5.
Everybody from all sides began to address the tribune, some with entreaties, some with reproaches.
[
2]
The argument of his colleague Tiberius Gracchus impressed him most. He said that it was not a good precedent to follow up even one's own contentions while holding a magistracy; but it was disgraceful for a tribune of the people to take sides in the contentions of others, and unworthy of the authority of that college and of its sacred laws.
[
3]
Each man, he said, in accordance with his own judgment should both hate or love men and approve or disapprove measures, should not depend upon another's expression and nod or be led this way or that under the pressure of another's will, nor should a tribune of the people be a second
1 to an angry consul;
[
4]
he should not remember any commission which Marcus Aemilius had privately
2 entrusted to him, and forget the office of tribune which had been
[p. 231]entrusted to him by the Roman people, and entrusted
3 for the purpose of rendering assistance to and protecting the liberty of private citizens, not of bolster ing up the consular authority.
[
5]
Aburius, he said, did not even see that the result would be that tradition and posterity would have the story how in the same college one of two tribunes of the people had laid aside his own enmities for
[
6??]
the sake of the state, the other had assumed and carried on those of another because they had been entrusted to him.
4
[
7]
When the tribune, overcome by this criticism, had left the temple, after the question was raised by Serv. Sulpicius, praetor, the triumph was voted to Marcus Fulvius. When he had thanked the conscript Fathers, he went on to say that he had vowed the Great Games to Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the day when he had captured Ambracia, that for this purpose a hundred pounds of gold had been contributed by the cities;
5
[
8]
he requested that, from this money which he had planned to display in his triumph and then deposit in the treasury, this particular sum should, by their order, be kept separate.
[
9]
The senate ordered the college of pontiffs to be consulted whether it was necessary to spend this entire sum on the games.
[
10]
When the pontiffs had replied that from the point of view of religion it was immaterial how much should be spent on the games, the senate granted permission to Fulvius for whatever amount he should spend, provided that he did not exceed a total of eighty thousand sesterces.
6
[
11]
He had decided to triumph in the month of January;
[
12]
but when he had heard that the consul Marcus Aemilius, having received a letter from Marcus Aburius about the withdrawal of the veto, was himself coming to Rome
[p. 233]to hinder the triumph, but had been detained on the
7 way by illness, he advanced the date, lest he have more strife in the triumph than in the war.
[
13]
He triumphed the tenth day before the Kalends of January over the Aetolians and over Cephallania.
[
14]
Golden crowns of one hundred and twelve pounds
8 in weight were carried before his car; he displayed also eighty-three thousand pounds of silver, two hundred and forty-three pounds of gold, one hundred and eighteen thousand Attic four-drachma pieces, twelve thousand three hundred and twenty-two coins
[
15??]
called “Philippei,”
9 bronze statues to the number of seven hundred and eighty-five and two hundred and thirty of marble, weapons, javelins and other spoils taken from the enemy, in great quantities, besides catapults, ballistae and every variety of artillery;
[
16]
there marched also generals, whether Aetolians and Cephallanians or commanders of the king left there by Antiochus, to the number of twenty-seven. On that day, before he rode into the City, in the Circus Flaminius,
10 he presented many tribunes, prefects, cavalrymen and centurions, Romans and allies, with military decorations.
11
[
17]
To the soldiers, out of the booty, he gave twenty-five
denarii each, twice that amount to each centurion, and thrice to each cavalryman.