4.
Already the summer was at an end and the time for the consular election at hand. But a letter from Marcellus, stating that it was against the public interest for him to move a step away from Hannibal, since he was himself pressing him hard
[
2??]
as he retired and refused an engagement, had inspired concern, for fear they must call the consul away from the war at the moment when he was actively
[
3??]
engaged, or else should be without consuls for the next year. It seemed best instead to recall the consul Valerius from Sicily, even though he was outside of Italy.
[
4]
To Valerius under orders from the senate Lucius
[p. 215]Manlius, the city praetor, sent a letter, together with
1 the letter of Marcus Marcellus, the consul, that from these letters Valerius might learn what reason the senators had for recalling him rather than his colleague from his province.
[
5]
About the same time legates from King Syphax came to Rome, reporting what successes he had had in battle with the Carthaginians.
[
6]
They stated that the king was not more hostile to any people than to the Carthaginian, nor more friendly to any than to the Roman people; that previously he had sent legates to Spain to Gnaeus and Publius Cornelius,
2 the Roman generals; that now he was minded to seek Roman friendship, as it were at the very source.
[
7]
The senate not only replied graciously to the legates, but also sent its legates, Lucius Genucius, Publius Poetelius, Publius Popillius, to the king with gifts.
[
8]
They took with them as gifts a purple toga and tunic, an ivory chair,
3 a golden
patera weighing five pounds. They were ordered to go on and visit other princes in Africa.
[
9]
For these also they took with them bordered togas and golden
paterae, each of them three pounds in weight, to be presented to them.
[
10]
Also to Alexandria as ambassadors to the monarchs, Ptolemy and Cleopatra,
4 were sent Marcus Atilius and Manius Acilius, to call to mind and revive friendship with them. As gifts they carried for the king a purple toga and tunic, with an ivory chair, for the queen an embroidered palla and a purple cloak.
[
11]
During the summer in which these events occurred
[p. 217]many portents were reported from neighbouring
5 cities and from the country: that at Tusculum a lamb was born with an udder full of milk, and that the ridge of Jupiter's temple was struck by lightning and stripped of almost all its roofing;
[
12]
that at Anagnia about the same time ground struck by lightning outside the gate burned for a day and a night without any fuel; and that at the crossroads
6 near Anagnia, in the grove of Diana, birds deserted their nests in the trees;
[
13]
that at Tarracina, in the sea not far from the harbour, serpents of remarkable size leaped about after the manner of fish at play;
[
14]
that at Tarquinii a pig was born with a human face; and that in the territory of Capena, at the grove of Feronia,
7 four statues sweated blood profusely for a day and a night. These prodigies were atoned for with full-grown victims by decree of the pontiffs.
[
15]
And prayers were ordered for one day in Rome at all the
pulvinaria,8 and for a second day at the grove of Feronia, in the territory of Capena.