allowed to keep them, and that children born before this day should be legitimate, and capable of inheriting from their fathers.4
[6]
Both requests were granted.
[7]
Respecting the residents in the municipalities5 of Formiae, Fundi and Arpinum, Gaius Valerius Tappo, tribune of the people, proposed that the right to vote —for previously the citizenship without the right to vote had belonged to them —should be conferred upon them.
[8]
When four tribunes of the people vetoed this bill, on the ground that it was not proposed with the sanction6 of the senate, and they were informed that it was the prerogative of the assembly, not the senate, to bestow the franchise upon whomsoever it desired, they gave up the effort.
[9]
The bill was passed [p. 121]with the provision that the people of Formiae and7 Fundi should vote in the tribe called Aemilia and the Arpinates in the Cornelia; and in these tribes they were then for the first time registered under the Valerian plebiscite.8 Marcus Claudius Marcellus the censor, having been victorious over Titus Quinctius at the drawing of lots, closed the lustrum.9
[10]
The number of citizens shown by the census was two hundred and fifty-eight thousand three hundred and eighteen.10 The lustrum having been closed, the consuls set out for their provinces.
1 B.C. 188
2 This eclipse has been dated July 17, 188 B.C. (corrected calendar).
3 Cf. xxviii. 4 above.
4 This would grant them, retroactively, conubium, a right characteristic of Roman citizenship.
5 The municipia in general enjoyed only the private rights (commercium and conubium) of Roman citizens: Livy describes their status as civitas sine suffragio. This incident illustrates the gradual promotion of the municipia to full civic rights.
6 Measures intended for an assembly were ordinarily, but not necessarily, submitted first to the senate, and those which the senate favoured received its auctoritas. In this instance the assembly seems to assert its legislative independence of the senate, but Livy's habit of abbreviating his accounts of constitutional debates complicates the problem.
7 B.C. 188
8 The Aemilia and Cornelia were two of the local tribes (ultimately thirty-five in number) to which all Roman citizens were assigned.
9 Cf. XXXV. ix. 2 and the first note.
10 Cf. XXXV. ix. 2 and the second note, and the Periocha of this Book.
Livy. Books XXXVIII-XXXIX with an English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1936: published without copyright notice.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.